Nazara-Backed Sportskeeda Founder Porush Jain Resigns As CEO

SUMMARY

As new CEO, Singh will oversee the growth of the company and manage the direction of its expansion

Nazara COO Sudhir Kamath appointed as a non-executive director on the Board of Absolute Sports

Nazara also completes acquisition of an additional 5.71% equity stake in Sportskeeda, increasing its stake from 65% to 70.71% on a fully diluted basis

In what appears to be a major rejig at the Nazara Technologies-owned Sportskeeda, Ajay Pratap Singh has been elevated as the chief executive officer (CEO) of the sports media platform.

As the new CEO, Singh will oversee the growth of the company and manage the direction of its expansion.

This promotion came as Porush Jain resigned as the director and CEO of Absolute Sports, the parent company of Sportskeeda, with effect from November 16. Jain will continue to be a shareholder in the company and will lead the team during the transition phase.

“Sportskeeda continues to grow very rapidly across its core markets of the US and India, having doubled its revenue every year for the last three years. I am sure it will continue to make even greater strides under Ajay’s able leadership. The market for sports content is deep and offers huge growth opportunities in the coming years,” said Nazara CEO Nitish Mittersain.

Alongside, the media startup also announced the appointment of Nazara’s chief operating officer (COO), Sudhir Kamath as a non-executive director on the Board of Absolute Sports.

The reshuffle came on the same day as Nazara completed the acquisition of an additional 5.71% equity stake in Sportskeeda. With this, the gaming unicorn’s total stake in the esports platform has increased from 65% to 70.71% on a fully diluted basis.

“…we wish to inform you that the Company has completed the acquisition of 12,323 equity shares of INR 1 each in Absolute Sports for a total aggregate consideration amount of INR 19,99,89,967 on November 15, 2022,” said Nazara Technologies in a regulatory filing.

Nazara picked up the stake with an eye on consolidating its shareholding in profitable subsidiaries.

This comes barely five months after the Mumbai-based gaming unicorn announced that it was investing an additional INR 20.10 Cr to increase its stake in Sportskeeda.

Founded in 2009 by Porush Jain and Srinivas Rowjee Cuddapah, Sportskeeda is a sports content platform that covers mainstream games such as football, cricket, esports, basketball, kabaddi, and others. The platform claims to serve more than 70 Mn active users every month and touts itself as one of the largest multi-sports destinations.

Nazara ventured into the sports news space after acquiring a majority stake in Sportskeeda in 2019.

Before taking over the reigns of the sports news portal, Ajay Pratap Singh served as the COO of the company. He joined the media platform as the Head of Marketing back in 2019 and was promoted as COO in 2020. Since Singh’s joining, Sportskeeda claims to have grown its user base by 2.5X and revenue by 5X.

With an MBA in marketing and operations and a B.Tech degree, Ajay Pratap Singh has more than a decade of experience under his kitty across areas such as software, edtech and digital media publishing. He was previously also associated with various organizations such as Dainik Bhaskar and Tally Solutions.

This is the second high-profile appointment at Sportskeeda in recent months, right after the addition of Anirudh Kumar as the Chief Strategy Officer in August this year.

The announcements are part of Nazara Technologies’ bid to consolidate its play in the sports media domain and consolidate its holdings in profitable subsidiaries.

In March this year, Nazara picked up a 33% stake in the adtech firm Datawrkz and followed it up with an investment of up to INR 10 Cr in gaming accessories manufacturer Brandscale Innovations in the form of optionally convertible debentures.

As a result, the gaming unicorn continued to operate in the green. Nazara reported widening of its profit to INR 17.4 Cr in Q2 FY23, up 13.7% year-on-year (YoY). Operating revenue also more than doubled to INR 263.8 Cr in Q2 FY23 from INR 129.6 Cr during the same quarter last fiscal year.

The growth has largely been led by a rapidly evolving and growing esports market. According to a report, India was home to about 400 Mn online gamers in mid-2020 while the overall online gaming market is projected to soar to $3.9 Bn by 2025.