IndianFootball.Com Interview: NAVNEET SHARMA (9 YARDS SPORTS & ENTERTAINMENT)

9 Yards Sports & Entertainment is a newly formed management company, which looks to market celebraties in entertainment and sports. One of their key clients in management and marketing questions is Indian football superstar and national team captain Baichung Bhutia besides Tennis great Leander Paes, Bollywood actress Manisha Koirala, go-kart youngster Sahil Shekar and Australian cricketer Ricky Ponting.
9 Yards is so interesting as a company as it has come out of the website CricketNext.com.
Navneet Sharma is the CEO at 9 Yards Sports & Entertainment, Mumbai. Like his colleagues at 9 Yards, Navneet Sharma has loads of experience in the sports business as he has worked for IMG (Senior General Manager), World Sport Nimbus (Vice President), ClickCricket.com (Chief Operating Officer), Paes-En-Sport (Business Head) and Sterling Grand (Marketing Manager).
We at indianfootball.com were able to do an eMail interview with Navneet on 9 Yards and their relationship to Baichung Bhutia.

9 Yards is a newly formed company. Was it easy to get Baichung Bhutia as a client?

It is never easy to get any celebrity as a client. Baichung chose us keeping in mind the expertise, track record and the group credentials of 9 Yards Sports & Entertainment, while taking a decision on joining us. I know Baichung for a while now and that probably helped a bit as well.

How easy or difficult is it to market someone like Baichung?

Cricket is the leading sport in terms of the market value and the market share among all sports in this part of the world and hence to that extent, it will always be a tough act as far as generating revenues both for individual sports talent and the sport itself besides cricket. However, Baichung's sheer talent, consistency, personality and his results are factors which are certainly helping us to market him well and I must admit that the feedback from the market place has been tremendous and very encouraging.

What plans has 9 Yards got with Baichung Bhutia? Are you only managing Baichung's marketing rights or are you also looking after his football career? Baichung has said in the media that he jointly with 9 Yards would like to organise a football tournament for the North-East next year. Are you working on that plans? And are there other things in planning?

We are assisting Baichung in both his marketing as well as looking at opportunities in terms of clubs, associations etc. as far as his football career is concerned as well. Yes, we are in the conceptualisation stage along with Baichung for a annual tournament which will be exclusively for the north eastern states. We are yet to decide whether it will be club or a inter state tournament (professional or amateur).

Are you looking to market other Indian footballers in the future?

We will utilise the expert advise of Baichung while deciding to sign up more talent in the sport of football.

the interview was done by Arunava Chaudhuri per eMail (October 2003)

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