The recently concluded Hockey World Cup saw the Indian Hockey Federation (IHF) pull out all stops to bring about awareness for the event and drive ticket sales with the long term objective of promoting the national sport among the masses and reviving Brand Hockey.
The marketing included a nation-wide campaign which saw celebrities like Virender Sehwag and Priyanka Chopra encouraging fans to fill up the seats in the Dhyan Chand Hockey stadium in Delhi. The event was also able to draw a lot of sponsors with Hero Honda and SAIL leading the charge.
There is no ambiguity to the fact that the audience responded well to the campaign. People rushed in droves to catch the ‘national sport’ in action. TRP ratings were at an all time high with the India Pakistan encounter drawing a TVR of 1.8 on Doordarshan and 1.3 on Ten Sports, comparable to the 1.85 average for recent cricket matches.
However, I believe that the problem with Indian hockey follows a vicious circle. Team India has not performed well at the international level. There is thus little motivation for the audience to follow the sport and since the audience is not there, the sponsors are missing too. Again, because of no money, there is a lack of proper training facilities and more importantly no cash incentive for youngsters to follow the sport as a profession which again results in the team not improving up to international standards.
In light of the above, it was not surprising that the performance of the team did not live up to the expectations of the masses. To be frank, India was never really expected to win the World Cup, but from a marketing perspective, if the company fails to deliver with the quality of the product, the target market will quickly shift to other more successful brands such as Cricket, especially since they have a high brand loyalty.
It is thus critical at this juncture for Hockey India to continue investing in the sport. Sponsors are a must for coming events and they can be brought in only by maintaining the TRP for the sport. The good news is that there is help at hand. The International Hockey Federation has declared the World Cup a commercial success with India drawing more television viewership than Netherlands, Malaysia, Argentina, Spain and Australia. It has proclaimed India as an integral market for its future tours with India being a likely venue for the first world club championships.
It is thus crucial to market the future tours aggressively as this is an excellent opportunity to break the cycle and revive Brand Hockey in India.
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