Kolkata, 12th March 2024: From real estate to real sports. Shrachi Group, with a diverse portfolio spanning real estate development, agriculture tools, engineering, EPC and stationery, is foraying big-time into the sporting arena with tennis legend Leander Paes driving the diversification as an on-court partner.
Shrachi Sports Ventures (SSV), the newly floated sports vertical of the company, has entered into a strategic collaboration with Leander with a sharp focus on creating an environment that promotes sports as a way of life through honing budding talent as well as creating a plethora of job opportunities for former sportspersons through a string of centers of excellence. The alliance aims to create a fitter and healthier India.
Shrachi Group’s big-bang entry into sports, Managing Director Rahul Todi, who is also the vice-president of East Bengal Club, said: “Our goal is simple. We want Bengal to be at the forefront of the Indian sports movement and Leander as our captain in this initiative. We are extremely happy to have him on board and we are convinced he is just the right person to take our projects to fruition so that we can create a clutch of sustainable sports ecosystems. We will enter into a number of strategic alliances to take this philosophy forward.” Shrachi has already collaborated with East Bengal Club for their cricket and hockey teams and has plans to create a FIFA-standard age-group football academy.
The first joint venture project of the Shrachi-Leander pairing is to create an Olympic-level infrastructure with state-of-the-art training facilities under top coaches and systems with structured modules for various age groups across multiple disciplines. This will be India’s first such multi-sports set-up, complete with sports science, analytics, sports medicine and nutrition. “I’m excited about the Shrachi collaboration to create an ecosystem using sport for life, building tomorrow’s India and creating jobs for more Indians,” said Leander, who has won 20 Grand Slam titles in his glittering career.
Aware of its responsibility towards both sport and society, the Shrachi-Leander alliance envisions its university investing in innovations, including support and development for elite sports as well as leisure and recreational sports. It will also like to dovetail application-based sports education with curriculum-based performing arts, especially theatre, literature, painting and local folk art.
The university will continuously promote inter-disciplinary exchanges and close cooperation with various fields involved in the application of sport, encourage new academic talent and offer students specialized training in academically-oriented career profiles.
The Leander-Shrachi combine is also planning to focus on centers of excellence in different sports along the same lines, with a 10-year roadmap for numerous such CoEs, including adopting existing ones. Yet another key project in the sports pipeline is creating Kolkata franchises in all organized national sports tournaments. “We are looking at representation in the proposed state T20 cricket league, and plans are afoot to create city franchises in other popular spectator sports with large TV audiences,” a company official added.
Accordingly, the JV is in dialogue for owning franchises in the rugby as well as the Pro Panja League, India’s professional arm-wrestling tournament, while other strategic alliances are being explored in cricket, hockey, table tennis, badminton and a few other Olympic sports. “The blueprint is ready and we would like to replicate the world-class sports university model. Our aim is to spot promising youngsters very early and then handhold them throughout their journey to excellence,” Todi added.
The partnership will also work on multiple co-branding touchpoints, including a signature athleisure line of apparel and other merchandise, large-format real estate projects with top-class sports facilities, sports and fitness equipment, and much more. “Today, sport is a way of life and I have learned during my long career that it teaches you priceless life skills while preparing you for the challenges ahead. I’m extremely bullish about this association and we will leave no stone unturned to create the finest grassroots infrastructure possible,” Leander added.
Plans are also afoot to collaborate with a few Maidan sports clubs and help augment their infrastructure bandwidth in the shape of laying artificial playing surfaces and ramping up facilities, thus enabling better revenue generation and an improved member experience.