JioStar VP Answers Whether Football, Cricket, or F1 Can Be a Real Career

"Can a passion for football, cricket, or Formula 1 become a serious career?" — a question that has always sparked debate.

For most young people, the answer still feels unclear. The sports industry is often viewed through a very narrow lens: athletes, commentators, or perhaps coaches. But behind every IPL match, every Premier League broadcast, every Formula 1 sponsorship, and every streaming platform sits a massive business ecosystem powered by strategy, operations, media, branding, technology, analytics and storytelling.

That was the central theme of a recent conversation hosted by Masters’ Union, where Tara Anand, Associate Director, Marketing at Masters’ Union, spoke with Chandan Roy, Vice President of SMB and International Sports at JioStar. The session explored one important question: what does a real career in sports actually look like today? The answer was far bigger than most students imagined.

As Chandan Roy explained: “The financial backbone of the entire sports economy still is sponsorship.” It’s the kind of insight that completely changes how you look at sport. Suddenly, every logo on a jersey, every strategic timeout, and every on-screen integration starts to make sense as part of a much larger business machine.

Why Sports Today Functions Like a Media Business

One of the strongest themes was that modern sport no longer operates as just entertainment. Today, it functions as a massive media and business ecosystem.

Every IPL match, Premier League fixture, Formula 1 race or esports tournament involves multiple commercial systems working simultaneously behind the scenes:

Broadcasters sell advertising inventory, brands activate sponsorship campaigns, teams monetise merchandise and partnerships, and streaming platforms track viewer engagement in real time. What audiences see as a simple sporting event is actually a highly coordinated business powered by marketing, technology, analytics and strategy.

The Commercial Ecosystem Behind Every Broadcast

Chandan explained that sponsorships in sport exist across multiple layers at once. Some commercial rights belong to leagues like the BCCI or Premier League. Others belong to broadcasters, teams or streaming platforms.

Even something as familiar as a strategic timeout or an on-screen graphic during a live match is often a carefully negotiated sponsorship asset. This completely changes how students should look at the industry.

Modern sport does not just need athletes. It needs professionals who understand branding, fan engagement, technology, media rights and monetisation strategy.

Why Sponsorship Has Become the Financial Engine of Sport

One of the most insightful parts of the session was the breakdown of how sports organisations actually make money. Most fans assume ticket sales or subscriptions drive the industry. In reality, sponsorship continues to dominate.

Chandan Roy explained how leagues, teams, and broadcasters monetise almost every aspect of the sports experience. Title sponsorships, jersey branding, digital integrations, kit partnerships, hospitality rights, content collaborations, stadium naming rights and social media associations all form part of the revenue ecosystem.

Even global sporting bodies rely heavily on long-term commercial partnerships. Brands like Adidas, Emirates, Coca-Cola and Rolex are not simply buying visibility. They are buying association, loyalty and emotional relevance with audiences who are deeply invested in sport.

The conversation also highlighted how India’s sports economy differs from Western markets. Globally, many streaming businesses rely heavily on subscription revenue. In India, however, advertising still dominates. That reality makes sponsorship strategy even more important for broadcasters and sports platforms operating in the Indian market.

For students interested in marketing, branding, or media strategy, sports sponsorship represents one of the fastest-growing specialisations in the industry today.

Sports Careers Go Far Beyond Athletes

One of the biggest takeaways from the session was that sports careers today extend far beyond athletes and commentators. Modern sports organisations operate like large-scale businesses. This means they require professionals across multiple domains.

Sports marketing and sponsorship strategy have become specialised career tracks of their own. Brands now hire dedicated professionals to manage sports partnerships and activation campaigns.

Sports operations is another major vertical. Every football match, esports tournament or cricket league depends on professionals managing logistics, venue operations, security, crowd movement and broadcast coordination. The conversation also highlighted sports law as a rapidly growing field globally. Contracts, media rights, player negotiations and intellectual property all require specialised legal expertise tailored to sport.

How Streaming and Digital Media Are Changing Sports Careers

Another major theme discussed by Tara and Chandan was how digital platforms and streaming have completely reshaped the business of sport. Earlier, monetisation was limited largely to television broadcasts and live match inventory. Today, OTT platforms and mobile-first audiences have completely changed viewer behaviour.

Fans no longer engage only during the game itself. They interact before, during and after matches through highlights, social content, second-screen experiences and digital communities.

This creates new opportunities for professionals working in product management, app development, audience analytics, and content strategy. Chandan shared examples of the enormous technical challenges live sports streaming presents, especially during high-traffic global events. Concurrency, platform stability and user experience have become critical business priorities for streaming companies.

For students interested in sports media, streaming and digital content, this convergence between sport, media and technology represents one of the most exciting career shifts happening globally.

Why Passion Alone Is Not Enough

While the conversation celebrated the opportunities within sports, both speakers also stressed an equally important truth: passion alone will not build a successful career. The industry may look glamorous from the outside, but it operates with the same rigour, competitiveness and professionalism as finance, consulting or technology.

Chandan Roy addressed this directly, “being passionate or loving something is just one criteria. It doesn’t mean that it is your licence to enter the world and do well at it.”

Students often assume that loving football or cricket automatically qualifies them for sports careers. In reality, organisations are looking for specialised skills, strategic thinking and operational excellence.

Passion may get someone through the door emotionally, but expertise is what sustains long-term growth. Tara reinforced this perspective by highlighting how rapidly the industry continues to evolve. The sports ecosystem today looks completely different from what it did ten years ago, and that pace of change is only accelerating.

How Students Can Build Long-Term Careers in Sports 

Perhaps the most valuable aspect of the conversation was that it reframed sport not as a hobby industry, but as a serious business ecosystem with global scale. The opportunities are no longer limited to athletes or legacy insiders. Students with backgrounds in marketing, law, business, content, operations, analytics, or media can all find meaningful roles within the industry.

The key is understanding how sport truly functions behind the scenes. A football match is not just a game. It is a broadcast property, a sponsorship platform, a technology product, a content engine and a live entertainment business operating simultaneously.

The students who recognise that early will be the ones best positioned to build long-term careers in the industry. As the session concluded, Chandan Roy left students with a final thought that captured the spirit of the conversation perfectly: “If you love what you do, you don’t really think of it as a job.”

But throughout the session, one message remained equally clear: passion opens the door, but preparation, skill and strategic thinking are what help people stay inside the industry and grow within it.