Sports as a public good: Now let's put this idea in play

On July 1, 2025, the Union cabinet approved the National Sports Policy 2025 (NSP 2025). The policy's ambitious five-pillar, whole-of-ecosystem approach aims to place sports on the frontline of national development.

- NANDAN KAMATH & DESH GAURAV SEKHRI

This prompts a double-headed question: What can sports do for India and what can India do for sports?

From two pillars to five: 'Medals' is the word most likely to be evoked by any mention of sports, and the NSP 2001 captured this limited imagination of the pursuit. Grassroots sports for talent identification and international success were its two pillars. The NSP 2025 seeks to reframe sports as a cornerstone of nation building across five pillars: excellence, social development, economic growth, mass participation, and education.

This signals a new identity and role for sports in recognition of its power to effect population-scale change. It can improve physical and mental health outcomes, drive educational attainment and personal growth, enable social inclusion, and contribute to livelihood creation, all with excellence as an overarching goal. It is also an open invitation for every Indian to participate.

Sports as a public good: The policy adopts a full-stack, ecosystem-based strategy that aims to integrate physical literacy with education, incentivize community engagement, develop high-performance pathways, and encourage inter-ministerial, centre-state, and public-private collaborations. This goes beyond semantics to real significance.