Sports tend to be an important part of life while pursuing an education, becoming less of a priority as work and professional commitments come into the picture. SP Subramanyam was a natural in sports till his post-graduation, albeit at an amateur level. Work happened in Bengaluru, and his physical activity inched closer to stagnancy. His next stop in the US though, was a transformational one. Beyond football and cricket, he joined fitness clubs and private leagues, learnt to play tennis, racquet ball, squash and picked up ice skating. He rediscovered his love for sports. When work brought him back to India; this time, he was keen to fill the void experienced by sports enthusiasts. After a decade with his software company Infionic, comes his brainchild SLAN, an app-based initiative that forms a network of sports enthusiasts in a city across various games. Available on Google Play, it gives people access to a platform for venues, to host private leagues and tournaments.
He says, “The aim behind SLAN is to make playing sport a habit in adults, create an oft-ignored mindspace for it in people’s minds. Any adult who doesn’t play sports in his/her older age attributes it to three reasons: lack of time, company and a proper place to play. While time is more about attitude, this initiative will solve the other two problems.” The league-based format is an attempt to set a goalpost: the regulation to play a certain number of matches week after week aims to be a gradual motivation for users to play. The Android app, currently available in Hyderabad, offers users a chance to choose from chess, carrom, table tennis, badminton, box cricket, football and volleyball.
Subramanyam says, “The idea of not giving up sports was enough inspiration to bring people along. The software enterprise that we run helps us understand the behavioural patterns of web and mobile users. We figured out a lot in making SLAN a user-friendly app that packages a lot of information — events, corporates, venues, leagues, tournaments and age-groups at once.” A virtual gaming facility was never their aim, given the abundance of such options in the mobile space. Prompting a user to go beyond four walls, opening them to a larger space devoid of the device-driven world was the sole focus.
What were the challenges? “Getting people to play wasn’t a big task; getting them accustomed to a league, devise strategies, play one day in every week, was. We did a pre-launch series in February to help them embrace the idea, while our summer league started earlier last month. Scrabble, bowling, billiards are on the cards soon.” Users need to provide their mobile number and name to register for the league and will have to rate their skill level to ensure rightly-matched competitors.
“It’s important to do a quality job; we ensure refreshments, video recordings of the matches and use technology to ease our operations. The app is optimisable, flexible and guarantees usability.” The choice of an app over a website was to cater to the ever-growing market of smartphone users. The team is adding analytics-oriented features to the app and helping users monitor scores and progress in the game, besides throwing a discussion forum open. Plans are on to extend this idea to Chennai, Mumbai and Bengaluru soon, though their immediate interest is to create a niche in this space. A few months from now will also see them coming up with tournaments to tap the skills of the marginalised, whose major problem too is access and opportunity.
