Koneru Humpy and Sania Mirza ::and the mathmetics of publicity
Koneru Humpy and Sania Mirza
This is an intresting write up where two players are compared .........both belong to same time .....both have their names recorded as first in indian sports .. and both are equally killing but still one face is recognised by billions and the other perhaps by only thousands .........what's wrong ??
Why government denied grants where it was most needed ??
The answer to this question lies in my earlier post "IS Y S R Reddy sincere about sania .......
Why the same media is dumb for the other ??
The answer to this question lies at http://shuuro.blogspot.com/ (which has been reproduced below) ........what is missing in ths article is that
publicity also depends in which area you excel .........Tennis has a huge following in Europe .......When we excel in areas where people in West have control we take pride ....This now comes naturally to people of sub continent ....When any one among them challenges the champions there people back home get confidence and want if they can replicate the success of their fellow ....
Our success in world cup in 1984 had rocketed the popularity of cricket ......If sania can acquire an attire of Top Tennis Player and stay there for long ...I bet next the big hit in Indian Sports is Tennis
The sale of Tennis rackets in hyderabad is a mild expression of it ..........
This is what media and sponsors Know's , and are throwing their wieghts behind Sania ......Chess already has our supremacy but still does not fantasize the minds of Indians .......
So Sania has economics standing behind her ..........Sorry for Koneru Humpy :the fundamenals of sponsorship does not stand behind her
The article goes ...........
I've been following Sania Mirza's modest success in tennis with some interest, she has certainly done country proud, specially when she won against Svetlana Kuznetsova in Dubai Open in march this year. At the same time, i'm perplexed at the publicity she receives, as it is not proportionate to her success and how media makes anything trivial about her as news (particularly in Deccan Chronicle, where a day doesn't go by without news item on her) and overstating her chances of success in a game. This makes me wonder, whether we don't know how to handle success which we achieve once in a while, so that we exaggerate things? or we don't have enough sports stars to write about or cheer for (other than cricketers)?. When i ask myself a basic question that why our people prefer tennis in the first place, as many of us give damn for our national sport kabadi! or for that matter any other sport (except cricket)?.
I think answers for these questions lies in the role of media and glamour of Sania in attracting masses to this game. Our yearning media has found someone, who is marketable with her glamour( also other factors) and who has modest success under her belt. Generally for a person to take interest in a new game, either the game should be appealing to him/her or they should have interest in someone, who participates in the game and for our people its the later case, since many people just follow only sania's games due to glamour and patriotism and doesn't have much interest in other tennis players or bother about news relating to the tennis world, for that matter most doesn't even know rules of the game. If one thinks that the glamour has nothing to do with her publicity & popularity, then they are wrong, we have many athletics and chess players who have achieved greater heights than sania in their respective sport, but there are in oblivion.
Media has created inflated image of her which will overshadow other deserving players as Koneru Humpy. Sania's world tennis ranking is 34 and Koneru Humpy is a women grand master with world ranking of 6 (in 2004 she was placed in 3rd place) and she has distinction of being first indian woman to achieve the Men's GM Title at age of 15 years, 1 Month, which in itself is a world record for Youngest-Ever Women to achieve the Men's GM Title. With so much talent she is starved of resources. Both the players are from the Andhra Pradesh state, Recently Humpy has made a appeal to the State government of Andhra Pradesh for their financial assistance, which she desperately needed to be trained for the world chess championships coming up early next year. But shockingly, state government has rejected her request and allocated 20 lakhs to Sania for her performance in the US Open and also decided to sponsor her visits abroad to participate in tournaments and her traveling coach John Farrington, where as already in last 3 months she had received total about 60 lakhs and housing plot from the state. Sania has corporate sponsor and earns lot of money through her endorsements and more over she has declared that she wouldn't be needing any financial support anymore. Let us suppose, if something of this kind is done to Sania would our media and public remain quite? perhaps no. People may view chess as a game where 2 persons push pieces of wood on 64 squares, this perspective could be changed, if our media promotes sports instead of individuals and stop exaggerating significance of reaching 4th round of a particular grand slam.
It is not the public who takes interest but it is the media who creates interest!.
This is an intresting write up where two players are compared .........both belong to same time .....both have their names recorded as first in indian sports .. and both are equally killing but still one face is recognised by billions and the other perhaps by only thousands .........what's wrong ??
Why government denied grants where it was most needed ??
The answer to this question lies in my earlier post "IS Y S R Reddy sincere about sania .......
Why the same media is dumb for the other ??
The answer to this question lies at http://shuuro.blogspot.com/ (which has been reproduced below) ........what is missing in ths article is that
publicity also depends in which area you excel .........Tennis has a huge following in Europe .......When we excel in areas where people in West have control we take pride ....This now comes naturally to people of sub continent ....When any one among them challenges the champions there people back home get confidence and want if they can replicate the success of their fellow ....
Our success in world cup in 1984 had rocketed the popularity of cricket ......If sania can acquire an attire of Top Tennis Player and stay there for long ...I bet next the big hit in Indian Sports is Tennis
The sale of Tennis rackets in hyderabad is a mild expression of it ..........
This is what media and sponsors Know's , and are throwing their wieghts behind Sania ......Chess already has our supremacy but still does not fantasize the minds of Indians .......
So Sania has economics standing behind her ..........Sorry for Koneru Humpy :the fundamenals of sponsorship does not stand behind her
The article goes ...........
I've been following Sania Mirza's modest success in tennis with some interest, she has certainly done country proud, specially when she won against Svetlana Kuznetsova in Dubai Open in march this year. At the same time, i'm perplexed at the publicity she receives, as it is not proportionate to her success and how media makes anything trivial about her as news (particularly in Deccan Chronicle, where a day doesn't go by without news item on her) and overstating her chances of success in a game. This makes me wonder, whether we don't know how to handle success which we achieve once in a while, so that we exaggerate things? or we don't have enough sports stars to write about or cheer for (other than cricketers)?. When i ask myself a basic question that why our people prefer tennis in the first place, as many of us give damn for our national sport kabadi! or for that matter any other sport (except cricket)?.
I think answers for these questions lies in the role of media and glamour of Sania in attracting masses to this game. Our yearning media has found someone, who is marketable with her glamour( also other factors) and who has modest success under her belt. Generally for a person to take interest in a new game, either the game should be appealing to him/her or they should have interest in someone, who participates in the game and for our people its the later case, since many people just follow only sania's games due to glamour and patriotism and doesn't have much interest in other tennis players or bother about news relating to the tennis world, for that matter most doesn't even know rules of the game. If one thinks that the glamour has nothing to do with her publicity & popularity, then they are wrong, we have many athletics and chess players who have achieved greater heights than sania in their respective sport, but there are in oblivion.
Media has created inflated image of her which will overshadow other deserving players as Koneru Humpy. Sania's world tennis ranking is 34 and Koneru Humpy is a women grand master with world ranking of 6 (in 2004 she was placed in 3rd place) and she has distinction of being first indian woman to achieve the Men's GM Title at age of 15 years, 1 Month, which in itself is a world record for Youngest-Ever Women to achieve the Men's GM Title. With so much talent she is starved of resources. Both the players are from the Andhra Pradesh state, Recently Humpy has made a appeal to the State government of Andhra Pradesh for their financial assistance, which she desperately needed to be trained for the world chess championships coming up early next year. But shockingly, state government has rejected her request and allocated 20 lakhs to Sania for her performance in the US Open and also decided to sponsor her visits abroad to participate in tournaments and her traveling coach John Farrington, where as already in last 3 months she had received total about 60 lakhs and housing plot from the state. Sania has corporate sponsor and earns lot of money through her endorsements and more over she has declared that she wouldn't be needing any financial support anymore. Let us suppose, if something of this kind is done to Sania would our media and public remain quite? perhaps no. People may view chess as a game where 2 persons push pieces of wood on 64 squares, this perspective could be changed, if our media promotes sports instead of individuals and stop exaggerating significance of reaching 4th round of a particular grand slam.
It is not the public who takes interest but it is the media who creates interest!.
posted by Vivek Mittal at 7:48 PM
6 Comments:
Hi, since you reproduced my entire blog entry here. i would appreciate if you would mention my name.
You can find some more interest comparisons at http://www.saniamirzahyd.blogspot.com
Also the new Google Blog search engine is on. Thanks Google!!
http://blogsearch.google.com
--- Adarsh Krishna
http://www.adarshkrishna.blogspot.com
It should be noted that the Sania's success has been exaggerated by the media and the amount of column space she gets does not reflect her success. Well in that case, Athletics is a sport, which is very popular in the west and we have Anju Bobby George who ranks 9th in the world (for that matter S. Geeta or Shankar) and this doesn't evoke desired response from our media or public because they are not interested in this sport or in the person who takes part in it. Her recent gold medal win in 16th Asian Athletics championship in Incheon City had evoked almost no response. And the fact that the Mahesh boopathy a doubles champion in US open received less response than Sania who qualified for 4th round is mere fact, that it is more than someone doing good in the western sport. We don't often come across fan clubs or blogs dedicated to these players but in the case of sania, we do, what other players lack that sania has is glamour, how many would be interested in her in the first place, if she wasn't glamorous?.
Chess is a game, where one needs to use his reasoning skills to watch or understand it but in tennis one doesn't need to think to follow the game and we don't have glamour and talent associated with the same person, therefore for common person takes less interest in chess due to his lack of interest in the game and person who plays it.
hi shuuro .........you are right it's more than someone doing good in the western sport.....
i did not denied any of ur arguments ....i added what i felt is the silent but still a dominant factor ........and plays significant role in getting yourself registered in indian mindset .....
glamour is no less a factor ....it's the glamour industry that enjoys the most publicity ........adding glamour in your personna is an integral part of gaining publicity when u have only modest success under your belt(that straight in your words)
Sania has been recognised because she has proved that if left alone in front of big shots she won't let herself disgraced ...
rather she has a fighting spirit , which is important for Corporates to build role models .......
I don't deny Koneru Humpy lacks it ...but in case of Sania the fight is more visible .......
stop copying....or atleast give credit to people from whom you copy
nice blog mr. vivek. visited for the first time....
sameer mittal
(hyd)
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