The RCB Unbox event organised in Bengaluru on March 26 witnessed the launch of multiple initiatives by the IPL franchise. These include RCB Innovation Lab which, besides venturing into sports ed tech and R&D for performance enhancement, will set up startup programmes with leading sports and health tech accelerators.
Speaking at the event, Rajesh Menon, Head & Vice President, Royal Challengers Bangalore, said, “RCB’s mission is to be the best performing and most trusted T20 franchise. Keeping that mission at the centre, we have a couple of strategic priorities. One is to drive inclusion and diversity. We did that by getting a team in the Women’s Premier League. Second is how to make RCB permanent throughout the year – that was critical for us. We understood that if we want sports to move in India, we need to touch different aspects of sports, which means sports-tech, science, management, and multiple facets. We figured out that it has to be an amalgamation of multiple work streams together. Hence, we created RCB Innovation Lab.”
The stated objective of RCB Innovation Lab is ‘to create insight, ideas, methodologies and products that shape the future of sports in India.’
The initiative will strive to bring sports innovation to as many people and collaborate with innovative organisations, added an official statement.
In association with the LEADERS, an organiser of global sports community events, RCB will connect influential people in sports to powerful ideas in sports, it said. The first two-day event will see speakers from over 15 countries. Around 750 senior brand executives are expected to attend and showcase their offerings to the sports fraternity.
The digital eventuality
Asked about the fight for eyeballs between linear TV and streaming and RCB’s expectation on viewership share of each, Menon said, “If you look at how the IPL rights went, that itself is an indication on where the system and media is heading to.”
“If you look at the strategies of RCB as a team, it is over-indexing on digital. We want to create our own platform over a period of time, so that we are not dependent on third party platforms and include everything in-house. For example: our ticketing agent is in-house. The sports edtech I have mentioned earlier, all of these are coming on our platform. We want to create an ecosystem within RCB which houses all the products and services which we want to offer,” he added.
A Green ‘Movement’
Menon said, “Our green initiatives started in 2011. We became Carbon positive in 2013 and have undertaken multiple go green initiatives in Bangalore since then. We want to move ahead and make this a movement, not just an activity.”
Three broad themes RCB will work on are inclusion and diversity, water and reducing carbon footprint.
“We believe in practice first and then preach. As a first step, we are looking to restore two lakes in South Bengaluru covering 44 acres. This will become a template where communities are involved and take it forward,” he added.
The team has entered an alliance with volunteering platform Goodera to drive its green initiatives ‘Green Lakes’, ‘Green Schools’, ‘Green Stadium’ and ‘Green Army’.
RCB revealed plans to convert nearly 200 schools in Bengaluru into ‘Green Schools’.
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