THRISSUR: The lack of awareness about sports management among sportspersons and the shortage of sports managers are the major issues plaguing sports field, according to experts like P T Usha.
Sports management concerns the business aspects of sports. It encompasses many persons and aspects like sports agents, sports managers, sports marketing, sports event management, sports economics, sports finance and sports information. If the state gets a professional system of sports management, sports persons will benefit from it. After Indian Super League and Indian Premier League began, some footballers and cricketers from Kerala have experienced the benefits sports management culture. “In my knowledge, no sportsperson in the state has a sports manager,” said P T Usha. “In Usha School of Athletics, we bring in the best talents available in India to cater to the interests of the athletes. But we didn’t get a sports management team to attract sponsorship to our athletes. Now it is my duty to rope in the sponsors,” she said.
According to Usha, in every international athletics season, Usha School has been trying to secure more events for the athletes. “If we have a sports manager,it will be easier for us to secure international events. In this year we tried for 5-6 events, but got only two events,” Usha said. Usha points out another reason that Kerala has very few high earning sportsmen from Cricket, Football, Kabadi and Shuttle Badminton. Athletics is not in this league. “If we nurture professional specialised managers, then the sportspersons would benefit from it,” she said. “Our sports culture is revolving around only the performance of the sports stars,” said Dr K K Venu, physical education director, University of Kerala.
“We are not paying attention to sports administration. In Kerala, BPed and MPed courses included a paper on sports management few years back.
These courses will change the scenario and will benefit sports,” he added. “Sports personalities from Kerala have achieved a lot. But at the end of the day, most of them are in financial struggle. If we use their achievements to attract endorsements it would change their future,” said B T Sijin, Chief Executive Officer of Sports and Management Research Institute, Kochi.