What’s RevSportz? No exaggeration this, a few inside the Imperial Hotel lawns in New Delhi on Saturday evening and Sunday, just past 0000 hours, were asking this question. By the end of it all, when RevSportz won the biggest award, “the best digital sports news channel,” having swept five ENBA awards in digital category for sports, it became clear what this platform is all about.
At the risk of sounding invidious, RevSportz has triumphed in a dense media field. There are big players, there are media houses with their own digital websites which are supposed to be massive. No doubting that. It boasts of big names, the competition is fierce out there. And when you factor the age of RevSportz, still a baby, it walked the ramp on a red carpet and climbed the podium five times last night.
Such was the enthusiasm from Dr Annurag Batra, founder and chairman of exhange4mediagroup, he made it a point to mention on stage to three of us from the RevSportz family receiving the awards, he missed Boria Majumdar on stage. Yes, we also did, for “BM”, as he goes by initial in the official groups of RevSportz, has built the best digital sports news channel brick by brick.
As a professional sports writer with 37 years hard grind, this was something new – to receive awards. I have mostly gone to report on athletes winning awards, be it the Laureus Awards in Portugal two decades back or several editions of the National Sports Awards at the Rashtrapati Bhawan, where the Khel Ratna and the Arjuna Awards are very big.
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Team RevSportz receives the Best Talk Show English (Silver) award at the #ENBAAwards for Backstage With Boria! @gargiraut15 @kannandelhi @g_rajaraman @BoriaMajumdar pic.twitter.com/bPJcgfzSnG
— RevSportz (@RevSportz) March 30, 2024
Well, these ENBA awards are no less, chosen by a jury. Now comes the story, how RevSports won these awards. It is all about conception, planning and execution. It’s non-stop, 24×7, be it Diwali, Holi, New Year or any other day. It’s non-stop, for sports today is like that. Nobody gets tired really at RevSportz, as there is a process of getting a break when needed. Yet, the command chain, so important, has ensured the coverage has been top class.
Numbers don’t lie, and in a digital platform, everything is out there in public domain – hits, views, new visitors – plus more. I am just six months old in RevSportz but can only say, each day has been busy, packed, exciting. Winning these awards means one has to get even better, daily, non-stop. Expectations are bound to increase, for that is the kind of content which RevSportz has produced daily. The website has written stories, video interviews, live shows, plus its linked to Facebook, Insta, Twitter, all of which gives the right thrust to a massive audience.
The easiest way out for a digital sports channel is to produce cricket content and forget the rest of sports which exist. No, RevSportz has done justice to each sporting discipline, cricket and non-cricket. It is this mix which is responsible for the platform attracting attention, arousing interest and instilling desire among fans, readers and viewers.
Each bit of content produced is after ideation and detailed planning, nothing is haphazard. There is a structure in place, which is why from the Asian Games and Para Asiad in Hangzhou last year to the ICC World Cup in 2023 and now the Indian Premier League, all content being belted out by RevSportz is lapped up by the audience.
This does not mean the winners will forget what to do the next morning. Past glory lasts a few hours, maximum, a day. Each Indian athlete preparing for the Paris Olympics and Paralympics is training hard. He or she has gone through a qualification process. Yes, their success will be captured and medals celebrated, emotions captured.
Here comes the difference. RevSportz captures triumph and tragedy, smiles and tears, medals and no medals. RevSportz celebrates the essence of sport, compete, you will become a champion one day, soon. A failure in the field of play is not condemned by RevSportz, be it the Indian women’s hockey team not making it for the Paris Olympics or the Blue Tigers coming short against Afghanistan recently. RevSportz backs the winner as well as the losers. Nobody likes to lose, for, he or she will keep trying. That is the spirit of RevSportz, especially in relation to covering Olympic sports and Asian Games sports.
Each alphabet stands for a sport, from A to Y – athletics to yachting. RevSportz takes note of all this. And this is not just once every few years when the Olympics come or the Asian Games. Tracking daily events, tournaments, wins, injuries, pain, poise and medals, each bit is captured for posterity by RevSportz.
When you talk of raising the bar, the immediate thought will be high jump. At RevSportz, the bar is raised every day, by the centimetre. To peak on the big stage, RevSportz has done it on a regular basis. Yes, the room, for growth and experimentation is massive, and a digital platform offers multiple choices.
Indeed, I have no hesitation, RevSportz has set the benchmark in coverage of non-cricket stuff. Athletes are slogging, each story has to be told. Champions are working hard, daily, day and night. RevSportz is with them and will be there in Paris this July/August in full force. Last but not least, RevSportz does offer opinions but has no agenda-driven coverage as far as sports go.
Like the Indian athletes who will go to Paris, to try and win medals, RevSportz will try and capture each bit of action. It’s a challenge, but this team, headed by Captain Boria Majumdar has never shied away. After all, as I had said on stage while receiving the ENBA awards with my colleagues G.Rajaraman and Gargi Raut, a team is as good as the captain. Just as an athlete will do his best for the captain and coach, we journos will try and give our best to our captain – BM – and coach/manager Sharmistha Gooptu.
Also Read: Awards a vindication of RevSportz’s founding philosophy