Gone are the days when sports in India only meant cricket. Many non-cricketing sports are gaining momentum and popularity today. This has given a solid push to the sports franchise culture and sports club trend is picking up in India. Many brands are today associating with leagues likes PKL (Pro Kabaddi League), ISL (Indian Super league) and PBL (Premier Badminton League) because they see a bright future for these sports in India. Amidst all the glamour and attention it is quite tricky to successfully run a sports franchise in today’s digital age where you need to be on your toes to compete with your rivals.

According to me below are the 5 most important skills required for a person to successfully run a sports franchise:

• Management Skills
Managing your team is not just a crucial task, but a very tricky one. The job is conducted mostly by the team manager who should excel in the fields of communication, decision making, organisational skills, crisis management, and a vigorous value system and player management. Player management is a very intricate process which requires the manager to be able to think clearly of the needs of the team (players and the support staff), understand their concerns and act upon it. This will help you to take your team forward as one.

• Marketing Skills
No matter what the size of your team is, presenting and pitching your team to the

world is critical for image building. Marketing should be done in forms that help you to express yourself to your audience. This involves every thing starting from the print media, digital media, radio & electronic media. Marketing must involve optimum utilization of the resources available to you in requisite budget. Digitization has evolved so much that is it indispensable for you to learn its applications to market your self well.

Amidst all the glamour and attention it is quite tricky to successfully run a sports franchise in today’s digital age where you need to be on your toes to compete with your rivals

• Money management
Managing finances is must for sports franchise. It requires you to coordinate intensely. From preparing budgets and adhering to the budgets, monitoring money that goes in and out, understanding organization’s fundamentals, keeping a track of all related expenses, you must excel in all. Finance is a broad concept that also involves auctioning and buying of players. Players add value to the team and influence the brand image. During the auction it is important to logically think, bid and buy players. There will be instances where you would want to buy a player solely for his/her persona, in such situations instead of going for the face value, one must reasonably think about the form, performance, consistency and the intrinsic value the player would bring to the team.

• Patience and flexibility
It’s not possible to deliver unless you are flexible. One cannot expect instant results. Patience is the key to achieve success. There will be times when the team’s performance will not be up to the mark, but you have to be patient and accept the fact that defeat is a part and parcel of sports. At such times, motivate the players to do better. Being receptive about feedback and flexible in taking necessary actions to overcome failures will make team stronger.

• Ability to predict future trends
In today’s dynamic world, it is very crucial to predict the future of the sports and the overall sports industry, to help one take informed decisions in the present, keeping in mind the future. One can start moulding the positioning of a sports team accordingly, if one is enable to envision the future. One must also be confident about the analysis one has done about the future of sports so that one can accordingly undertake reforms in the present. This will help a team to create a legacy just like most of the international football clubs.