If the sportswear you wear reflects fashion quotient, then basketball in India is on the fast lane. It is not uncommon to see passionate cricket fans wear India’s blue shirt, even to work! Now, don’t be surprised if you see an increasing number of boys and girls wearing a Kobe Bryant jersey or one that stamps their support for Orlando Magic or Los Angeles Lakers.

Most Indian schools and colleges may not have playgrounds, but they would probably have a cemented or a clay basketball court. Considering the fact that there are more basketball court. Considering the fact that there are more basketball courts than cricket pitches in urban India, the game has always remained in the shadows of cricket, football and hockey. Not any more.

After tennis and golf, if there is one sport that is making headway in India, it is basketball. Interestingly, when the superhit Indian Premier League was launched in India in 2008, it had borrowed its marketing principles from the world famous National Basketball Association league of the United States.

The NBA, founded in 1946, is a professional sports league and global business that features 30 teams in the United States and Canada. During the 2009-10 season, NBA games reached 215 countries and territories in 41 languages. The league’s worldwide reach is also displayed in the 79 international players from 35 countries and territories on NBA rosters. A top draw in South East Asia and the Chinese mainland, today, India is among the high priority territories in the NBA radar.

For a sport to prosper and conquer international territories, it needs publicity, marketing, performance and of course, its share of heroes. If cricket is what it is today, it is because the game has been marketed well by the ICC, the media has given its share of publicity and Dhoni’s Devils are the world champions. Basketball may never achieve this status in the next 100 years in India, but the game can be reasonably proud of the fact that for the first time, an Indian hoopster, Geethu Anna Jose, will travel to the US to hone her skills.

Geethu, who captained Indian women’s team at the FIBA Women’s Asia Basketball Championship (ABC) in Chennai (2009), has been invited to a tryouts with two Women’s National Basketball Association (WNBA) teams in the US -- the Chicago Sky and the Los Angeles Sparks. The WNBA is considered to be the most competitive basketball league for women in the world.

Twenty-five-year-old Geethu, has represented India in several major tournaments, including the 2006 Commonwealth Games in Australia and the 2010 Asian Games basketball championship in Guangzhou (China). Geethu, a Southern Railway employee based in Chennai, is also the first Indian girl to play professionally in Australia, when she represented the Ringwood Hawks, a lower division team in the Women’s National Basketball League (WNBL). She won the league’s Most Valuable Player award in 2008.
With the expertise of the NBA to back them, the Mahindra Group is promoting basketball in a big way.

The Mahindra NBA Challenge, the largest, multi-city community-based basketball league in India, is returning this year for its second season. The programme, which targets boys and girls aged 14 and above, will make first-time stops in Chennai and Delhi along with return visits to Bangalore, Ludhiana and Mumbai. The inaugural Mahindra NBA Challenge, conducted in collaboration with the Basketball Federation of India, attracted thousands of participants, including top players from each city and members of the Indian national team.  NBA All-Stars Dwight Howard of the Orlando Magic and Gasol of the Los Angeles Lakers traveled to India to run clinics for participants and coaches.

The Mahindra NBA Challenge runs for seven weeks in two divisions: youth aged 14-17 and adult 18+. “We have seen an incredible response to the Mahindra NBA Challenge in Bangalore, Ludhiana and Mumbai, and we anticipate the same reaction in Chennai and Delhi, two strong markets for basketball participation,” said BFI secretary Harish Sharma. Evidently the concept has been a rip-roaring success.

In a sports calendar, choc-a-bloc with cricket, the media spotlight on someone like Geethu may be very dim, but basketball in India is showing definite signs of progress largely because it is gaining in corporate backing. With the arrival of support from the IMG-Reliance, the 2010-11 season was an extremely fruitful one for basketball in India. The Basketball Federation of India held five official national championships around the country covering almost every age group. But to evince popular interest, the game must reach out to the common man and that is exactly what corporate India is helping the game to do.

By Soumitra Bose