BUSINESS

Rising Star: Sidhhant Agarwal’s start-up SportVot uses tech to spotlight local sports talent

By Arzoo Dina

24 April, 2024

SportVot aims to democratise grassroots sports in India and offer a level-playing field to budding sportspersons

That India has always been a cricket-loving nation is a well-known fact. Not many sports have managed to catch the fancy of audiences quite like a game of cricket has. So, when it came to spotlighting grassroots sports in the country, Sidhhant Agarwal, the 33-year-old founder and CEO of SportVot, knew he had his work cut out for him. Along with his co-founders Yash Bhagwatkar and Shubhangi Gupta, he pooled seed capital of around ₹20-25 lakh to kickstart SportVot, which initially functioned as a sports streaming platform for hyperlocal tournaments and private sports leagues. That was in 2019. Since then, SportVot has evolved from being a streaming platform to providing visibility to emerging local talent from around the country, making them discoverable to scouts and coaches on the lookout for new sporting talent. 

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Sidhhant Agarwal, the 33-year-old founder and CEO of SportVot along with  his co-founders Shubhangi Gupta and Yash Bhagwatkar

According to Agarwal, over 90 per cent of sporting games around the world have no form of coverage, let alone live coverage. “Identifying this gap was the first step. If you look at some of the established sports leagues, finding data for these leagues can be quite challenging. Go down to the grassroots level and it’s even worse,” he explains. SportVot simplifies this by aggregating data on players, right from statistics and match highlights to performance data and much more.

According to GroupM ESP’s latest Sports Sponsorship Report, the organised participative sports market in India is worth more than ₹1000 crore (US$120 million). This covers sports such as kabaddi, volleyball, badminton and the like. Agarwal believes the potential is immense, as technology can help propel grassroot-level sports into the limelight. 

WE’VE CREATED OPPORTUNITIES FOR ABOUT 3,500 TO 4,500 PEOPLE FROM AROUND THE COUNTRY, IN TERMS OF SPOTLIGHTING TALENT
Sidhhant Agarwal

An avid sportsperson himself, Agarwal quit his job in engineering, first working with companies such as Oracle and then a fin tech start-up, moving on to launch his own fantasy football league. With SportVot, the idea was to democratise grassroots sports in India and offer a level-playing field to budding sportspersons. So far, they have digitised close to 100,000 games across 15 different sports. The company has raised a total of ₹14-15 crore over two rounds from investors such as Omidyar Network India, Anicut Capital and Capital A among others. 

Edited excerpts from the conversation with Agarwal: 

Tell us about the genesis of SportVot?

While I was initially building a fantasy football league in my previous venture, we realised the biggest challenge for the sports sector was digitisation, especially for sports at the lower tiers. There isn’t much data available on players, and this lack of data then leads to a problem of visibility. One of the ways we help provide visibility to underserved talent is by capturing live screenings of sporting games, which could be happening in your vicinity or at a state level. We help live-score these matches, create player profiles and identities, and then link such statistical data to each player.

This covers sports such as kabaddi, volleyball, badminton and the like

Agarwal believes the potential is immense, as technology can help propel grassroot-level sports into the limelight

We also have a network of scouts and coaches that are looking for new talent, or selectors working with sports associations. This enables players to find the right set of opportunities—be it playing for a better club or qualifying for the district- or state-level team. 

Given that cricket holds major sway with avid sport fans in India, was it tough to bring attention to other sports? 

Cricket definitely dominates the mainstream sports market, but the growth has also matured. When it comes to eyeballs and viewership, other sports are growing at a faster rate. So, you have kabaddi, badminton, football, volleyball and even pickleball in metro cities that are seeing a good growth trajectory. To give some context, last year we streamed about 75,000 matches across different sports, and this year we’re looking to increase this number significantly. Our average monthly viewership is about 2 million and some months it goes up to 7 million. 

Tell us about the business model and how you’re monetising the platform? 

We currently offer streaming subscriptions that we charge to the league owners. We also do advertisements and sponsorships. A third layer to the business is around player participation. Tournament organisers use our platform not just to live stream matches but also manage the tournament end-to-end. So, we often do a revenue-share model with the organisers, monetising matches through sponsorships, selling data and so on. We’re currently not charging viewers who come to watch matches on our platform.

"Tournament organisers use our platform not just to live stream matches but also manage the tournament end-to-end," says Agarwal

How are you tapping into talent in remote parts of India?

We’ve created opportunities for about 3,500 to 4,500 people from around the country, in terms of spotlighting talent. One of them—from Ahmednagar in Maharashtra—now plays for the Indian national kabaddi team. The Brahmaputra Volleyball League in Assam is another example. This is a grassroots league and we’ve screened about 500-odd matches in a season. These are all young kids from villages across Assam. Our initial strategy was to work closely with sports associations but we soon realised that private leagues bring a lot of value as well. 

Was it challenging to raise funds? What about interest from corporates in giving a leg-up to grassroots sports? 

We raised one round in July 2022, totalling ₹3.5 crore and a couple of months ago we raised a pre-series A round valued at ₹9.4 crore. Being part of an industry which is still nascent and adding a layer of technology to it was challenging, to say the least. However, we’re confident that sports in India is only going to get bigger from here and our investors see that value proposition. Digitisation and capturing data will both go a long way. 

WE’VE CLOSED THIS FISCAL AT ₹4.5 CRORE AND WE’RE TARGETING REVENUES OF ₹12-13 CRORE IN THE NEXT FISCAL. OUR GOAL NOW IS TO STREAM ABOUT 500,000 MATCHES IN A YEAR
Sidhhant Agarwal

SportVot's tech solutions are being used in countries like South Africa, Portugal, Qatar and Japan

"Our goal now is to stream about 500,000 matches in a year,"says Agarwal

While corporates like JSW, RuPay and the Reliance Foundation are all big backers of sports, the challenge really lies in formalising the ecosystem. Sports isn’t the first priority among the list of problems that rural India faces, from sanitation to education. Add to that, people in sports associations are often working in a voluntary capacity, depending on government grants or politicians who are funding such associations. If not for them, funding would dry up quickly. So, what we really need is for the ecosystem to see a professional overhaul. 

What’s next for the brand? 

We’ve closed this fiscal at ₹4.5 crore and we’re targeting revenues of ₹12-13 crore in the next fiscal. Our goal now is to stream about 500,000 matches in a year. While we’re increasing our footprint, we are also part of a few projects internationally. Our tech solutions are being used in countries like South Africa, Portugal, Qatar and Japan. That will be our next phase of growth. 

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