The focus of this episode is the business of professional sports in India. Our guest, Gautam Thakar, is the CEO of Star Sports – the largest sports broadcaster in the country with a revenue of over ₹9,000 crores and a viewership of hundreds of millions for some of their flagship shows. It’s highly likely you’ve watched one of Gautam’s channels this week and even more likely that someone in your family has.
Gautam has a very interesting background. He has over 20 years’ leadership experience. He started his career in the dotcom era as a founding member of Bazee.com which was later acquired by eBay in 2004. He has had notable stints as CEO of Shopping.com (also an eBay acquisition), at LivingSocial (acquired by Groupon) and spent about five years early in his career with Procter and Gamble.
On this podcast, we speak about the nuances of managing a professional sports business in India, about how the experience of watching and following sports has changed, about how India’s sporting idols mirror the growing aspirations of the country, how technology and social media has spurred product and business innovation in sports, what India can do to achieve greater sporting success at the Olympics, and more.