Lockdown days: How e-sports, online coaching changing lives during Coronavirus times

Bengaluru, April 29: Coronavirus has made the world come to a standstill for more than two months now. The sporting world too is not an exception. Several events like Olympics, Euro, Wimbledon, French Open, F1 races, Ligue 1 etc have been postponed to different dates or to 2021.

With activities have been largely confined to indoors, sportspersons and coaches are forced to find innovative ways to be in touch with the game. They have embraced the virtual world. The apps like Zoom and Google Duos, once our personal connecting tools, have now been transformed into online coaching platforms.

Irfan Sait, who runs the Karnataka Institute of Sports (KIOC), a reputed cricket coaching centre in Bengaluru, was one among the first persons who realised the need to migrate to online coaching in these gripping times.

"At this point of time, I think, we realise that everybody's getting impatient and you know expressing their concern that they are not used to stay home for such a long period of time. They are getting restless. So they're asking can you advise something over phone? I told them: Why don't we do some classes straight away because we can keep them in touch with the game and also they look forward to some kind of time to be spent in a useful manner.
So, myself and Ashwini, we got together and we said, let's start doing this. We did one or two capsules within ourselves and it worked well. And then we sent a circular to everyone else. All the parents and the kids, they wanted to be on board. So right now, apart from those who are freely watching, we have a properly registered members' class. We're in excess of 500, which is fantastic. And to these 500 members, we've been sending them emails videos, fitness videos, some back-end bowling drills," said Irfan.

The Karnataka State Football Association (KSFA) too has adopted the e-coaching way, albeit for a referee course.

"We are using the Zoom app to get connected with referees in Bengaluru at the moment. Hopefully, we can get in touch all others across Karnataka at a later stage. It has helped us a lot to interact with each other, so at least they can update their knowledge. It will help them once they return to the field. Right now, theoretically it will help them to arrive to the right decisions. It will also help them be prepared once they want to take referee examinations by higher bodies like FIFA," said Andrew Sekhar, member of the KSFA Referees' Committee.

So, is the online coaching the way forward? Irfan thinks so. "I have a one-track life. I do nothing other than cricket. Yeah, so for me it is absolutely crushing. I didn't know how to handle myself, but not to a point of depression but more due to lack of work. Of course, there was the stress of financial losses too. So, we thought, let's keep our mind occupied so that it's not a devil's workshop. So, this was something which the three of us - Ashwini, Arpit and myself - spoke and without wasting any time we launched it. And it seems to have gone very well.
And by all indications, the lockdown and indoor time is going to be there for a long period of time. And believe me, they're accessing it everywhere. I've been getting requests to have coaching classes in Hindi. I've been getting requests from Canada. I've been getting all kinds of requests. You see, everybody seems to have a smartphone today, at least one in a family. So, it has actually opened up a window for us. Earlier because of the distance or the inconvenience or maybe the financial crunch, a lot of them could not reach out to KIOC or such coaching centres. Now, a virtual window has been opened up for them. So, the kind of queries and calls that I'm getting is humongous. And it tells me that, you know, we haven't served the community enough. And if you ask me is this going to be the way forward, then yes, this is the way forward," said Irfan.

E-Sports is another area that saw a massive spike during the lockdown time. The e-sports was not unknown entity before the lockdown but it was often viewed as a platform for geeks and snappy youth. But indoor-time has prompted people across generations to reach out to e-sports.

NODWIN Gaming, India's largest e-sports company and a subsidiary of mobile gaming giant Nazara Technologies, says they have experienced 25-30 percent hike in viewership in the last few weeks since the lockdown.

The officials of NODWIN, who also operates in South Africa and Middle East, say they have produced around 10000 hours of gaming since 2015 with a leap in the COVID-19 time through some interesting and global e-experiences like DreamHack and ESL India Permiership and digital streaming services.