SPORTSCOMM – PREPROCESS 1

1. Give a brief statement of purpose (SOP) in 200 words and give us

reasons as to why you are a good candidate for the role?

“When you play you are always in the limelight. As imposing as it

sounds, you understand there is a bigger picture that is running
behind you. “

I have always seen myself as an avid follower of sports – specifically basketball and
football.I have been a basketball player for a large part of my life. I have always
been a sports enthusiast and I can confidently say that I am conversant with
the basic knowledge of several sports. One day, we were’nt provided with a
water dispenser, as meagre as it sounds we realised how such small thing
impact players.Since then, rather than just following the game I try to
understand the naunces of how, what and why things are happening behind the
screen. Thus I want to be part of a system were I am not only the one who takes
part but runs the show from behind.

I if elected as a Junior Core, want to establish a community were people can easily
communicate, come togethor , appreciate each other and play sports. A
community were all students are involved and not just people who play
conventional sports but anything of their interest ; were nobody feels they don’t
belong (with respect to sports).

Why Me:
• I have a prior experience in handling sports events from my school. As the
part of the school Sports Committee, we organised a regional level Sports
Fest for Basketball, Football and Tennis.

• I have been a part of IIM Basketball League, IIM Table Tennis League and
IPM Table Tennis League. I have had a chance of closely observing how the
 events are organized. I also got a chance to referee a match during the IPM
Basketball League.

• I have played in the National Level Basketball tournament in 2019 after

winning the CLUSTERS in Tamil Nadu. I have followed how the game
works and have understood it to the best of my understanding.

• When it comes to duties of my interest, here, anything related to sports, I

can assure the bestest of effort and contribution from my side. I am ready to
step outside my comfort zone to learn and do work which I am not used to,
but ready to learn.

2. Describe the various problems that the IPM Sports Committee faced
in the past and give feasible solutions for the same.

Clash of schedule:

Scheduling problem arises in two ways.

Student’s schedule needs to be accommodated while planning an event. The event

should be started on time and completed on time. Delay of events can also disturb
students’ schedule.

Solution: Keep a contingency extension just in case there is a delay of events which
participants should not know. Plan on starting event before announced time. Make
participants realise patience as a necessity for SportsComm events. If there is a clash
of schedule for any particular participant, give a prior notice period before which
they should inform. Be ready to reschedule.

PGP events also happen on same premises. There is a chance of clash of events and
participants participating in both events.

Solution: Establish a proper communication sysstem with PGP SportsComm. Come

up with aarrangement to conduct different sports. Plan out a schedule and decide all
the events that will be conducted in that period of time for both PGP and IPM to
prevent overlap of the same event at the same point of time.

Girl Participation:

IPM as a community encourages participation irrespective of gender. There has been

limited female participation without any incentives for sports events.

Solution: Incentives and cumpolsary participation of girls has already been

inititated by the SportsComm in previous years which was successfull. Bring back
female specific events like IPM Throwball League and new leagues like Kho-Kho for
girls.

Availabilty & Maintenance of ground:

The IIM community has wonderful sports facilities for all major sports but
maintenance is a very important responsibility.

Solution:

Always keep a check on maintenance especially mess 2 ground, basketball court and
sports stadium. Make sure tt tables and snooker table is in usable condition. Plan
events such that there is no clash with other events.

Catering Online Audience & enhance media presence:

The last 2 years has seen a change in the domain of SportComm. Social Media
became the main source to engage participants which was challenging.

Solution: Hopefully, we are past that period but social media presence and keeping
online events helps in keeping in touch with participats throughout. Bring back
weekly quizes, daily fact suggested by followers (best suggestion gets a shouout).
Bring back podcasts with captains of teams and best player in league.
3. The IPM Sports Committee has conducted a variety of online
events over the past two years. List down all of these events and
give a brief description. Given that the next annual year will be
compulsorily offline, do you think that the online events should
be conducted? If yes, give reasons. If no, give reasons.

2020-21:

Tri-Gam-ia:

Events : SmashKarts, Bonks and Stumble Guys

Date : 11 – 13 February 2021

The Tri-Gam-ia was an online events conducted for IPM ’19,’20 and ’21 batch boys
and girls. It was a 3 round event which saw active participation from students. There
were 211 registrations for all three events comnbined.

IPM 21 Skills Challenge:

Posted on 10 December 2021 on Instagram

Section A won the event with 279 likes over Section B’s 260 likes

(Coul not find Annual Report of 2019-20)

I feel it is necessary to conduct online events. E-Sports or many online games for the
matter has active participation from students. I would say the addition of online
games to the domain of SportsComm has widened the potential. Online events
requires minimal efforts & prior knowledge. There is no need of physical presence,i.e
they can participate from anywhere (comfortable location). Nobody’s there to see you
when you get thrashed. Time constraint to a large extent is removed , events have a
larger time frame to be conducted (It is difficult to conduct a football match at 11pm).
Minimal requirment of resources, permission from required authorities and
manpower required.

I would even suggest creation of a discord server run by the committe

members or a representative selected by the community following a set
procedure.

4. Give a detailed account as to how you plan to increase the

efficiency and outreach of the IPM Sports Committee through
social media and event coverage.

Social Media presence is very important. It not only engages the current students but
also garners attention from outside viewers and aspirants who are potential students.
It could create an impression of how well the community is as a whole which is a free
promotion in itself.

Social Outreach:
Social media handles are the informal outlook system of the IIM Community.
Designing posts and stories to present the events as a self-explanatory series creates
an interest among external viewers. It helps break the notion that IIMs are academic
intensive institutions.

Inclusion of Community as a whole:

Social media handles are informal.
Reels contests and weekly challenges with people voting to choose the best among
entries increase the attention on the social media handle. Student suggestions for
challenges make these events, even more, participant friendly.
Event Promotion:
The majority of the social media handles followers are the institute students. It
becomes an easy source to garner attention on events like Section Wars and Batch
Wars.
Participation of students can be increased by creating fan polls on stories for who will
score the most, best among two players, etc. during batch wars and section wars. This
develops a sense of involvement among the students who are not participating in
these events.

Incentivise promotional activities by students:

We assume, the league starts two days after the auction. We are supposed to give
1000 points to each team. We give 900 points to each team and plan on giving 100
brownie points if they share the content on their social media. We post about the
league before the auction and if the captains share that on their social media the
team gets the 100 brownie points.

Promotion between SAC Entities and SAG’s:

SAC Entities and SAG’s can promote specific and important events of each other
among themselves. This provides a higher outreach and portrays the whole separate
entities as a part of a unified community.

Bonus Question:

Aviral:
To the best of my knowledge, Aviral plays limited sports. I personally, have seen him
play only basketball. Abhisumat on the other hand plays a lot of sports like football,
basketball, Badminton and Cricket
Abhisumat:
Abhisumat always tries to lead his team and stand out in any sport he plays. People
expect the best out of him. This on an individual level is very good for him, but
maybe as a co-ordinator he might want to be the “standing out” leader of the
committe which I feel is not good for the committee.