The concept of league-based formats in the Indian sporting lexicon came by way of the Indian Premier League, in 2008. In these nine years, the IPL has thrived – and survived – in the country’s sporting construct. In parallel, there has also been a sizeable rise in the number of other sports which have invested in professional leagues.
Ultimate Table Tennis is the latest entrant to this arena. To gain the bigger picture behind the initiation of the UTT, the Field spoke to Vita Dani, the owner and co-promoter behind the creation of the country’s newest league in a seemingly individual sport.
Dani is no stranger to such contemporary sports ventures. She is the co-owner of the Indian Super League club Chennaiyin FC, along with Indian cricketer Mahendra Singh Dhoni and Bollywood actor Abhishek Bachchan. But, despite the similarity in her experience she has under her belt, table tennis still remains a new ground for her to cover.
The self-described ‘pyramid’
“In my life this is an acquired taste,” began Dani, whose company 11Even Sports, was the launchpad for the UTT. Adding further as to how her interest in table tennis began to shape up after watching one of her son’s table tennis matches, Dani shared, “So many people play table tennis. Most people would have played this [table tennis] at some point in their lives, so [we thought] why not [support table tennis]. And that’s how we started our journey.”
Dani’s premise of having a league-oriented tournament for table tennis were underlined by a couple of decisive factors. One was that that table tennis as a sport would be promoted across all rungs in the country. The second was that this potential support to help the sport grow would be done with the support of the Table Tennis Federation of India.
“We [are] building it [the sport] as a pyramid. So, we do a school championship, which is a team championship, we do it in 28 states in India. We [have been doing] it for the last two years,” she elaborated.
“Then we do also support all the Mumbai events. We also do a Mumbai Super League where we have 10 franchisees. They have teams from cadet to veterans and each one is compensated monetarily. It’s small scale, but it’s just the beginning. The city league, we are starting now in Tamil Nadu later this year. We also do corporate events. [The] corporate events [we] do twice-a-year in Mumbai and thrice-a-year in Bengaluru.”
Continuing along, Dani also noted, “We don’t want to cross paths with anybody [referring to the Table Tennis Federation of India]. We are genuinely here to support the game. And, we are willing to do a lot more.”
Where’s the future heading to?
In that regard, Dani reckons that table tennis – and for that matter, all sports – will benefit by way of reciprocity. Beyond corporate investment, there has to a systematically planned shift in the governmental policy to include sports as a part of the curriculum in sports.
“I think as a country the focus is more on education. But, if we really want to be a sporting nation, then we have got to make it [sports] a part of our lifestyle. If we can make this as a part of curriculum then people will accept sports more naturally because of our aim that our children must do well in education,” she explained her rationale.
“We are still a developing nation and for us, for people to have a livelihood, people need to have education. But, the moment we make people believe or we prove it to people that there’s livelihood in becoming a sportsperson, then I think we have cracked it. Then they won’t mind investing in the sport.”
Dani looks at cricket’s deep-set pervasiveness in the country’s as an off-shoot of this trade-off between investment and returns. “Because they [people] see that they can make a living out of cricket, so [they think] why not [invest in it]?” she remarked as if stating a rhetoric. “So, why can’t we adopt this in other sports instead of saying that we will only promote cricket. I don’t believe in that kind of criticism [towards other sports], because multiple sports need to co-exist.”
Along the same lines, Dani also then regards her 10-year long commitment with the TTFI to conduct the UTT as just the first step towards building a wider reach for table tennis. Her words did have certain reserve to them as she commented, “We have just begun and we want to get a lot of feedback and evaluate the whole project.” But, underscoring them was also surety as she concluded, “We are committed for 10 years. But, if we are committed, we are committed for life.”
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