Bangalore, MAY 01,
Aravind N steps out of the Flying Birdie Badminton Arena, in BTM Layout, with his orange crew-neck T-shirt now turned several shades darker by sweat. He has just finished playing an intense doubles match with a few people he met a few hours ago.
It is half past eight on a Friday night, and all four courts at the centre are occupied, with people watching their friends play doubles, while awaiting their turn.
Aravind is done for the day. He, however, will be back here or at some other badminton centre the next day, like he has been for the last six months.
“I was overweight, nearly 120 (kg). I started played and lost 50 kilos,” he shares.
For Sudheer Kumar, sports is a way to meet people. It has been two months since he, an electronics engineer, moved to Bengaluru for his job. “I don’t know anyone here. So, after work, I mostly join a badminton session, meet new people and play with them. It is nice.”
For Anjali Krishnan, a home-maker, sports is a family outing. She plays badminton with her husband and eight-year-old son.
Facilitating the play
For many reasons, sports is fast-becoming a preferred pastime in the city.
This can be gauged by the increasing number of pay-and-play centres in the city. Two years ago, the sports app — PlayO — tied up with 140 such centres in Bengaluru. Now, it has 450.
PlayO, with 1.1 million users, is said to be among the leading sports apps in India that help people discover nearby play areas, book them and host matches there.
Gauravjeet Singh, a former investment banker, founded the app, influenced by two personal incidents: first, his tennis and basketball spartners moved to a different city, leaving him “stranded”; second, his sister-in-law, who was living alone in the United States, told him she did not know anyone to play a sport, despite her wanting to.
“Sports used to be a fun part of our lives. Yet, there was no proper recreational sports for adults. As in, the offline community was lacking here.
Hence, I wanted to build a social network for sports, where one can meet new people and play with strangers,” he says. Even if one does not have partners to play with, they can either join a session hosted by another user on the app or host a session and invite others. That is how Sudheer met people with whom he plays regularly now.
“Sometimes you might end up playing with people who are far worse or way better at the game. But you can see their level (based on rating by self and by opponents) on the app before booking. PlayO is good that way,” he says.
Centres aplenty
There are several similar apps in Bengaluru now — Spyn, Groundwala, Athletto among others — that has made it easy for people to find sporting venues and owners of such venues to get more people.
And, more centres continue to spawn to attract the rapidly growing amateur sporting community.
Feather Touch Sports Arena, in JP Nagar, with eight badminton courts, hosts 400 people on weekdays, claims its co-owner Umesh Krishna.
TurfPark in Koramangala — with four football turfs, six badminton courts and a swimming pool — hosts 1,100 people on weekdays, according to its owner Anurag Barmecha.
Badminton far outnumbers other sports in Bengaluru.
It, with 38, 033 bookings, tops the list for the most booked sport on PlayO. Football ranks second with 4,035.
“It is an indoor sport, weather conditions do not matter, so people can play it any time,” says Umesh, explaining the popularity of badminton.
Rahul Antony (whose company, Sporthood, manages the badminton courts of TurfPark) suggests, “Because it is not a very physical sport, many people find it easier to start badminton rather than football.
Another thing is, it is easier to gather two or four people to play badminton than to gather 16 to 20 people for soccer.”
Competition grows
With more sports centres coming up, the old ones need to stay up-to-date with their facility and maintenance to not to lose out on their customers, feels Anurag.
“Three years ago, people went go to any centre because there were only a few. But now, these guys have the option to choose the good ones.”
Karthik Srivats, a regular at TurfPark, agrees.
He plays with his colleagues for three or more hours, every Friday.
The cost (?350 per hour for badminton) here is higher than many centres in the city. But he says, “If you don’t play on an even, smooth surface, you might injure your knee. So, it is worth paying the price.”
Looking at his colleagues, Karthik says, “Despite working in the same office, we all knew each other only through badminton,” and pauses.
