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Is the Future of Sport Public or Private?

In this episode of Game Play Sport, hosts Rahul, Arvind, and Kailash are joined by Manuja Veerappa, senior sports journalist with The Times of India. Together, they explore the disappearance of playing spaces in Bengaluru, the rise of private academies, and what these shifts say about India’s sporting priorities.

Sullivan Grounds in Bengaluru once echoed with the sound of hockey sticks and the energy of school tournaments. Even Dhyan Chand played here, when it stood at the heart of the city’s sporting life. Today it lies vacant, fenced off and unused — a stark reminder of how quickly public spaces for play can slip into neglect. For a city of millions, such a loss is more than symbolic. It captures a growing reality: children are running out of places to play.

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Private academies now dominate the training of India’s elite athletes. They deliver structure, discipline and results, but they are also fee-driven and selective. They raise performance levels, yet they also narrow access — transforming play from something shared into something gated.

But India also offers a different story. The High-Performance Centres in Odisha, built on a public – private partnership model, have shown how excellence can grow without excluding opportunity. By combining state support with private expertise, these centres have created world-class facilities in disciplines like hockey and athletics, while keeping access broader than private academies alone ever could.

The episode asks a difficult but necessary question: if sport is a public good, how do we protect its public character while also embracing the excellence that private investment can bring? Sullivan Grounds lying vacant is one possible future. Odisha’s HPCs are another. Which path India chooses will decide not only who gets to play, but what sport itself will stand for.

Credits

Akshay Ramuhalli, Bruce Lee Mani, Gorveck Thokchom, Kishor Mandal, Kruthika Rao, Narayan Krishnaswamy, Prashant Vasudevan, Ram Sheshadri, Sananda Dasgupta, Seema Seth, Shraddha Gautam, Supriya Joshi, and Velu Shankar.

Special thanks to Manuja Veerappa for being part of this episode.