From Vinesh Phogat saga to Neeraj Chopra’s silver: Why rapping ’casual’ fans won’t help Olympic sports grow in India

Till the time the entire Vinesh Phogat saga exploded, which unfortunately divided sports fans based on their political affiliation, the greatest bickering on X (formerly Twitter) was between sports nerds and those who are somewhat derogatively branded as 'casuals' (sports fan). A rather umbrella term, it included people who had heard about Deepika Kumari but won’t be able to tell the difference between Recurve and Compound Archery, to those who don’t even know how many points are needed to win a game of badminton. And they wouldn’t certainly know which obscure stream on the internet showed the Olympics Wrestling qualifiers or why Breaking is such a breakout sport. Well, I am being slightly pedantic, but you get the drift. While the casual fans complained that hardcore sports buffs look to 'gatekeep' sports, the nerds accused the casual fans of being tribalistic about winning or losing, about trolling others, without understanding the context or backstory.

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A case in point was when Lakshya Sen won against Chou Tien Chen (CTC), his 'coach' Victoria (actually physio) angered many who were seeing her for the first time with her rather animated celebration after every point. Only later it emerged that CTC had recuperated from cancer, with his physio providing mental support and she actually was a hit among badminton players for her sweet demeanour. A lot of sports fans took umbrage to ‘casuals’ taking a dig at and rightfully pointed out the context of the celebration. Sticking to badminton, many fans felt that the likes of Lakshya Sen and Sat-Chi deserved criticism for failing to live up to the expectations despite massive funding. This was vehemently opposed by popular badminton following X handles till the verdict came from the horse’s mouth with Prakash Padukone offering some truth bombs with his rather brutal appraisal. Again the boxing gender row and brouhaha regarding weight cutting in wrestling showed the difference in knowledge between the connoisseurs and the newly-minted fans, which impacted their response.

Fans always expect a medal 

No matter the level of awareness and literacy about a particular sport, the expectation from fans without fail was for a medal. Hence the agonising fourth-place losses or last-moment brain fades on the eve of qualification or medal rounds would lead to some resorting to name calling, while others used cheeky memes to channelise their frustration. For starters, it is no-brainer that any kind of abuse or so-called dark humour, which often becomes figleaf for personal attack, has to be universally condemned. But wrapping players in cotton wool and just applauding them for merely taking part will not exactly help Indian sports. In any sport, for fans to become stakeholders, they need to feel involved with it and there is no concept of unrequited love without a fair share of criticism from those who are investing their time to catch the action. A casual fan probably won’t know the nuances of 'shot put' and 'walking', but that shouldn’t stop them from asking why the mixed team got disqualified midway and Tejinder Toor was a pale shadow of himself, not even coming close to his personal best. Merely boilerplate ‘boys played well’ and ‘we will learn from these setbacks and come back strongly’ would just be pushing the issues to the backburner without fixing accountability for the dismal performance of some members of this contingent.

Also Read: ‘Mujhe yeh darr hai bas…’: Neeraj Chopra on Vinesh Phogat’s CAS appeal for Olympic silver

A recurring theme in the entire Olympics has been the constant comparison with cricket and how the Olympic sports have been a poorer cousin, in resources allocation and endorsement received. A couple of podcasts done by Saina Nehwal also added fodder to this narrative, where she kind of harped on how cricketers get the red carpet despite playing what she believed is an easier sport, physically. Going beyond the sporting intricacies of whether a Bumrah yorker is more lethal than a Sindhu smash, what is undoubtedly true is that other athletes don’t even get an iota of the public glare the cricketers are subjected to. We are in a world, where Vamika gets hate if Virat fails, Ziva’s sartorial sense at the Ambani wedding gets hundreds of sniggering posts, and, despite a stellar run in the ODI Cricket World Cup, a blip in the final brands Indian team as a choker, with KL Rahul getting equated to Bin Laden in memes! The copious tears Hardik Pandya had to shed for something any of us would do in a heartbeat in a corporate setup showed how cricket in this country is driven by an emotional swirl that transcends and completely discounts any rational discourse. Hence one moment you are ‘NoHit’ and next moment you are ‘Hitman’, based on your last big score. The fan wars are intense with the stakes sky high and coming second is not even a feasible option.

Also Read: ’One who got gold also our son’: Neeraj Chopra’s mother on Pakistan’s Arshad Nadeem, celebrates India’s silver

Hence, if other Olympic sports have to get billing equivalent to cricket, the athletes have to deal with such expectations of fans, the good, bad and ugly part of it. That would mean people mocking reels made by players to some pointing out how they haven’t medalled despite playing four Olympics. An Olympian like Neeraj Chopra gets this pressure and even thrives in it. Hence a silver from him almost feels like a defeat. People followed Neeraj’s event well past midnight and heaped praise on Arshad for being better on that day.

Merely gatekeeping and dissuading the casual fans with snide comments wouldn’t help the Olympic sports grow in India. And as the good results come in, the ‘casuals’ would tune in for the CWG, Asian and World Events if not the national fixtures. One big part of sports fandom also comes from following successful stars. The great Manchester United team of the 90s, Federer-Nadal, Schumacher to name a few didn’t attract a legion of fans just for anything. They did because they won a lot. Closer home, during IPL, CSK-MI have the biggest fanbase owing to their glittering trophy cabinet with RCB being an exception, riding on the Kohli wave. Hence the fans would come as and when the athletes start winning more. And occasionally they will slip, and the fans, impulsive as they are, would lash out, till they win again.

India cut a sorry face at Paris Olympics

As the Olympics ended and India cut a sorry face with a below-par performance finishing as 71th, some pulled out calculators to estimate how much the Indian government had to spend for each medal. The figure wasn’t rosy. While part of this accounting is myopic, as results often take a decade or more to come in highly competitive sports, honest introspection won’t hurt anyone. There have been calls to relook at the TOPS programme -- an initiative that the government runs to nourish probable medal winners, with experts demanding for a holistic ground-level development programme. The likes of Khelo India exists and have proved to be the feeder line in the last few years. Surely the government can and hopefully do more to encourage talent, especially if India has to host the games in 12 years' time.

However, what is undeniable is that the sporting culture in the country is sorely missing. It is more likely that kids would be admitted for extra mathematics lessons than encouraged to join the football team. Hence if this Olympic Games can spur the casual fans to follow more disciplines and encourage their friends and family to at least try out a shooting or a javelin for recreation, that would be a significant win. For a sport to truly thrive, it deserves dedicated fans as well as the fleeting ones. In the spirit of inclusivity, even the Olympics Game moto has added ‘together’, in it now, becoming -- Citius-Altius-Fortius-Communiter (Stronger-faster-higher-together). It is high time we also take the hint.