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A group of five techies and management graduates have teamed up to set up SportsCafe.in, a start-up that exclusively focuses on providing sports news and gaming content.
“Like most sports enthusiasts, we found it difficult to look for a source that could give us a full view of Indian sports. We are being forced to scout for sports news in general news sites. We have found a good demand for an online sports news window,” Yashashvi Takallapalli, co-founder and Chief Executive Officer of SportsCafe, told BusinessLine .
“We wanted to tap into this opportunity by providing a user-friendly interface. Though there are a handful of players providing the content, the country requires a few more good players to address the growing demand,” he said.
Vernacular languagesThe seven-month-old start-up, which currently offers content in English, is planning to address the demand from vernacular languages.
“The country is able to address the content demands for users in English. The real challenge now is to provide the content in the local languages. We are going to launch our Hindi edition very soon. We will then look at other local languages,” he said.
The start-up has found a serious shortage of writers who can write on sports. “In order to address this issue, we are going to start a Writers’ Programme, allowing prospective sports writers to write on various games. We will help them with editorial support and make their work read better,” he said.
As the programmes progress, the start-up will handpick some of those writers and take them on board. With 15 employees on its rolls and 40 freelance writers, the start-up is planning to hire 15 more in the next six months.
Revenue modelTakallapalli, however, said that they were able to breach the 10-lakh user base last month because of the Olympics extravaganza.
“Our average monthly user base is put at five lakh. We would like to grow it to 1 crore by launching a host of new service offerings, including videos, before focusing on revenue generation,” he said.
It looks at revenues from three streams — advertisements on the site and social media windows, content syndication and ‘freemium’ (free plus premium) revenues from the company’s gaming offerings.
The start-up is working on a platform to offer sports fantasy games customised for the Indian audience. It will be launched in September.
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