Venkat Ananth

Inside the process: how the race for RCB and Rajasthan Royals is unfolding The race for the two IPL franchises is now down to a handful of serious bidders. Months of exploratory conversations have given way to firmer offers, as buyers begin to confront the numbers and the re...

Back here after a hiatus.

The State of Play, sports business publication I am building (and write), dropped a scoop.

It details the ongoing sale process ft. the two IPL franchises: the Royal Challengers Bengaluru and the Rajasthan Royals. Who's in, what's being pitched etc.

Do subscribe and read!

The business behind India’s Women’s World Cup win India’s World Cup win was the result of years of incremental reform, steady investment, and a league that treated women’s cricket as a business worth building.

india was rightly called the sleeping giant of women's cricket. now it has woken up, and how!

i wrote a few words about the business behind India's women's World Cup win and how that changes the economics of women's cricket (+ sport) globally. www.stateofplay.club/india-world-...

The calculus of sport: How BKT built a global brand off the beaten path An Indian industrial brand has rewritten the rules of sports marketing, backing small-town leagues and rural audiences from Italy to Australia, turning proximity into strategy.

The State of Play’s first subscriber-only story 🔒 is live. It is about how a Mumbai-based tyre manufacturer has been quietly building one of the most distinctive (and eclectic) portfolios in sport. Do subscribe and read. www.stateofplay.club/bkt-sports-s...

thanks a lot. also, do subscribe 😅

haha thanks! was just building this under the radar. stayed off social media entirely.

The dawn of the post-literate society And the end of civilisation

this is a great, long read.

“The screen revolution will shape our politics as profoundly as the reading revolution of the eighteenth century.”

thank you! 😅

back after a hiatus.

early this week, I launched The State of Play, a weekly, subscription-led publication on the business of sport, written from an Indian lens.

on Friday, I dropped a scene-setting essay on Indian sport’s $40 billion reset.

do read and subscribe (and share, if possible). 👇🏽

Water bottles, the accessory Gen Z is thirsting after Oversize tumblers reveal more about fashion than wellness

"The hype is quenching brands’ thirst for profit: the value of sales of portable drinkware in America reached $4bn in the year ending in May 2025; some 270m containers were sold in the country, up from 240m two years ago." - fascinating. on the primarily Gen Z-led business of water bottles.

You’re telling me this guy was on drugs? I’m not buying it.

China calls the shots in Myanmar's civil war To see how, follow an oil-and-gas pipeline through three conflict zones

China has become the most powerful player in the grim drama of Myanmar’s civil war. To see how, follow an oil-and-gas pipeline through three conflict zones https://econ.trib.al/EaId2hj

How Trump Defeated Columbia The inside story of an unconditional surrender.

this is a must-read, and well-reported account of how Columbia University capitulated to Trump and co.

haha too distracted with other things but this is curious

The Trump Tariffs Are Tilting the Scales in the Coke vs. Pepsi Battle PepsiCo makes nearly all of the concentrate for its U.S. sodas in Ireland, unlike Coca-Cola.

fascinating. the trump tariffs and their impact on the cola wars

Puma’s New Running Shoes Offer Hope For a Brand Desperate to Win Once a pioneer in high-performance sneakers, the company is playing catch-up in an increasingly competitive field

interesting. puma is now returning to its running roots with its “Fast-R Nitro Elite sneakers”

Puma was proper pioneer in running with legendary shoe lines such as Osaka, before its eventual pivot to “sports lifestyle” 👟

what a graphic!

Apple airlifted iPhones worth a record $2 billion from India in March as Trump tariffs loomed Apple's main India suppliers Foxconn and Tata shipped nearly $2 billion worth of iPhones to the United States in March, an all-time high, as the U.S. company airlifted devices to bypass President Donald Trump's impending tariffs, customs data shows.

apple's suppliers shipped ~$2 billion worth of iPhones from India in march, an all-time high: reuters citing customs data

foxconn - $1.31b worth of smartphone exports in march (highest ever in a month, and jan + feb combined). total for 2025 ($5.3b)

tata - $612m for march, up 63% from feb.

wild!

😂

along with the fact that this is one of his boomer-esque obsessions. next up? a fact sheet on windmills.

lmao

not going to happen. so well.

Five crazy Trump tariffs you wouldn’t believe Saint Pierre and Miquelon earns a dubious honour

"Russia ran a trade surplus with America of $2.5bn last year. Had the calculation applied to it, the country would have faced a tariff of about 40%" www.economist.com/finance-and-...

Donald Trump’s Ego Melts the Global Economy On a chilly Wednesday afternoon, the President announced he would single-handedly blow up a century’s worth of globalization.

This, by @sbg1.bsky.social is a must read.

"In his second-term White House, they are all Steve Bannons now." www.newyorker.com/news/letter-...

Wow.

“Apple is said to have shipped *five* planeloads of iPhones and other products to the US over just three days to stock up its warehouses and ensure prices don't surge.”

this is so 🇰🇵

YouTube video by NPR Music Shakti: Tiny Desk Concert

wow. just saw this shakti concert during an unrelated rabbit hole trip (some other band etc!)

bonus: a recreation of the iconic lotus feet ft. shankar mahadevan in the second half of the video! amazing.

Why matcha, made from green tea, is the drink of the moment Is it really a healthy alternative to coffee? Not the way Gen Z orders it

a good read on why matcha is having a moment

Lauren Boebert’s Survival Instincts The Colorado congresswoman’s inflammatory rhetoric has made her a national symbol of the Trumpist far right. She presents a different image closer to home.

immensely enjoyed this excellent @newyorker.com profile of lauren boebert and how she explains the broader political dynamics in colorado

The Twin Bandits Who (Nearly) Outsmarted Australian Police The police couldn’t figure out how the perpetrator ripped off two banks at the same time. Until they discovered there wasn’t just one robber but a pair of them: identical twin brothers.

phew! what a story. proper banger.

this *should* be picked up by one of the streaming platforms

The coming battle between social media and the state Behind the alignment of X and Meta with Trump is a cold business logic — and a position of weakness rather than strength

interesting essay on the coming battle between social media and the state (and why mark zuckerberg tilted to the right as he did last week)

The Anti-Social Century Americans are now spending more time alone than ever. It’s changing our personalities, our politics, and even our relationship to reality.

this is a great read on the decline of socialization, and how that is upending our personalities, our politics, and our relationship with reality