Aabhas Sharma catches up with Anirban Das Blah, CEO, Globosport, and fellow football fanatic, to talk about non-cricketing matters.
It is rare to find anyone in the city of Delhi with whom you can have a decent discussion on football. Of course, there are people who claim to be die-hard fans of clubs like the Manchester United, Real Madrid or Barcelona. But within minutes you can make out how genuine they are. So, when I met Anirban Das Blah, the CEO of Globosport, I was pleasantly surprised — and relieved. The subjects of our conversation ranged from everything to the women Cristiano Ronaldo is supposedly dating to the defensive frailities of Real Madrid.
As you may have gathered, Blah is a sports fanatic. It is not just football that he is passionate about but also golf, tennis, cricket, the lot. He watches “everything”, as he says. “I am lucky to be in a job where I can eat, sleep and breathe sports,” says the 35-year-old. But this wasn’t quite how he started out.
Blah was working with Eriksson Telecom in Sweden and had returned to India to take up a marketing post with Bharti in 2001. He was at a point in his life when he was in two minds, he says: whether to stay in India or head back to Europe, where, he thought, his style of working suited the IT and telecom industries more. It was then that he met tennis star Mahesh Bhupathi, who was looking to start a talent management venture.
Sports and celebrity management was a niche area back then and not many would have been willing to change over to such an uncertain field, giving up a perfectly respectable and conventional career. But Blah was confident it would work. So he left a cushy and well-paying job to start Globosport. “Not that I was unhappy at work but there was this urge to do something on my own,” he explains.
The initial years involved an awful lot of struggle. It was only in 2005 that Blah thought he and the firm would finally make it. Sania Mirza, who was just starting out, was signed on, one of the first few clients of the company. In Hyderabad, when Mirza won her maiden title, Blah knew he had finally got his big break.
Both for him and for Bhupathi, he says, sports is more a way of life, not a money-making exercise. But talk about Sania and there is a bit of disappointment in Blah’s tone. “She has immense potenial and I firmly believe that she has probably one of the best forehands in the business. But injuries have taken their toll,” he says, while maintaining that he is confident that Sania can still retain those dizzying heights of the past.
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Blah says it was Bhupathi’s decision to diverisfy and move into the entertainment business as well. The company today manages an impressive list of celebs, including the likes of Saif Ali Khan, Kunal Kapoor and Lara Dutta. Saif, back in 2005, was not the big star he is today, but was on the rise with movies such as Hum Tum and Kal Ho Na Ho to his credit. “We had zero contacts in the fim industry, so, when we signed on Saif, people sat up and took notice.” Since then, the roster of Bollywood stars has grown incredibly with Freida Pinto, the actress in the award-winning Slumdog Millionaire, the latest to join the club. Blah confesses that he doesn’t watch too many Hindi movies —only the “good ones”.
Globosport has now launched its digital content division to promote content through mobile phones and the web. “It is an extension of our business model and something which will drive growth in the future,” Blah says.
Our conversation shifts back to how people like (badminton star) Saina Nehwal are doing so well in the world of sports. Does he feel vindicted seeing people like her managed by his firm? “No,” he says, surprisingly, “when we start handling someone, we know that they have the potential to do well.” So it doesn’t come as a surprise!
Blah, a huge Real Madrid fan, also has a soft spot for Arsenal. “I like the way they play football,” he tells me. I nod in agreement but tell him that my loyalties lie with Manchester United. “They play some great football too,” he says and tells me that he watches only sports on TV whenever he is free. “My wife doesn’t mind now but earlier, it used to be a minor issue between us, with sports taking up most of my time,” he laughs.
There were rumours that an IPL team had offered Blah a hefty pay rise, including some stake in the company, to prise him from Globosport. Blah confirms that this is true but that he wasn’t interested. “You can’t leave something which you have started from scratch,” he adds. When not watching sports, his second love is reading, and then comes spending time with the family. “Family, sports, and reading is how I like to spend my time off work,” he lists.
Globosport has a huge list of clients now but Blah has not forgotten the initial years of struggle. “It was hard selling the idea of non-cricket stars in a country obsessed with that sport, but it’s encouraging to see the mindset changing now.”
Of those times, he says, he felt like an Evangelist — doing everything from scratch. Even now, he believes, nothing comes close to cricket or cricketers when it comes to bagging endorsements. “Though football can give it a run for money if promoted in the right way,” he adds.
Being a football fanatic, I am sure, Blah would love to see that happen. To tell you the truth, so would I.
