In the previous month, the sports management institute, ISM GLOBE and Escuela Universitaria Real Madrid (EURM), often known as Real Madrid School, announced the biggest alliance in the Indian football education industry.
In this development, the two parties collaborated to develop educational programs, train faculty, and introduce students to sports management and the sporting world on a worldwide scale. ISM GLOBE will be the only partner of EURM in Mumbai for the following three years.
This programme is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for students to enhance their careers in the future’s most sought-after fields: brand managers, event managers, AI and machine learning specialists.
It offers opportunities for hands-on education and a football culture that is uncommon in India. To mark the commencement of this cooperation, ISM additionally hosted the Globers Cup. The squad that won the most recent edition got an opportunity of flying to Spain and a chance to practice with academic players, visit Santiago Bernabeu, and more.
At the event where the notable partnership was unveiled, SportsMint Media had the honour of speaking to Mr Pratik Hinduja, Founder of ISM GLOBE.
In the exclusive conversation, Mr Hinduja spoke at length about the course that ISM GLOBE is offering along with how beneficial it will be for students who aspire to make a mark in the sports industry.
1. Could you please tell us about the economics of this course?
ISM GLOBE has a postgraduate program in sports management, where you’re doing a 6+6, which is basically six months you’re here and six months in Spain with Real Madrid. It is priced at INR 1.5 lack plus tax which is to be given to the institute out here which is ISM GLOBE and 9000 euros to Real Madrid. Whereas, for the same degree and same certificate, a student has to give around 15 to 16 thousand euros for nine months. So, basically what we’ve done is we’ve given them a good 40-45 per cent discount and, in nine months, a person finishes broadly around nine modules. Given the relationship we have with Real Madrid and with other Spanish companies, we’re looking to get them placed out there and around five students will be getting an opportunity to go.
2. What category of students does ISM GLOBE aim to enrol in its programme?
The majority of them should be sports enthusiasts who are yet to learn about making a career in the sports industry. So they might not know anything about production, technology, or broadcasting, they just know about something on management. On the whole, in our collaboration with Real Madrid, there is management, but it’s predominantly, digital marketing and technology. How do you do brand integration in the digital sense? How do you do technology in player tracking? So that is something that we teach and students who come to us are from LLB, engineering and several different backgrounds, who have either done their studies under pressure or more or less they didn’t know what to do but they realised it late.
3. What is ISM Globe offering its students that they aren’t getting anywhere else?
One of the main things that we do in our institute is focus on skill. For example, there is something called visual merchandising that is required in a Nike showroom. Who’s going to teach that? There’s broadcasting which goes from Quidich to Jio and it goes from Quidich to Star Sports, who is going to teach them broadcasting? There’s something known as BTL activation and brand integration on digital and technological platforms. You can’t learn all of this till the time, someone is not teaching you.
We have realised that students come to us for management, and we need to show them a whole different world of marketing and technology. And to differentiate ourselves from others, we have ISM events, so when we do our own events, students get involved by getting money for sponsorships, going on LinkedIn and connecting with people to that extent and understanding how to deliver an event. So we are building our own IPs and that takes a lot of time and investment but I think students learn more from it. If you check our social media handles, you will see there’s something else ISM GLOBE is offering. We train students between the age group of 8-16, be it cricket, skating, TT, motor racing, basketball and football.
4. What is the process followed by ISM GLOBE while brand partnerships?
This is something that we’ve systematically thought and I’ll put it across. For example, Puma came up with a campaign known as ‘Let there be sport’ and we have a huge tie-up with them because ultimately, their objective is why should sports be an extracurricular activity, it should be a proper activity. Now to communicate that you have to start at a grassroots level which is at a school. They’ve done a huge integration on the campaign, so when we spoke to them, we didn’t speak about the sponsorship.
We spoke to them about how does the campaign engage with students? As a byproduct of things, they will come to our event and school and will do their BTL activation. For example, let’s take DSC, the bat brand, every school which we are training is going to be getting a DSC kit. And not one but multiple and on the school’s jersey DSC’s branding will be featured. Now this is the kind of fostering partnerships that we do because it’s important for the brand to realise that, yes, you need to target the grassroots level and more importantly, with time, you need to also grow in business. So it’s a 360-degree deal where they help us with their knowledge and then we help them in brand activation. So it’s a 360-degree process.
5. How would you reach out to sports enthusiasts who are planning to have a career in the sports industry?
One of the most important things that we miss, although it’s a digital era but digital stays for split seconds in your mind. I think awareness has to be created and that can only be created offline in this industry. I would say 10 years ago or maybe even 15, people didn’t know what Flipkart was. People had to first understand that there is something called e-commerce where you can buy and your money will not go anywhere and that it’s not a scam and then the product will come to you.
I think to reach out to them, it may sound very timid and childish, but there is no other way than to knock on everyone’s door. So, what do we do? we do events, we run it through schools and colleges. We conduct workshops over a period of time and we have realised that students don’t normally know that there is something about sports technology in sports management. So, offline and word of mouth, that’s the only way that the education system also works and that’s the only way, awareness also can be created.