New Delhi, January 12 – Bollywood’s union with sports was for long only about gossip glossies, chasing juicy bits on cricketer-heroine romances. While Virat Kohli and Anushka Sharma have kept the tradition intact, our filmstars are slowly learning to look at sports as a business prospect, too.
The trend of owning teams has now moved beyond IPL, with several stars getting into franchise possession in the Indian Super League (ISL) and Pro Kabaddi League (PKL) last year. Associating with sports is the easiest way for filmstars to cement the ‘youth icon’ status.
In turn, sports benefit from the liberal cash flow coming in with the stardom. There is another advantage for Bollywood. It gets to explore the hitherto dormant genre of sports movie. With stray exceptions such as Lagaan in 2001 and Chak De! India in 2007, not many producers dabbled with the genre.
So far, it always made business sense to segregate sports from Bollywood, to let each field make money in its own way. The scene is changing. Filmstars and entrepreneurs alike have realised the real money lies in merging the two domains.
So, while filmmakers line up sport biopics and plots riding sporting backdrops, filmstars continue being spotted at football, cricket and kabaddi matches to ensure bigger television ratings for the sports.
-INDIA TODAY
