When Vivek Ranadive left the city as a 16-year-old to pursue higher education in the U.S., the thought of travelling over the sea was exhilarating. Decades later, the 61-year-old software entrepreneur is coming home to just that as he will make his way to Worli’s NSCI stadium on the sea link, as well as another dream: two NBA sides playing a live pre-season game in Mumbai.
Mr. Ranadive is the owner of NBA team Sacramento Kings, one of two squads slated to play the first of the two pre-season games at the NSCI (against Indiana Pacers) on Friday. He moved from being co-owner and vice-chairman at Golden State Warriors (2010) to buying the Kings from previous owners in 2013 as part of a group. His vision for NBA acceptance and growth in India, starting off with a pre-season game between two teams from an American league, is days away from fruition. Mr. Ranadive has made several trips to India earlier, but this will be his first as team owner for a pre-season game in an Indian stadium, along the city seafront.
The NBA India Games 2019 activities in Mumbai include a floating basketball court on the Arabian Sea, close to the Bandra end of the sea link. Though matches will be played indoors, this outdoor court amidst the waves is the sort of out-of-box thinking by NBA India that the information technology entrepreneur would approve. With the city facing a serious shortage of open spaces, basketball may the spark for more such options. The sport is played between five-player teams and is being explored as a 3x3 variation on hard courts indoors.
Mr. Ranadive has not played basketball, but has used mathematics and scoring patterns to coach his daughter Anjali’s US school team for the State title. The Sacramento Kings owner is using technology to enhance fan access to games, retain fan loyalty to the franchise and develop his team’s fan base across continents. Setting up NBA India in 2011 was the first step, resulting in academies across the nation for training and tournaments with local children. The NBA India Games 2019 is another move on that road that he is trying to build, a link across the seas between Indian basketball fans and the NBA.
The geek in the game
Known as ‘Mr. Real Time’ in information technology circles, Vivek Ranadive’s company, Teknekron Software Systems, digitalised Wall Street and the technology gained acceptance in the world’s capital markets. The next company he founded, TIBCO Software, gained acceptance for using real-time computing information for business decisions. Mr. Ranadive is co-founder of venture fund Bow Capital, has written three books (The Power of Now, The Power to Predict and The Two-Second Advantage). He completed a Masters in Electrical Engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and has an MBA from Harvard College.
