Mahesh Bhupathi's Globosport India, the celebrity and sports marketing company, is seeing maximum growth from its digital offering, according to the tennis ace, its founder MD. Globosport Digital owns exclusive global digital and mobile rights to 20 celebrities from Bollywood, sports and South Indian cinema, including John Abraham, Virender Sehwag, Priyanka Chopra, Lara Dutta and Madhavan.

Speaking to Business Line , Mr Bhupathi explained that Globosport has evolved into a brand-facing sports and entertainment company, even as it digitally leverages its celebrity equity. According to him, the company grew by 35 per cent last year.

He said, “We've invested in digital for three-and-a-half years now, and we see that paying off. With quality celebrity content accessible anytime, we see digital growing the fastest. And with 3G finally in, it's bound to go up further, and we're ready for it.” Mr Bhupathi noted that content offtake down South, where it has rights to celebrities including Ileana, Charmme and Devi Sri Prasad, had been “very high.”

“All these celebrities are sourced directly to operators like Airtel, Vodafone and Reliance. We are also deploying content via Google/YouTube where we create official YouTube celebrity channels,” he added. The content is in the form of voice blogs, voice chats and videos.

Globosport Digital has a three year partnership with UTV New Media that was signed in October 2010. The developments at parent UTV Software Communications related to delisting would not affect the agreement with Globosport Digital, Bhupathi clarified.

Chalo Bollywood

Meanwhile, the film and television production company under Globosport, Big Daddy, is ready with three scripts ‘locked' after its first film Chalo Dilli .

It had produced the first film in collaboration with Eros International and Bheegi Basanti Productions. Directors for the next three projects have been identified, and all three would be mainstream Hindi movies, across genres. “We did the first film with the team we had then. Now we're more focused with a new head of the films business — Raja Chaudhary. We're discussing the casting now. The first of the three films should be on the floors early next year — at least one of them will be,” added the company's MD.

Budgets for the films haven't been frozen yet. Big Daddy will partner with the large studios for its future film projects also, according to Bhupathi.

TV production

On the television production side, Big Daddy has ongoing projects in the genres of action, sport and reality — a talent-based show.

Globosport has a team of 50 at present , and the intent is to scale up to become a one-stop solution shop for brands, even while building on its core strengths of celebrities and sports, he noted. Creating and monetising IP has been identified as another focus area.

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