PlayCom 2025: Business of Sports Summit, hosted by Sportstar in partnership with KPMG, convenes the sharpest minds and the most influential voices in sport. This two-day event saw multiple leaders and global changemakers participate in multiple panels, sharing a single stage to exchange ideas, drive conversations, and shape innovations that promise to redefine what sport can be.
In the panel titled ‘Stadiums Without Walls – Building the Next Fan Universe’, Siddharth Sharma (Head of Content, Sports – JioStar), Veer Damaraju (EVP, Technology, DAZN), Aneesh Madani (Ex-lOC, Partnerships & Innovation) and Nikhil Bansal (Head – Gaming & eServices, Google India), come together along with L. V. Navaneeth (CEO, The Hindu Group) to discuss the efforts taken by sporting organisations to engage fans around the world, by employing the power of new-age technologies and data analytics and collaborating to overcome the unique challenges in enhancing fan engagement.
According to Siddharth Sharma, fans should be given the power to choose their own experience. “The landscape has changed. The fan wants to be the director of his own field, and they want to drive their own experience. The more you empower them, the more their experience will be.”
Veer Damaraju goes on to say that fans don’t just want to be a spectator. “They wants to be in the middle of the game, he wants to be immersed in the game, he wants to inform about the game. So, because of this shift, there is a huge scope for the technology innovations as well. So, especially like the AI arena, we are taking more towards the control shifts from editorial team, editorial to the fan. So, that’s where the real innovations are happening in the technology. So, especially, so far we have lots of wealth of videos were available and we are giving, say for example, we are giving highlights for the customers in general in the recent. But if you really see that, the fans are able to dictate about what the kind of video that they want. It means actually video on demand is shifting to video on prompt. This is what the indusrty is going towards.”
As far as the use of data analytics to drive fan engagement is concerned, Aneesh has an interesting viewpoint. “One of my favorite sports experiences was watching IPL on Hotstar, being able to seamlessly switch languages and really experience the sport differently. And one of the questions I think about, especially for cricket, is what is the language of engagement going to be like for cricket in the future? How is that enabled with AI technology? One example is thinking about the fact that cricket goes to the Olympics in 2028. You get the broadcast of the game in countries which have not necessarily had that language before. So what does cricket sound like in Mandarin? What does it sound like in French? What does it sound like in these other languages? Could be interesting. And hopefully some of that is inspired and hopefully even from India to the world.”
Sidhaarth quips in saying that his company is very closing to devloping a model for the same. As the panel moved on to discussing how other sports besides cricket has reimagined newer revenue streams, Siddharth points out that comparison with cricket is unfair. “I mean, sports been around for ages and it’s been a televised sports for such a long time. And the fandom runs deep because it’s had the legacy. Kabaddi is a new sport that’s again, close to 10 years, 11 years, and I’ve been part of it. It’s been around. It takes time to build fandom, it takes time to build communities. It takes time. to build the broadcast models around it, the revenue models around it. So I think we should give it a longer gestation. And we should trust our audiences.”
In response to Navaneeth’s question on how can sporting federations, leagues and teams leverage the digital ecosystem to create interactive and personalized fan experiences, Nikhil said that every form of sports as an ecosystem is evolving. ‘When we talk about fan experiences, I think the fans and consumers have evolved, sports have become more diverse and of course digital economy and even commercialization of sports has come a really long way and you are talking about a $50 billion number, we took out a report as Google, slightly larger number, we had a $130 billion number for 2030.”
The two-day conclave, supported by the Sports Development Authority of Tamil Nadu, Tamil Nadu Champions Foundation, the Government of Uttar Pradesh, the Government of Punjab, the Government of Odisha and JK Tyre, brings together leaders from sport, business and policy to debate how India can shape the global sporting future.
PlayCom sponsors:
State Partners: Sports Development Authority of Tamil Nadu (SDAT) | Tamil Nadu Champions Foundation | Government of Uttar Pradesh | Government of Punjab | Government of Odisha
Associate Partners: ONGC | IndianOil | Havas Play | Tribes
Gaming Partner: Zupee Studio
Adrenaline Partner: JK Tyre Motorsport
Partners: Great SportsTech | CricViz | Somaiya Vidyavihar University (K J Somaiya Institute of Management) | Centre for Sports Science and Analytics (CESSA), IIT Madras | Gallant Sports & Infra Ltd | STAG Global | Sporting India – India’s Sports Directory
Nutrition Partner: The Whole Truth
Talent Partner: IOS Sports & Entertainment
Broadcast Partner: NDTV 24×7
PR Partner: WordsWork Communications Consulting
Industry Partner: SportsCom
Published on Sep 12, 2025
