First Education News

One activity that has the potential to boost the morale of our youth, instill a sense of pride among people and facilitate the socio-economic development of a nation, is sports. The year, 2020, with the pandemic has not spared sporting and how the Sports Education Industry will move hereon.
The immediate and most noticeable trend that could shape the Sports Education Industry’s transformation is the lesson that the COVID-19 pandemic wants us to master – that the fittest will survive.

Gradual Pickup
Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the growth of the sports industry was impacted as all sports activity came to a halt earlier this year. But with innovative methods of creating bio-bubbles, international sporting events have resumed.
The rapidly developing Indian Sports Industry which saw a significant rise in the participation and success of sportspersons on many international platforms, over the last decade, was expected to grow by 2022 and while that has definitely been hit, effective sports management is the only way to forward as we reboot to a post-COVID world.

Technology – the way forward
Learnings from the next Olympics in Japan and closer home, the just concluded Indian Premier League 2020 held in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) this year, will guide the changing trend in sports education. These events played under changing circumstances, will tell us how a sport is played to win and is managed to come out a winner.
What we are seeing right now is the transition from the traditional playground to a digital space. The use of technology is the big-ticket to helping us deal with the situation at hand. This can also be seen in the English Premier League where new-age technology has been deployed to give fans the best experience ever.
A multiple-camera set-up using a cutting-edge digital platform allows fans the choice of following a particular player, the ball or a specific game view of their choice – all live. Called the immersive experience, sports managers are looking at monetizing this use of technology in the long-run as teams benefit by connecting to spectators virtually.

Getting Ready
Sports is going to be a part of the curriculum of India’s New Education Policy. And there will be a pressing need to fill in the deficit in human capital for the sports sector going forward. The study on Skill Gap in the sports sector, by National Skill Development Corporation (NSDC), has indicated that by 2022, India is expected to see a dearth in human capital for the sports sector whose filling up by those updated on trends is going essential.
This primarily includes sports managers and other leadership positions who now have a better opportunity to be trained in factoring in a pandemic that was never planned for earlier. A trend that gets added thanks to this pandemic is that instructors must be able to become coaches in the online space.

New and Emerging Trends
The gradual reopening of our economy will unshackle trends that both the present and future students of sports management can expect and get prepared for. This includes a boost for e-sports, which is expected to grow exponentially in a slowly unfolding pandemic.
The other trend that will lead the way is data science and analytics. Popular as big data, it provides sports mechanics with handy information that helps monitor players on the field and gives them a smarter way of dealing with things, ensuring player safety and performance by constant tracking with quick analyzing and improvisation.
The business of running sport will now also focus on learning online marketing and content marketing keeping the changed scenario in mind. Costs going up and specific health laws having to be met and followed strictly mean that only the fittest in terms of adopting the new-world trends in sports will come out as a smart and fit survivor.

Mr. Vipul Solanki,

Director

NASM Academy of Sports Management