Mr. Amit Saran - The Rejuvenator of Fire in Sports

His heart had a hidden love for sports since young, but only after spending 21 years in the corporate world, in 1998, Mr. Amit Saran started his sports management company which goes by the name SPT Sports.  He believes that when people enjoy doing something, they would really want to go ahead with it. “I have always enjoyed working at SPT sports and it has fetched me a rewarding experience,” says Mr. Saran.

After having read a newspaper article that stated about an Asian Gold Medallist selling snacks in the streets of Chandni Chowk in New Delhi, he felt dismayed and the thought of setting up a company for ‘what the sports heroes deserve’ ignited in him.

In early 1992, he started organizing summer camp for students in Noida and he received appreciable response. He then shifted to Bangalore and quit his job after 5 years to take up Sports Management as profession. He has worked hard and gradually scaled it up to now having 2 football academies in Assam, one in Noida along with a golf academy, 3 in Bangalore and another in Mumbai which is currently closed. In 2000, he started up his action plan with Golf. He now aims at establishing more academies in different parts of the country so that children get opportunities to play.
Mr. Amit Saran - The Rejuvenator of Fire in Sports, championship
In the 1990s, the initial stages of his vision, Mr. Saran started out with monthly Tennis Tournaments which were encouraged with receiving help from KSLTA. The vision he has taken SPT up is to get sports people to get rehabilitated and also to focus on getting children into core competencies of their skills. He proudly says, “SPT Sports was one of the foremost companies to bring in sports coaches.” He brought the US Golf Teachers Federation to India to train those golfers who wanted to become coaches in the country. He believes that with Infrastructure, Coaching and Competitions in balance, anything could be achieved.

Mr. Amit saran personally loves Golf and Football and also believes that these sports have great future for their sportsmen. On expressing his views over Cricket, he says that Cricket is a game which is over-sold as too many people are involved in it.

The STP sports is an integrated sports management company as they organize sports events for corporates and schools, and also for the open public everywhere across the country. They also happen to have bagged the contract of Football Five's World Championship, Dubai- wherein 48 countries participate in a 5-a-side football tournament. The company also does the work of providing sports infrastructure for institutions/organizations and provides Sports Tourism which works on taking people out and into India for Sports. Besides everything else, Mr. Saran goes out to different cities and countries to talk about tourism.

As a fact he mentions that league matches have now changed timings to suit the Indian sub-continent and the matches which were being played late at night are now being played earlier to have viewers from India which shows that Indian land has a huge potential.

According to Mr. Amit, in India infrastructure and coaches persist but are not good enough to prepare sportsmen with ability to compete at International level because of the existing method of teaching which happens to be too old and needs a lot of improvisation. He believes that India faces defeats as it lacks international matches and this will carry on until we don’t have competitive leagues of that level.
Mr. Amit Saran - The Rejuvenator of Fire in Sports, championship
As said, ‘Practice makes a man perfect’, Mr. Saran agrees to it by expressing the need of a lot of competitions and sharing an instance, where he loses to his opponent in a competitive tennis match even if he has easily beaten him on several occasions before. “I may be the best player in my club but when it comes to playing a competitive game I mentally prepare myself for it,” mentions Amit.

In 1988, when Amit Saran organized his first competition in Bangalore for children, he was amazed to witness the interest of their parents too in the sport of Tennis. And, every time he has received a better response since then.

This sports academy organizes football tournaments every month and Mr. Saran finds parents and children reciprocating to them with a sense of happiness. He is happy that he was fortunate enough to have his sons join his team and coaches from Spain and Britain used to train coaches in his Academy twice a week but he expresses his despair that coaching and sports in our country unfortunately haven’t yet been realised as a profession.

Amit quotes, "When you take up a job it doesn't mean that you are excellent at it. You have to keep learning." He has implied these principles in life which have helped him overcome the challenges of getting a decent infrastructure. It was a major challenge as he feels that for any aspiring individual who wants to take sports management as business in India, it is not easy and reliable as the country lacks the kind of sports facilities available in countries like USA and UK.

He believes that although ours is a huge country, we still do not have land because our older generation never realized that sports can be a very big game changer in the development of personality of an individual. He also thinks that sports bring in a lot of character into an individual besides inducing leadership that a child learns to accept loses and learns to face it. Hence he suggests parents to put their children into any of the sports, especially the ones with a single child. He stresses on the necessity for children to play by saying that parents and administration should realise that everybody is not a topper in his/her school.

He then adds, “Sports is becoming more of a business in the recent days and thinking of sports as a business alone is not right; I would be earning a lakh rupees everyday if SPT sports academy started with that motive.”
The inspiration to continue till the vision turns reality was ignited in Mr. Saran on watching the movie portraying Milkha Singh's life and career. He also mentions Kapil Dev in his list of inspirations which have helped him stay up with his work and put efforts every day for hours together to achieve success. Along with inspiration, he feels moral support plays a vital role in helping children excel to becoming champions. Giving examples of Shikha Tandon's mother and Saina Nehwal’s father, he justifies his statement.

It’s not only inspiration that leads to success, it is the commitment which works as a cherry on the cake for the celebration of success. “Every sportsman has to be committed to the sport he loves without having money on mind; only then can he achieve what he focuses on. Gopi Chand was one such sportsman and India needs sports-persons like him,” mentions Mr. Amit.

On being asked about his one particular dream which he weaves for future, he answered saying that he would want to see one of the many in his academy playing international football with international champions although he believes that it is going to take a long time.

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Any facts, figures or references stated here are made by the author & don't reflect the endorsement of iU at all times unless otherwise drafted by official staff at iU. A part [small/large] could be AI generated content at times and it's inevitable today. If you have a feedback particularly with regards to that, feel free to let us know. This article was first published here on 9th March 2015.


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