SportVot Startup Story - Digital TV for Local Sports Talent
đź“„Company Profiles
Company Profile is an initiative by StartupTalky to publish verified information on different startups and organizations. The content in this post has been approved by SportVot.
SportVot has made streaming sports tournaments a one-click process with the use of smartphones. It is a digital TV for local sports talent and emerging leagues in India. SportVot provides a platform for sport bodies to stream their games online, local sports talent to show their skills, make them more marketable and helps them get discovered by a network of scouts/coaches as well as connect the fans to their local heroes.
Founded by Siddhant Agarwal, Shubhangi Gupta and Yash Bhagwatkar in 2019, SportVot has managed to build its presence in local areas by covering 5000+ games across 56 different sports, profiling 20,000+ athletes in just 12 months!
StartupTalky interviewed Shubhangi Gupta (Co-founder & CMO, SportVot) to get an insight on the Startup Story of SportVot. Also get a glance on SportVot Revenue model, funding, growth, marketing strategies and more in this article ahead!
SportVot - Company Highlights
| Startup Name | SportVot |
|---|---|
| Founding Team | Founder - Siddhant Agarwal (CEO), Co-founders - Shubhangi Gupta (CMO), Yash Bhagwatkar (COO) |
| Founding Year | 2019 |
| Headquarters | Mumbai |
| Sector | Sports Media Technology |
About SportVot
SportVot - Sports Media Industry Details
SportVot - Founders and Team
SportVot Ideation - How it Started?
SportVot - Products/Services offered
SportVot - Name Meaning and Logo
SportVot - Business Model and Revenue Model
SportVot - Startup Launch
SportVot - Challenges Faced
SportVot - Marketing Strategy
SportVot - Growth and Current Status
SportVot - Funding and Investors
SportVot - Competitors
Tools used by SportVot
SportVot - Recognition and Achievements
SportVot - Future Plans
SportVot - FAQs
About SportVot
SportVot is a digital TV for local sports talent and emerging leagues in India. Grassroots or local sports tournaments have a longer recall and emotional value with kids, parents and their friends and family. But unfortunately broadcasting them via traditional media platforms is not an economical fit for both the Sports bodies and media houses, leaving about 94% of the ecosystem uncovered.
SportVot with its technology and services has made broadcasting economical and easily accessible to  these sports bodies. SportVot provides a platform for sport bodies to stream their games online, local sports talent to show their skills, make them more marketable and helps them get discovered by a network of scouts/coaches as well as connect the fans to their local heroes.
"There are around 10m athletes and 100k tournaments worth streaming in India, we want to grow from 150 to 1000 tournaments in the next one year (by 2022) and unearth more hidden talent in the country" says Shubhangi Gupta, Co-founder & CMO, SportVot
Ashwini
SportVot - Sports Media Industry Details
In India, there are approximately 10 million aspiring/emerging athletes (U-19), and around 100k+ semi-professional/ professional tournaments that takes place annually. But most athletes do not get access to the right set of tools and platforms to showcase their talent. This results in a lack of transparency in talent discovery which in turn increases the number of dropouts in the Indian Sports Ecosystem.
The sports media revenue in the Asia Pacific is estimated to grow to up to USD 6.6 billion by the end of 2024. Out of this, 40% is estimated to be through the OTT/digital channels. These estimated numbers are across the super-premium level. Currently, there are more than 10 Billion Impressions on local sports content scattered over YouTube, Facebook, and other  social media platforms. There can be see an increase in demand & engagement for local sports content with limited supply available. In India, sports as an industry is scattered and disorganized, SportVot has been strategically designed to create unique IPs and generate revenue from this fragmented sports economy.
SportVot - Founders and Team
SportVot Founder - Siddhant Agarwal (CEO), SportVot Co-founders - Shubhangi Gupta (CMO) and Yash Bhagwatkar (COO)
Siddhant Agarwal | Founder & CEO
Siddhant has 8 years of experience building software and technology products. He has Worked with Oracle and Cashcare in the past. Built Thisgameweek, the first cross geography real money multi currency fantasy gaming platform, operational in India and Africa, partnered with Nazara games (largest mobile gaming platform in India) for publishing the game across geographies. Exited it in late 2018. Currently, at the helm of SportVot since January 2019.
Yash Bhagwatkar | Co-Founder & COO
Yash has 3 years of operational experience, with 2 years of corporate operations at Accenture. He has spearheaded the sports operational network of broadcasters, content creators, sports talent, and data collectors in Maharashtra, Kerala, Tamil Nadu and Delhi.
Shubhangi Gupta | Co- Founder & CMO
Digital marketing and Branding executive with around 4 years of experience. She has developed around 40+ brands including some marquee brands. She also had 2 other startups in the past. One named EthKnits, a handicraft online boutique, and Nite Owls, a small Digital Marketing agency specializing in startups.
Ashwini
SportVot Ideation - How it Started?
Siddhant and Yash being a passionate sports lover, they used to work on cricket & football analytics together and also had their own YouTube show named The Free Hit Project. A couple of months into their show, they kept interacting with a couple of sports enthusiasts and saw the need of more sports coverage beyond the regular International Football and Cricket leagues. A lot of upcoming talent came to them to make their cricket performance reports to help them get better placements. That was the beginning of the idea of SportVot's core product and vision of the company. To create a technology to cater to the grassroots sports.
SportVot - Products/Services offered
With the rise in penetration of 4g and affordable smartphones, high speed internet is available to everyone at a reasonably low price. SportVot has made streaming sports tournaments a one click process with use of the hardware that you all possess i.e. your smartphone, thus reducing the dependency on the use of external hardware and software. The SportVot ecosystem enables these tournament organizers and clubs to make their tournaments fully digital right from streaming, instant highlights, scoring to fixture management. This, in turn, makes these games and the athletes participating in them more marketable and discoverable to a wider audience.
SportVot - Name Meaning and Logo
The SportVot team wanted to keep the name Indian friendly.
"We were just joking about the fact that how Indians say namak shamak, kal wal, etc. So we came up with SportVot, with the intention that we may not just limit ourselves to sports but other talent as well at some point in time." Shubhangi added.
SportVot - Business Model and Revenue Model
Currently, the primary sources of revenue of SportVot are - direct income from streaming services and advertisements/sponsorships. Pay per view has been tested at very low scale on a pilot basis. They basically get paid to acquire its own consumers.
Rishabh Rathi
SportVot - Startup Launch and Marketing Strategy
The first 100 users of SportVot were via streaming DSO games and building a sports community on social media channels. The team made sure to put relevant content to build the community on Whatsapp, Instagram and Facebook. With the help of that, SportVot kept growing and its name became more evident in the sports community.
Apart from community building, SportVot received incredible partnership opportunities with Barcelona Academy Delhi for live streaming their annual Asia Pacific Cup in January 2020. It also covered some esteemed games like Rajasthan Basketball League, Yuva Sena Kabaddi League, etc.
The main marketing strategy of SportVot that helped the company a lot was building a sports community for all kinds of sports. It now has a good fan base on its digital platforms, who are loyal and keep approaching the platform for more content.
Karan suri
SportVot - Challenges Faced
Figuring out the camera set up for live streaming at low cost was a challenge. Not every tournament organizer can afford  expensive set up and a lot of the team's time went in research and development for the right set of tools required to make this process cheap and easy.
SportVot - Growth and Current Status
In just 12 months, SportVot has managed to build its presence in local areas of Maharashtra, Rajasthan, Kerala and Delhi by covering 5000+ games across 56 different sports, profiling 20,000+ athletes, and building a strong community of more than a million sports enthusiasts on its digital channels. This passionate sports community of tier 2, tier 3 and rural areas of India helps the team to get more brand sponsorships which in turn assist these unique sports talent, and even tournaments, to get more support and visibility.
SportVot - Funding and Investors
SportVot recently raised AUD 25,000 from StartupBootCamp in an accelerator programmer. Prior to this, SportVot received INR 25,00,000 as Friends and Family round.
SportVot Funding Details is as follows -
| Date | Stage | Amount | Investors Name |
|---|---|---|---|
| September 2019 | Friends & Family | INR 21 Lakhs | Ashay Pradeep Bandivadekar |
| September 2019 | Friends & Family | INR 4 Lakhs | Rakesh Murarka |
| June 2021 | Accelerator Programme | AUD 25,000 (~ INR 14.2 Lakhs) | StartupBootCamp |
Jeenal Jain
SportVot - Competitors
SportVot has no direct Indian competitors in this domain yet. Some indirect competitors of SportVot are Overtime, Pitchvision, Dfocus.
Tools used by SportVot
Airtable, Gsuite, Slack are tools used by SportVot to run the startup.
SportVot - Recognition and Achievements
SportVot received recognition from local and political event organizers for streaming events at very low cost.
SportVot - Future Plans
SportVot wants to expand to more geographies in India and work on interesting features on the app to promote talent discovery. There are around 10m athletes and 100k tournaments worth streaming in India, SportVot wants to grow from 150 to 1000 tournaments in the next one year and unearth more hidden talent in the country.
SportVot - FAQs
What is SportVot?
SportVot is a digital TV for local sports talent and emerging leagues in India. SportVot provides a platform for sport bodies to stream their games online, local sports talent to show their skills, make them more marketable and helps them get discovered by a network of scouts/coaches as well as connect the fans to their local heroes.
Who founded SportVot?
SportVot Founder - Siddhant Agarwal (CEO), SportVot Co-founders - Shubhangi Gupta (CMO) and Yash Bhagwatkar (COO)
Who are the competitors of SportVot?
SportVot has no direct Indian competitors in this domain yet. Some indirect competitors of SportVot are Overtime, Pitchvision, Dfocus.
How does SportVot make money?
Primary sources of revenue of SportVot are - direct income from streaming services and advertisements/sponsorships. Pay per view has been tested at very low scale on a pilot basis. They basically get paid to acquire its own consumers.
Must have tools for startups - Recommended by StartupTalky
- Convert Visitors into Leads- SeizeLead
- Manage your business smoothly- Google Workspace
- International Money transfer- XE Money Transfer
