Eighteen years on the commercial side of sport — the part that decides whether a tournament is remembered or written off.

I’m Arup Soans, and I’ve spent eighteen years on the commercial side of sport — the part that decides whether a tournament is remembered or written off.

The clearest example is the FIFA U-17 World Cup India 2017. I led marketing across six venues and sixteen match-days against targets most people thought India couldn’t hit. We finished as the most attended youth World Cup in FIFA history: 1.3 million spectators and fourteen commercial partners, every one of them satisfied with the value they got.

Two days before a semi-final, monsoon rain forced us to move the match from Guwahati to Kolkata with ninety minutes’ notice. We refunded 23,800 ticket-holders, shipped 66,600 blank tickets overnight, priced every seat at 100 rupees, and filled a 60,000-seat stadium in 48 hours.

Today I’m Chief Executive of INSMA, the Indian Sport Management Association, which has won the rights to host the Asian Association for Sport Management Conference in 2027. I’m also General Manager of Goa Guardians in the Prime Volleyball League — semi-finalists on debut, and the team behind the Guardians Trophy, the first U21 tournament to bring together the youth squads of all ten PVL franchises.

Alongside that I run KiteTalks, where I have published 81 long-form interviews with the producers, rights-holders and league builders who shape global sport, and SportsCourses.com, an independent catalogue of sports education worldwide. Both are free to use.

Before all of that: the Asian Football Confederation, the All India Football Federation, Major League Soccer, Stats Perform and the Rajasthan Royals. I have taught sports marketing and sponsorship at the Global Institute of Sports Business and Jio Institute, and wrote two courses for the Rajasthan Royals’ School of Business. NYU Sports Business.

If you’re trying to fill a venue, renew a sponsor, or build something that lasts past one season, that’s the work I do.