Contents

Problem Statement........................................................................................................... 3
Analysis of the existing solutions:........................................................................................ 3
Proposed solution for increasing grassroots participation............................................................6
Financial calculations for implementation.............................................................................10
Target Business segments................................................................................................. 10
Online Ground/Court booking system.................................................................................11
Summary/Conclusion...................................................................................................... 12
References:.................................................................................................................. 13

Problem Statement
There is an acute apathy towards sports participation and the physical well being in schools and
at the grassroots level in India. With years of neglect, we have fallen far behind a lot of other
countries in terms of performance in international level events like the Olympics, etc. There is
no quick fix to the issue of reforming sports in the country, though a disruption in the form of
using IT as a facilitator to alleviate this problem would be a very plausible step in the right
direction. As another aspect of the problem of general lack of physical well being, there is a
growing problem of lack of fitness among the corporate crowd, stemming from the sedentary
lifestyles they lead. Hence, in totality, there is a problem of low sports participation in our
country which needs to be addressed as it has repercussions on serious human development
indicators such as life expectancy and average incidence of obesity, diseases,etc.

Analysis of the existing solutions:

The performance of India at the Olympics previously has never been up to the mark. There
always was room for improvement. But in the recent years, it has been able to improve at
distinct levels.Indias Olympic medal tally has increased from zero in 1988 and 1992 to one in
each in 1996, 2000, and 2004 Olympics. This was followed by three medals in 2008 (including
the first Gold medal) and six medals in 2012. Leading states that have contributed to Indias
performance at the recent global events such as the Olympics, Common Wealth Games and
Asian games are mostly Haryana and Manipur.
Situation of Haryana
Government of Haryana has adopted a focused approach to develop sports in the state. Its
policy was launched in 2006 and from then on it has been regularly revisited and updated; one
of the important feature has been the increase in incentive for sportsmen and several other such
initiatives.
There are three important aspects of the state governments policy:
1. Talent spotting and grooming:
The government has launched Play 4 India with an aim to enable young boys and
girls to realize their athletic potential and subsequently hone their skills by providing
necessary support. Under this initiative, a Sports and Physical Aptitude Test (SPAT) is
conducted in all schools across the state to identify high potential athlete in the 8-14 age
group. About 5000 children, with boys and girls in equal numbers, are identified and a
sport is allocated to them based on seven physical parameters such as strength,
flexibility and the reaction time of various body parts. These students are then
supported financially and provided with training, proper diet and health checkups. A
yearly appraisal assesses the progress and further assistance is provided based on this

assessment. Sporting events are held from block level to the state level throughout the
year for students to compete and sharpen their skills.
2. Infrastructure:
To support the development of sports, the state has built the following infrastructures
like:

46 schools to train athletes, including provision of free hostel, games kit and
food
71 stadiums at block level with fulltime coaches, managed by district
authorities, school
management and parents
Sports complex in every district
A sports library and a center for conducting research in sports medicine
Centers of Excellence for individual sports such as academies for boxing in
Bhiwani and wrestling in Rohtak and Sonepat
3. Incentives
The Government provides several incentives to winners and other stakeholders in
sports:

Financial incentives, government jobs and reservation in admission to

professional institutions are awarded to winners in international sports event.
E.g. gold medal winner at Olympics was awarded INR 5 crores
Coaches and their places of origin: The state government of Haryana awarded
with village of winning sportsperson with INR 2 lakhs for the overall
development of the village.This further encourages villages to promote sports

In Manipur, the government in 2004 made policies for promoting sports across the
state:

Sports and physical education was made as a mass movement

Physical education was made compulsory in every education system
Allocation of a high percentage of its budget towards sports and games which
was higher as compared to prominent sporting states such as Haryana and
Punjab
Maintaining a culture of sports
SAI established its North-eastern center at Imphal in 1986 which also
contributed to the states sporting success.

In Delhi, under the patronage of Government of Delhi, Sports and Youth Services was
established with the aim to promote and improve sports and games in Delhi by
providing opportunities and facilities to young and talented players to improve their
standard in games and thereby bringing medals in Olympic, Asian Games and Common
Wealth Games.

Key tournaments/activities that were undertaken are:

Sports talent search meet in different sports discipline

Summer sports meet
Organization of All India Rajiv Gandhi Gold Cup Tournament in various
disciplines
Organization of various district and inter district tournaments
Organization of block level and inter- block level tournament and participation
of Delhi school teams in All India Rural Sports Tournament
Participation of Delhi school teams in national school games
To conduct regular coaching camp round the year and selection of team for
national and international tournaments and participation their-after

After analyzing Haryana, Manipur and New Delhi, and other government policies and other
initiatives to promote sports, now we will look at Mumbai where association like MSSA are
playing a major role in promoting sports across schools.
In Mumbai, associations like MSSA, are present with the objective to foster physical fitness
and discipline through active sports and games participation amongst thousands of school
going students of the city of Mumbai. Tournaments of various games are conducted
throughout the year.
Recently Mumbai school sports association (MSSA) launched an academy called football
for girls for football specifically focusing schooling girls. Training would be given to under
14 and under 16 age group girls from school across Mumbai. MSSA will select the girls for
training which will be a year round affair with two sessions planned for each week. Players
will later be selected to represent the academy team.
Many academies are affiliated to MSSA which train school going kids under different age
groups across schools in Mumbai. To name a few, there is Bipin Football Academy, St
Lawrence Football Club, Bombay Gymkhana Limited and VPN Sports Club.
A total of 20 sports are included in MSSA. Through its tournaments and competitions, several
school children were nurtured to give national and international laurels for the country.
To promote various school sports in Mumbai, the IPL team of Mumbai Indians sponsored
MSSA to develop and support sports tournament amongst all Mumbai schools.

Following are few of the existing issues with the present sports facilities in India:
Functioning of sports
ecosystem
Overall

Issues
-

Lack of sports culture in India

Limited funding avenues in sports

Sports governance

Talent
scouting
training of players

and

Lack of transparency
Limited community level engagement in sports despite
the Panchayat Yuva Krida Aur Khel Abhiyan (PYKKA)
Limited commercial focus of governing bodies

Lack of coaches and technical know-how on sports in

India
Lack of coordination among the concerned bodies
affecting professional uptake of sports
No proper support to former sportsperson launching
private academies
Scarcity of playing spaces
Lack of awareness on opportunities for sports coaches

Leagues and tournaments

Lack of transparency in the governance of leagues

Poor monetization of league
Limited engagement of franchises with local communities

Performance incentives for

sportspersons

Lack of policy ensuring financial security post retirement

for some players
Limited career options within the sports ecosystem.

Proposed solution for increasing grassroots participation

We propose to make use of Information Technology to improve the grass root level sports
participation and make efficient use of resources available. A networked infrastructure can be
created to track development of players. Once a student starts playing any sport at school level,
the students data is recorded in a database which will also track the competitions the student has
played in, performance in those competitions and the current location along with the contact
details where the student is studying. There will be a central database where all of the
information will be stored.

The access to the information will be restricted to only the Sports ministry at the higher level,
registered coaches, coaching centre, parents and clubs for each sport at the school and club level.
This kind of central database will ensure the overall development of talent; ensure that the talent
does not get lost from the system and will provide equal opportunities to all the budding
sportsmen. To implement this type of infrastructure we will need to ensure that the following are
in place:
1.

Central Database- that can handle large amounts of data.

2.
Interactive web user interface - facilitate ease for anyone to analyse and retrieve relevant
information.
3.

Network Security- protection from information theft and information manipulation

4.

Disaster recovery plan

For the database we can use any one of Oracle, DB2 or SQL Server. The website can be
constructed using HTML, CSS, Javascript/Jquery and one of PHP, Python, Perl. Network
security protocols that can be implemented are TLS and IPsec. Information will have to be
stored in encrypted format. The cluster model will repeat from sports club to state level and
followed by national level. Through this clustering model and with the use of portal, a talent can
be recognized at the very grass root level and can be trained accordingly to develop a better
sports future for the country.

Database
A database is an organized collection of records or data that can be searched, retrieved and
modified. Database software is commonplace as most standard office computer software
packages usually have a simple database program as well, in addition to the usual word
processing, spreadsheet and presentation applications.
There is a still powerful and useful database in the area of sports management than the one that
comes in the standard software suite, the relational database. A relational database is a data
management system that stores information in a series of tables in the form of rows and columns
of data. When the user conducts a search, a relational database allows him to match and join data
from one table with data from a second to produce a third table or a report.
The IT tools would majorly play an important role from an operational point of view manifested
by the kinds of sport program information that can be part of these databases:
Primary specific information like biographic data including name, sex, age, contact information
and even clothing sizes for students can be contained. The same database may also contain
details on medical conditions, performance history, or other participation characteristics of the
students/ potential athletes.

The database can also be keyed in with information pertaining to the staff roster supporting the
programme on connecting sports talent.
Money is a central driver in any form of sports management today. Databases can be used for
tracking donors or potential donors and hence help in fundraising. Attributes related to this can
be biographic data of donors, frequency with which they have donated, etc.

Interactive Web Portal

The process of generating a web-based high school level youth sports and adult sports league
website portal includes obtaining at least one of high school level, youth level, club level, or
adult league sports based content. The process further includes generating web pages for at least
one of states, schools, teams, players, and students allowing users to view content and directing
central/state government authorities to the users through interaction with the web pages based on
their rankings and previous achievements in this field.
Many previous approaches to creating centralized network via the World Wide Web have not
been directed to youth sports or club sports. These approaches did not include any ability to
display beneficial information for the athlete or student and/or State/Central Government and
approaching them could then be handled.
Accordingly, there is a need for a web portal that can provide a centralized expression
networking and moreover allow for targeted government agencies to contact them.
The innovation can be in the form of a centralized database and portal system that is sports
and/or student-activity specific. Accordingly, it may encompass content based on students
playing sports from their first sports experiences through high school sports. These sports
include high school sports, youth sports, club sports, and/or other sports organizations whose
participants may include ages till high school age athletes. Users of the system are provided with
various web-based tools to generate and create their personal expression. National level referees
would be allotted to give ratings to these students. These tools include various different
functions including various sports, all level players in that sport across all the states. It is a
multi-task tool that allows young students and/or student athletes to present their academic,
athletic and other accomplishments via a creative and dynamic tool.

India

Sports-wise Portal
State-wise Portal
City-wise Portal

This portal would be connected to the centralized relational database. All these links would be
updated on real time basis. The major links would be to fetch the information about students of
different sport, state and/or city. Further, it could act as a forum to invite various central and state
level organizations and fetch the player on the basis of their rating (which would also be
available on website). Moreover, certain advertisements for referees who would be the students
can also be displayed here.

In terms of security, a private key would be provided to all the central/state level organizations
and a public key would be available to all the students and volunteers who want to create their
profile. Only the central/state government would have access to this database. Though the add
function would be available, we would restrict the write/update function to the main authorities
only. Further, individual accounts of students could be monitored and secured by ID + password
combination.

Financial calculations for implementation

We estimate that there would be very high fixed costs involved as mentioned
below:
1. Software development: Rs. 5 lakhs
2. Database management system: Rs. 15 lakhs
3. Improvement in network infrastructure: Rs. 10 lakhs
So to implement this in any city we would require Rs.25 lakhs since software
development is a onetime overall cost.
The variable components will be in the form of the following:
1. Employee wages
2. Maintenance costs
3. Backup maintenance cost/Disaster recovery cost
Overall we assume that these costs will be around Rs. 4 lakhs per annum.
In terms of returns on investment, there wont be any tangible short term benefits
but in the long run the performance of our sportsmen will be expected to improve.
As our sportsmen become more competitive internationally, we will have more
sponsorship, more tournaments and more viewers for different sports which will
increase revenue for the government in the form of taxes. Also, research papers
have concluded that growth in performance in sports is accompanied by growth in
GDP of the country. We expect that these benefits will become visible from the 10th
year of the implementation of this system.

Target Business segments

Due to the high costs involved and the relatively high timeline in getting returns we
do not expect the private players to enter into this model until it has matured and
starts giving returns instantaneously. Therefore the government must undertake
this project. The government currently spends 100 million dollars per year on
sports. Therefore we feel that this project can be undertaken by the government.
The target cities should be the metro cities and the connected rural areas right next
to these cities. Once the system matures in these cities we can then look towards
the other rural areas. The target segment is basically government and private
schools. This is required for total inclusion in sports participation.

Online Ground/Court booking system

The second solution that we propose is to increase participation in sports amongst professionals.
We believe that if the would be parents are more involved in sports this will encourage the
future generations to also participate. Currently the situation is that the societies coming up in
cities are cramped up for space and the little space that is left is used for vehicle parking. People
dont get space to play near their home. The next option is to move to gymkhana grounds but
even there most of the times the ground is full and considering the shortage of time most of
people then refrain from making the trip. We therefore propose an online ground booking system
so that the people booking the ground/court are assured of their playing time.
The general pattern of booking a stadium in India is very vigorous. It is manual mostly and
involves a person to go visit the booking center and book the stadium. This is a simple but
tiresome process. Also another thing observed is that many a times grounds and stadiums are
not booked because of lack of information about availability and location. If this activity could
be done online, it would be of great benefit to the parties involved and the sporting industry in
itself.
We suggest launching a website which contains details of all the grounds and stadiums available
in the nearby location, which would give the current status of the ground or stadium that is if it is
being used by anyone currently, slots available to book, cost of booking etc. This website not
just caters to the booking of big stadiums but also the small grounds and stadiums. The
advantage of this would be, resources could be used effectively which will help in nurturing the
talent we have.
Implementation:
We require laptop computers, Personal Digital Assistances (PDAs), and mobile phones in
addition to website, database.
Step 1:
Acquiring and storing Data: The information related to presence and availability of grounds and
stadiums can be acquired from government records and involving parties of benefit. This data
will be stored using oracle, sql or using preferable object-relational data management system.
Step 2:
Creating a website:
Development
The prototype developed Using ASP.netprogramming language environment(Microsoft Visual
Web Developer 2005 Express)prototype will be developed.
In this level booking for grounds and stadiums prototype will be developed. This prototype will
be used as method. Prototype process include three steps Interacting between the prototypes and the users.
Users can have an adequate idea of their information requirements.

Users approved the application that is if it can be used as a final system

The prototype will be evaluated after this development phase.

Buy a register a domain name and create a website which contains all essential features of
booking a stadium or data. Adequate security measures shall be taken so that the data doesnt fall
into the hands of a wrong party and get manipulated.
System Design:
The design of system includes unified Modeling Language (UML) diagram and the sketch of
system architecture.

Figure: Case for the Prototype

The above figure describes the overall interaction between the prototype and the user as how the
user will start the process of ground and stadium booking.
The case diagram models the functionality of the users as the actors in the system.

Summary/Conclusion
Our suggestions can only enable people to participate more in sports. These two solutions will
cater to the needs of the people who want to play. To get more people interested in sports we feel
the government should come up with more tournaments at each age level. Also, sports should be
made a compulsory part of the education system and not just a formality like it is done in some
schools currently.

References:
1. Youth & Sports at KPMG
http://www.kpmg.com/IN/en/IssuesAndInsights/ArticlesPublications/Documents/Busines
s-of-Sports.pdf
2. Sports& Youth Services by Government of
Delhihttp://delhi.gov.in/wps/wcm/connect/9b3425804ff1f977bef6bfd9d1b46642/Sports+
%26+Youth+Services+WU89.pdf?
MOD=AJPERES&lmod=336697604&CACHEID=9b3425804ff1f977bef6bfd9d1b46642
3. Mumbai School Sports Association (www.mssa.co.in)
4. http://thesportjournal.org/article/information-technology-for-sports-management/
5. https://books.google.co.in/books?
id=_E_1Sn_SmvIC&pg=PA109&lpg=PA109&dq=schools+information+technology+con
nect+sports+database&source=bl&ots=o2oQRycFkv&sig=WbBafczb1kMQZkmWI5FQ
YPqmjdQ&hl=en&sa=X&ei=TpHzVOuWKcKruQS_woLQBw&ved=0CDQQ6AEwAz
gK#v=onepage&q=schools%20information%20technology%20connect%20sports
%20database&f=false
6. www.us.edu
7. Alfawaer, Z. M., Awni, M., & Al-Zoubi, S. (2011). Mobile e-ticketing reservation system
for Amman International Stadium in Jordan. International Journal of Academic
Research, 3(1), 848-852.