On a slow trot

As has the glamour. The high tea at the club is usually an old-fashioned affair with gloved waiters serving dainty nibbles to guests. This year,the frills have been done away with and the club has drummed up the refreshments itself. This is a lacklustre showing for a sport associated with the high life and royalty,and traces its origins to India over 2,000 years ago.

Polo is in the middle of rough times and desperately needs some common touches to survive,like massive corporate funding to begin with. This season,the global economic downturn has dried up advertising budgets and prompted committed sponsors to back out at the last minute. “At one time,corporate India was putting in at lease Rs 20 crore a year into sponsoring tournaments,but for the last two years,raising money has become very difficult,” says Adhiraj Singh,a polo player and proprietor,Equisport,a polo-centric sports management company. Singh,a former army Major,says his business is down by over 50 per cent this year.

Till about the middle of this decade,polo grew rapidly because of India’s burgeoning luxury market with top international brands like Jaeger Le Coultre,Tag Heuer and Bvlgari investing heavily in the game. They haven’t held their tournaments this season,in winter 2008. Other corporate houses associated with the game include HT Media Ltd,ABN Amro and Emaar MGF,who have also decided not to sponsor polo this year.

The global recession may have slowed polo down,but the signs of dwindling interest in the sport have been there for a while. Vikram Aditya Singh,vice-president of the Indian Polo Association and a diehard polo lover,ran The Royal Kashmir Team for 15 years,raising money,and investing his own into the game. Citing business commitments,Singh has dropped out of late. He appears disillusioned about polo’s future. “India is just not a sporting nation. Polo needs a broader base of people willing to fund the game. That’s just not happening,” says Singh.

Chetan Seth of Cingari,promoters of Habanos Cigars in India,has been hosting the Habanos Cup for the last 10 years,and his matches usually have a packed audience. Seth has an extensive guest list and sends out personalised SMSes to ensure a crowd. He hasn’t held his tournament this year for a variety of reasons—for one,the equine influenza that sickened horses across Asia this year—but plans to continue sponsoring polo in the future. “Interest in polo is less among the fashionable lot because people have many more social commitments. Even before the recession,every day,there was a new restaurant opening or a new brand launching. In 2004-2006,when polo was at its peak,there wasn’t this much pressure on social calendars,” says Seth.

The polo players,meanwhile,are getting panicky about tournaments scheduled to start in September 2009 since gloomy predictions suggest there will be even fewer matches. “Most seasons,I play between 25 and 40 tournaments in a five-month season,” says Uday Kalaan,35,who’s been playing polo for the last 15 years. “This year,I’ve played in just six.”

More worryingly,prize money for every tournament hovers around Rs 70,000 per player while this year it’s down to a paltry Rs16,000. Kalaan belongs to a family of polo enthusiasts. Parents Sunny and Col Raaj Kalaan are the main motivators behind the Haryana Polo Club,set up with the help of patron-industrialists like Karan Thapar and Navin Khanna,both of whom had their own polo teams till recently. “Maintaining the horses and the grounds is very expensive for a season that’s very short,” says Kalaan. He echoes the worries of the small polo fraternity in India,which is disenchanted and unsure of the future.

Twenty-five-year-old Simran Shergill,a 3 handicap polo player with the Jindal Steel team,is the son of an army general who spent his teens around polo and horses. Besides playing,Shergill is hired by Jindal Steel to look after their horses. He says ideally he’d like to make a career in polo if it wasn’t so tricky. “I’m not sure where the sport is headed. At my age there’s a huge opportunity cost and I’m afraid I’ll lose out,” says Shergill. Of late,he has enrolled for a long-distance MBA course and is exploring his options.

Before the surge of corporate India’s interest in the game in the 1990s,the sport was restricted to the army,barring a handful of players linked to erstwhile royalty who continued it as a family tradition. Polo has always been intimidating to outsiders,considering the investment required in horses and the risk of injury. Navin Jindal,a Member of Parliament and a keen sportsman,has backed a polo team for 15 years. “I love the game and everyone knows of Jindal Steel thanks to polo,” he says. He is now sponsoring new polo players with promise and recruiting them for his own team. “Polo can never draw in sponsorship like cricket or golf,but it has created a strong niche for itself. This is just a bad phase,” he says.

Out-of-work players recently sent a letter to the Indian Polo Association requesting immediate action to revive the sport,suggesting remedies like reducing costs for sponsors,subsidising costs of maintaining horses,and utilising Indian polo’s main asset,the Jaipur Polo Ground,a magnificent field in the heart of Delhi on Race Course Road,to raise money.

To host a tournament at the Jaipur Polo Ground,a sponsor has to pay the Indian Polo Association and the Army Polo and Riding Club,who control the field,Rs 5 lakh as fees. The event cost of players,branding,a grand marquee and the high tea usually costs the sponsor anywhere between Rs 15 to 20 lakh. This year,with most companies slashing budgets,polo has clearly lost out. “The numbers just don’t add up,” says Seth of Cingari. “The IPA should try and make it more cost-effective to pull in new sponsors.” Col. Dev Dahiya,secretary of the IPA,says they plan to reduce fees for sponsors and will subsidise sportsmen to play abroad. “We are in touch with players and they know we are here to support them,” says Dahiya. “This was an exceptionally bad year,but I’m sure polo will recover from it.”

Diageo,promoters of Johnnie Walker Gold,has been sponsoring a polo tournament for the last two years and remain upbeat about the future of the game. “Polo is the sport of modern royalty,” says Santosh Kanekar,executive director,marketing,Diageo India. Kanekar says for them,the aristocratic distinctiveness of polo goes well with the image of Gold Label,one of the most expensive whiskeys available. “It’s an aspirational game and denotes a certain lifestyle so in the long run,luxury brands will continue their association,” he says.

Meanwhile,those in the business of polo are working out new strategies. In the off-season in India,from April to September,players head to Argentina,Germany and Scotland to play tournaments. Ironically,in the West,polo is growing in popularity every year. “Playing polo in India is cheaper than anywhere else in the world,” says Uday Kalaan. “We need to capitalise on that.” He and Adhiraj Singh have ideas of converting his property in Haryana into a polo destination,where they could provide players from around the world quality horses,boarding and training.
New ideas are in order,or like the kings,the royal sport might just become a thing of the past.