KyaZoonga.com, India's first and largest entertainment and sports ticketing company, has been installed as favourites in the race to secure the Rs3,000-crore contract for the 2016 Summer Olympics in Rio de Janeiro.
dna can confirm that the six-year-old company — co-founded by Neetu Bhatia, Akash Bhatia and Arpita Majumder, all alumni of the prestigious Massachusetts Institute of Technology — has made it to the final shortlist of two from a pool of 18-20 global players. KyaZoonga, backed by a $22 billion New York-based hedge fund, was the official ticketing partner of the 2011 ICC Cricket World Cup. It also counts a few IPL franchises and top musicians among its clients.
This is the first time an Indian company has been shortlisted to service a world-class event like the Olympics. The ticketing programme at the quadrennial extravaganza is of complex nature. As a matter of fact, it involves over a thousand concurrent ticketing sessions, over 20 million tickets and hundreds of millions of buyers from around the world.
It is understood that the planning and implementation process typically begins three-and-a-half years in advance. The process is an extremely complicated one and involves the interested parties to make technical and commercial presentations over several rounds.
It is rumoured that Ticketmaster, the American firm which serviced the 2012 London Olympics is also in the fray. But the fact that the International Olympic Committee (and other global sports governing bodies like FIFA) are looking at emerging markets could work in KyaZoonga's favour. India and Brazil are often uttered in the same breath and, perhaps, that is the way forward. Given that the Games are going to be held in Brazil, it wouldn't be a bad idea to entrust the ticketing responsibilities to a firm well-versed with the workings of an economy like India.
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