Sporting mantra

Which're the sports that have caught the attention of Indian urban youth in the past decade or so?

• Formula 1
• Soccer (EPL & Spanish leagues)
• Tennis
• Basketball/NBA (not so much now, but late 90s to early 2000s)

While these are sports which are anyways popular across the world, and have aggressively marketed themselves in the country, I think there's one factor which has made them so popular - Winners, challengers & the promise of a battle

Of course, you'd say that every sport has winners and challengers, what's so different about these sports. They have had huge, individual personalities who've single-handedly attracted viewership.

Take F1 - late 90s - the winners - Jacques Villeneuve & Mika Hakkinen. The perennial challenger - the cold, determined, German - Michael Schumacher. A lot of people started watching F1 when they heard about this great battle between a certain Villeneuve and a certain Schumacher. After Villeneuve's downfall, his 'supporters' switched loyalties to Mika (or in some extreme cases to Michael!). More people kept getting added to the fold. Some supporting Mika, some Michael. The battled raged on, and the viewers were loving it! Then, Michael started winning, and winning, and winning. The 'battle' was no longer a battle, people started getting bored. Had this situation occurred when the sport had just entered the country, one could have written its obituaries, at least for the next few years!

The English Premier League and Spanish La Liga have been broadcasted unwaveringly by ESPN-Star Sports. Again, people started getting really hooked when they saw winners & challengers - ManU winning the treble in '99 brought in a huge fan-base. David Beckham, Cole, Yorke, Scholes, Giggs, all individuals attracting youth to the sport. The great Barca-Madrid rivalry again getting thousands of new eyeballs!

Tennis - Sampras, Agassi, Federer... need I say more!?!

NBA - Jordan, Shaq, Kobe, Malone

The pattern I see is having outright winners to 'attract' new viewers to a sport. Then, have a coupla challengers thrown in to keep the interest going. Make sure that the winners are not winning too much, et voila, you have the perfect recipe for a hooked audience!

Sports like A1 GP I thought, lost the plot a bit here. There was never a clear winner, never one guy winning races all the time to make the headlines, and a promising concept fell by the wayside. Do I suggest, they should've 'manufactured' a winner, just to get in the audiences?! Well yes, and no. Yes, coz they couldve left a little more room for bigger money teams to build a touch better cars to consistently beat the field. But that again would've spoilt the concept itself? Its a far less individualist a sport compared to the likes of Tennis, where raw talent can make a winner.

For the ongoing IPL - the concept is fabulous - getting over with a cricket match in just 3 hours - but if the teams continue to be so close, I doubt if it'll see the success that its capable of. Only 15 countries or so ever really even think of cricket. To get the remaining 160 to watch, the IPL needs a clear winner. A team that blows past opposition almost every time it plays. Only this can get the world audience to sit up and take notice, and once that happens, the real games can begin.