Education
Could Baseball Become the Most-Viewed Sport in India?
It is no surprise to see that cricket has traditionally been the most-watched sport on Indian television. Figures from the FICCI in 2018 showed that wrestling was close to matching it, but cricket is still the sport to beat.
For example, the 2016 Indian Premier League Final was watched by around 730 million people in the country. However, some recent developments suggest that baseball could challenge cricket’s superiority in the years to come.
MLB Is Pushing for More Growth in India
Major League Baseball (MLB) is the organisation that runs professional baseball in the US. They are currently pushing hard to grow the sport in other countries around the planet. They already have offices in places such as Japan, Mexico, China, and the UK as they look to open up new markets.
As part of this, they have opened their first Indian office, in New Delhi. MLB has high hopes that this nation of cricket-lovers will embrace baseball, mainly due to the similarities between the two sports.
Their plans for expansion also include giving school kids in New Delhi, Mumbai, and Bangalore the chance to learn the sport. The MLB First Pitch grassroots programme will see top coaches run workshops in all of these cities. Eventually, 300 cities across the nation could receive visits from baseball coaches.
Jim Small is the senior vice president of MLB’s international operations. He said that India has “huge potential for us”. Small said that they see the country as being important in the global growth of their brand. They will also be screening American baseball games live on Facebook for Indian fans.
The Return of the Million Dollar Arm
Another baseball initiative involves the return of the Million Dollar Arm contest. You may remember that J.B. Bernstein created this challenge, as he looked for future baseball stars. It was shown as a reality show on Zee Sports and eventually led to a major 2014 movie based on the success of Rinku Singh and Dinesh Patel.
They became the first Indian men to sign up to pro contracts for a sports team in the US. Neither of them had ever thrown a baseball before entering the contest. Patel joined the Pittsburgh Pirates before returning to India to teach baseball. Singh eventually moved into wrestling and has joined the WWE.
This contest returned in 2019, as the MLB stepped up their search for new baseball stars. It is hoped that young athletes with a talent for cricket might make the switch to the American sport. At the time of writing, it is unclear whether Million Dollar Arm will return to Indian TV screens in 2020.
The New Indian Baseball Star
Another reason that baseball could truly take off her is the success of Karan Patel. In 2019, he became the first player of Indian descent to get drafted into an MLB team.
Patel grew up playing cricket and baseball in the US. He called switching between the two sports a “fun transition”, although it does take him some time to adjust each time that he moves from one to the other.
His father Kuldeep Patel played for the US cricket team after emigrating there from India. Karan followed in his footsteps by playing for the USA Under-19 cricket team before winning a college scholarship based on his baseball skills.
He was picked by the Chicago White Sox in the seventh round of the 2019 MLB draft. He now plans to “work as hard as possible” and try to make the team. If he does, then millions of Indians are sure to be keen to tune in and see how he gets on.
Education
Scaler appoints new heads for its online and offline businesses
Amar Srivastava becomes chief executive of the online business and group chief product officer; Vidit Jain takes charge of the offline schools
BENGALURU: Scaler is shuffling its top deck as the AI skilling race heats up. The Bengaluru-based tech education company has elevated two senior executives to lead its online and offline businesses, signalling a sharper push into an AI-driven market.
Amar Srivastava, previously senior vice president for product and business, has been appointed chief executive of the online business and group chief product officer. Vidit Jain has been elevated to senior vice president and head of Scaler School, taking charge of the company’s offline education units, the Scaler School of Business and the Scaler School of Technology.
The company has also recently appointed Ratnakar Reddy as head of enterprise for India and the Middle East and North Africa, with a brief to drive partnerships with governments and enterprises for AI-led skilling programmes.
Abhimanyu Saxena, co-founder of Scaler, said the promotions reflect the company’s confidence in both leaders and the direction it is heading. “Amar and Vidit have been central to Scaler’s journey, and their elevations reflect our conviction in their leadership and the direction we are shaping as a company,” he said. “With leadership now in place across the business, we remain focused on building engineers the world’s best companies want to hire. In an AI-first economy, that mission is more urgent and more achievable than ever. Our next chapter is centred on building an AI-native workforce from India, equipped to compete in a technology-driven global economy.”
Srivastava brings over a decade of experience building education-focused ventures. He previously founded Intellify and was part of the early team at Doubtnut. At Scaler, he will lead the online business with a focus on growth, profitability and expansion into new segments, while strengthening the product ecosystem across the group. He is blunt about what the AI economy actually needs. “The AI economy does not have a shortage of tools. It has a shortage of engineers who can think clearly, build reliably, and keep learning as the ground shifts. That is what we are building toward,” he said.
Jain brings more than 15 years of experience across startups and consulting, including stints at MPL and McKinsey and Company. He will oversee growth and profitability of Scaler’s offline business. His priorities are immediate and unambiguous. “The offline experience is where depth gets built, and that depth is critical in the AI era. Over the next 12 months, our focus will be on consistent growth, stronger unit economics, and delivering outcomes for students while building long-term employer partnerships,” he said.
Founded in 2019, Scaler is valued at $710 million and backed by Peak XV Partners, Tiger Global and Lightrock India. Its parent firm, InterviewBit, has featured on the Financial Times’ Asia Pacific High Growth Companies rankings every year from 2021 to 2025. On average, Scaler’s learners see a 4.5x return on investment and a salary increase of around 126 per cent.
With leadership locked in across every business unit, Scaler is betting that the next wave of global tech hiring will be won or lost on the quality of engineers coming out of India. It is a big bet. But the numbers, and the promotions, suggest the company is in no mood to hedge.
