— Sridhar Sattiraju
About ten years back, when Puellela Gopichand had decided to start a Badminton Academy in Hyderabad after the AP Government allotted six acres of land. He was clueless how to find a benefactor for the Academy from corporate donations. One fine day, he hosted an enclave at one of the five star hotels of Taj in Hyderabad. He invited the who’s who of Hyderabad’s top industrialists. Almost everybody turned up and were appreciative of Gopichand’s vision to create a generation of badminton champions who will compete at global level.
One of the attendees was Mr Nimmagadda Prasad who just made a successful sale of his stake in Matrix Labs to Mylan Labs. He asked if the academy will create the next wave of Olympians who will get medals for the country. Gopichand said “Yes” and Mr Prasad then agreed for a Rs.5 crore donation (equivalent to Rs.20 crores now inflation-adjusted). Almost all other attendees promised some donation or the other, some questioned whether there is any business model in running a badminton academy to profit. Glory, yes, but no profits, no merit, many thought. Gopichand was perpelexed. He got a massive response and turnout of the industrialists but finally drew a blank from everybody.
Few days later, he asked one of the chief financial advisors to Mr Prasad who is a leading finance professional. “Everybody has backed out Sir…Do you think Mr Prasad will pay?” The Chief Advisor said, “If Mr Prasad has given his word, he will never back out.” And promptly, Mr Gopichand got a call few days later to come and collect the first cheque of Rs.2 crores towards the academy. Then came the next and the one after that. Gopichand’s tensions eased as he gets the first massive grant of Rs.5 crores to start the Gopichand academy. Mr Prasad routed it through his charitable foundation and the Academy was aptly re-named as Puellela Gopichand Nimagadda Foundation Badminton Academy in a sprawling campus of five acres. Mr Gopichand was told by Mr Prasad that he expects no returns out of it except medals galore at the Olympics and leading world tournaments. Ten years after the Academy, Gopichand kept his word: First it was Saina Nehwal who won the country’s first Bronze in the last Olympics at London. And now, the country’s first Silver medal through P.V.Sindhu and a decent show put up by the likes of Srikanth Kidambi.
Moral of the Story: It took the vision of a Hyderabadi Entrepreneur like Mr Nimmagadda Prasad who expected no returns and no business model logic before cutting a fat grant of Rs.5 crores. Today, Gopichand Academy is one of India’s leading world-class academies which is training Badminton players who beat the likes of top-notch players from Japan, Indonesia, Malaysia, China and Korea. That is the only way great stories unfold in sporting arena. He saw what no big businessman saw more than a decade ago. By contrast, there were businesspersons like Mr B.Ramraj (the man who sold Sify) who started Olympic Gold Quest with expectations galore and the mission is still not finding proper benefactors to take it to the next level. If India has more benefactors like Mr Nimmagadda Prasad, we will create many world-class training academies which will train generations of Olympic winners.