A Conversation with Kevin Freitas, Chief Human Resource Officer at Dream11 and Devashish, Member – National Committee for Skills and Livelihood, CII; Co-Founder and CEO, Taggd
The following is an edited excerpt from the conversation.
INTRODUCTION
Devashish: Hello friends! On behalf of Taggd and the Confederation of Indian Industry, I welcome you to India Decoding Jobs’s Lighthouse Series. In the last episode, we brought you an FMCG giant. In this episode, we’re featuring a very young giant in India. A company in a relatively new industry that has done amazingly well and ingrained itself throughout the masses of India. Young, old, very age-agnostic. You would have guessed it right, the company is Dream11.
I have the greatest honor of having Kevin Freitas right here with me. He is the Chief Human Resource Officer at Dream11 and has done some amazing work in enhancing the employer brand for Dream11, building great organizational values. He has done some game-changing work throughout the entire talent lifecycle. Welcome, Kevin!
Kevin: Thank you, Devashish.
Devashish: How does it feel today?
Kevin: It’s amazing. It’s always been great. I think every day at Dream Sports and Dream11 is like a dream come true.
Devashish: Fantastic! I’m just sitting in this amazing room of yours, and I got goosebumps the moment I walked in here. Fantastic team and such a lovely ambience. So, we have three sections, and we’ll start with the first one called “Decoding the Jobs.”
SEGMENT 1: DECODING THE JOBS
Dream11’s Mission
Devashish: So, the first question to you, Kevin. What does Dream11 mean to you, and how is it achieving its mission in making sports better?
Kevin: I think not just for me, but for countless Dreamsters here. By the way, we call the folks that work at Dream11 “Dreamsters,” though our overall larger company is Dream Sports. What does it feel like working here every day? It’s about making dreams come true. You’re fueling dreams not just for the people who work here, but for millions of our fans, millions of our users, and for a billion Indians.
We are Made in India, and we’re taking India to the world. Today, Dream11 is the world’s largest fantasy sports platform. Clearly, this came from an idea that you work on and nurture for a decade or so before it becomes the world’s largest platform.
When I look at “making sports better,” this is something that’s very close to our hearts, not just the hearts of the folks who work here, but all our fans and users. They want so much more from sports. You want sports to be engaging, exciting, and accessible to everyone. What we do at Dream Sports through our multiple brands is make sure that becomes a reality.
For example, at Dream11, it’s not about cheering for one team, it’s about cheering for all the players that you’ve chosen. Even though a wicket might fall, you’d be cheering while other people say “damn.” It’s not about choosing a side; it’s about making sports that much more entertaining. I remember when I was growing up, we’d watch a television screen, and when the wicket would fall, it was the end of the game. But a Dream11 user is engaged till the last ball. You’ve made sports exciting for a billion Indians, and not just one sport like cricket. We have 12 sports on the platform.
Devashish: Genuinely getting excited for the sporting spirit.
Kevin: Exactly! Now you’re focused on all players, looking at all kinds of talent, not just the team that you want to win with.
Devashish: You know, I’m sure this will translate to the Indian sporting arena too. Sports in reality. We have it as a gaming proposition, but sports in India other than cricket has somewhere been left out. I understand that Dream11 is focusing on so many other fields of sports.
Kevin: When we say “make sports better,” it’s about making sure we are able to add to the sports ecosystem in India. We’ve got Dream Sports Foundation that’s helped athletes. We have about 31 athletes that we’ve been sponsoring through long-term athlete development since 2018. Between these 31 athletes, they’ve won about 100 international medals, 200 national medals, and we have three Olympians as well.
Very clearly for us, it goes all the way down to the grassroots. When we say “make sports better,” it’s not about making it better right now, it’s making it better forever. Our investment into this goes a long way through Dream Sports Foundation, which is real grassroots development. Very few organizations focus on grassroots development in sports, and we are very clear that that’s a space we want to play in.
The second aspect is all our multiple brands focused on making sports better. I talked about Dream11. We have FanCode. Today, if you want to see any non-marquee sports event, you don’t know where to go. If you want to buy an authentic jersey, you’ll struggle. FanCode is that proposition which allows people to watch a lot of sports, right from Kho Kho to golf, a long tail of sports, and it’s streamed right to your living room, which is fabulous. You want authentic gear, whether it’s the Indian team jersey or some other team, football teams, you can just buy it on FanCode and you know it’s authentic.
Devashish: It just helps get everyone into that culture. Fantastic! I think you and I will have a shared dream that when we bag more Olympic medals as a nation, I hope that Dream11 gets to play a big part in the sponsorship.
Kevin: Absolutely! That would be fantastic.
Question 2: The Gaming Industry’s Growth and Talent Landscape
Devashish: Thank you, Kevin. I move to my second question. India is emerging as one of the largest growing markets in the gaming industry globally. This industry will hit $7.5 billion in revenue estimates, and by next year, it’s expected to create about 250,000 jobs, which is fantastic for the talent landscape. It’s not been too long since this industry and Dream11 have been around compared to all the legacy organizations in India. With this new entrant and all of this happening in the talent landscape in gaming, how do you see this next decade planning out for the gaming industry and Dream11 when it comes to talent?
Kevin: I’d like to draw out a metaphor here. Imagine all the fans getting into the stadium, it’s getting very exciting. We know the match is going to start. That’s the moment we are at. It’s a tipping point for the gaming industry because, very clearly, as more users are coming in and appreciating the kind of gaming and games that are out there, as well as wonderful platforms like Dream11 that are servicing all our users, this is a tipping point where not just careers, there are a lot of jobs as well.
Five years ago, there wouldn’t have been a job called a fantasy sports analyst. You wouldn’t have found a lot of sports content creators. You wouldn’t have found a lot of people who are product designers focused on gamification and games. You find them today. Clearly, there are thousands of jobs that we’ve created. We’ve created jobs for brand storytellers (you find amazing stories of sports people today). About a decade ago, it would be hard to come by that narrative of great sporting success.
I think the beauty is that it’s not just us, the entire ecosystem that’s there. We’ve been one of the first to step into this, and it’s just come together so well. This next decade is going to be one of amazing growth, hopefully, and also a lot of support from all the fans that are there. Today, we’ve got close to 220 million users at Dream11 and 120-odd million users on FanCode. We clearly see the ecosystem reaching close to maybe 500 million users over the next couple of years, not just Dream11, but for the ecosystem as a whole. That’s fabulous. When you have so many users gunning for sports, excited about it, engaged with sport, there’s no doubt that India can truly be a great sporting nation.
Devashish: Thank you so much! That was so insightful. Looking forward to this amazing decade.
Question 3: Nurturing Tech Talent
Devashish: I move to my third question, Kevin. Dream11 is a born-digital company, and you’ve had to nurture a lot of tech talent ever since your inception. What are the challenges you’ve faced doing that, and how do you retain such talent? What industries are your challenges? We know that there’s a lot of poaching that happens. We’ll of course answer that later, but what are the challenges you’ve faced until now in getting this talent in?
Kevin: I think all talent, especially in tech, wants to work on groundbreaking work. If you have groundbreaking work, anybody will want to come join you. So, communicating what you’re doing, your vision and how you communicate it is very, very important.
For example, out here, an engineer is not just building code, they’re building the future of sports. It’s something larger than us. We’re not just doing this as a daytime job to pay a salary. We are impacting how sports is going to be consumed in India for the future. If you’re able to draw that parallel, that’s when everybody gets excited. Nobody’s going to get excited just because you’re paying a little bit more. Nobody’s going to get excited just because of the designation, but everybody wants significance.
At Dream11, we’ve been one of the first folks to enter the space and deliver a lot of significance, not just for the people who work here, but for millions of our fans and users. I think that’s one space that we’ve been able to occupy quite well. It’s about groundbreaking work every day, challenging work every day. That’s what makes even a stone into a beautiful diamond.
Devashish: Fantastic! This is really a goosebump answer for me. The fact that everyone wants significance, connecting them to that larger vision that it’s much more beyond just coding. You are creating such a large impact in the way sports is consumed – how it inspires everyone to do real sports outside in the sporting arena. Fantastic! Thank you so much, that was an amazing answer, Kevin.
Question 4: Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion
Devashish: My fourth question: We have seen Dream11 promote women’s sports. We have the Women’s Super Smash League, which has become very popular. How does diversity, equity, and inclusion play out within the Dream11 talent ecosystem?
Kevin: That’s very interesting. I’d like to draw a parallel to sport. If all of us were wicketkeepers on the team, if all of us were batsmen, if all of us were bowlers, that would not be a pretty cool team. We do understand that diversity is superbly important, especially to team performance. It’s just natural, and as a sports company, we try and make sure that we have a diverse set of talent. But more importantly, it’s not just about the diversity that you see, it’s about how each person feels. Do they have a voice? Do they feel that they belong? Do they feel that they’re being heard? For us, these three things matter the most. That’s when you end up becoming diverse.
When we started out, I remember this in 2017, our average age was about 23-24, a very young company. Today, the average age is about 28-29, which means a lot of people are married, they have kids. Our policies have changed completely. In 2017, we had a 10% gender diversity ratio. Now it’s about close to 22%. But we haven’t focused on saying that we want to move the needle in this manner. We’ve been meritocratic about it. We’ve been focused on making sure that it’s a diverse set of folks that we hire and diversity not just in terms of what you can see, but how are decisions taken? Are you inclusive when you are soliciting feedback? Are you able to challenge your manager?
We have a “No HiPPO” rule here, which means that the highest paid person’s opinion doesn’t matter as long as you have the data to question them and present the best idea. That’s very, very important because that’s what creates diversity. Diversity is not based on what you see, it’s how you feel every day. As long as we’re giving that to our people, we are on a winning team.
Devashish: Amazing! I just loved how you’ve broadened the entire idea of diversity. Fantastic! Diversity from thought, from ability to participate in decisions, getting your voice heard, your thought tabled, irrespective of what your position might be in the organization.
Kevin: Let me give you this anecdote. This happened in 2017-18, I think it was 2018, the beginning. We had a marketing agency working with the marketing team, with the founders, with the top management team. They came back to us on what the new logo of Dream11 should be. Obviously, this is a team that’s invested in this idea, they’re the closest to it, they have the knowledge, the technical ability to choose something. They had multiple options and they finalized one.
But just before taking it public, we always like everybody in the organization to know, what do you think? Because this is finally something that’s going to be on your shirts, on your mugs, on your bags, on your appraisal letters. How are you going to feel about that? We said, “Hey, this is what we’ve chosen. How do you like it?” And everybody was like, “Thumbs down. We don’t like it at all.”
We were like, “Hey, listen, tomorrow is the ad shoot. We’ve already gotten these shirts done.” We were getting a brand ambassador for the shoot. But this feedback, where you say you need voices to be heard, these are people who are as much invested in your success as you are. Just opening it up to them, getting that feedback, overnight we changed it. We said, “Hey, listen, whatever ad we’re shooting has got to be shot without a logo. We’ll superimpose the logo later.” That’s how this logo came about – this logo of the championship cup.
Like I told you about the HiPPO, that decision doesn’t work. We just don’t go by that. The second is that diversity is also about hearing voices, making sure that not only are you soliciting it, but it’s being heard. I think this is a beautiful story that showcases how everybody commits to something because you’ve actually opened up decision-making and the input to everybody.
Devashish: You not only made sure that everyone feels that they’re heard in such an important decision, literally wearing the employer brand. But also making them feel that they were valued and that everyone has an equal say.
Kevin: That’s the culture out here. My sympathy is with the marketing team at that point in time, which was changing everything. Kudos to them that they could do that, believe in that, and really stick by it.
Devashish: That was an amazing anecdote, Kevin!
Question 5: Learning and Development
Devashish: With this, we move to the last two questions. Dream11 has a diverse tech workforce. It requires, I’m sure, a lot of learning and development initiatives. What has proven to be most effective for you?
Kevin: We look at learning and development like a preseason camp. For cricket or football, you have a preseason camp where there is intensity, focus, and training. But you’ve got to intersperse it also with learning that comes from the outside.
At Dream11, we’ve got a series called “Champions at the Stadium,” where we get some experts to come in. Sometimes they are cricketers, sometimes they are sports folks, sometimes they are experts in their functional fields. They come and talk about what they have done, and we can learn a lot from them.
We also have a hackathon, 48 hours of immense focus where teams build something. The last time we had a hackathon, it wasn’t just a tech initiative, it was everybody in the company. Everyone was on a cross-functional team that had to build an AI solution. You were trained in AI. You had experts come in on how to build an app that can use AI to solve a problem in your department. I remember we built our own chatbot for HR, you could ask it questions and it would answer questions on policies. This is a solution that’s not just going and picking up something off the shelf, but understanding how to build it yourself. That really stretches you. If you’re not being stretched in learning, you’re not developing.
The second is also about holistic development. It’s not just about stretching yourself to learn something new, but it’s also knowing what your strengths are, making sure that you’re focused on the right kind of well-being. If you’re too invested, you’ll burn out. Having the right balance and advising people on the right balance is very, very important. Making sure you’re focused, when you have too many things to do because everything that you touch is exciting in our company, you see an opportunity everywhere, but you need to focus. You need to build the right relationships. You need to make sure that you’re gunning for your purpose because sometimes you lose track of that.
As a player (we also call all people who work here players as well because we are like a sports team), it’s about making sure that you are focused on holistic development of yourself and of your team as well. For us, that’s what matters.
In addition, there’s the usual stuff. There are courses online that you can take. We used to have a budget of Rs. 50,000 per person that you could spend on anything linked to your work. For the last couple of years, we had a learning wallet in place. Everybody in the company could go and spend up to Rs. 50,000 on their own learning and development, just check in with your captain. What we did this year is remove that limit of 50,000.
Devashish: So go and see what’s useful to your own growth?
Kevin: Yes! The beauty of that is our focus is on the ownership that you show. It’s not about the organization or your coach telling you you have to go for practice, it has to come from within. As a player, if you’re not keen on improving, nobody can force you to do that. Everybody is an adult in this space. We’ve seen it countless times, the players that actually want to improve go beyond what the coach tells them. They are invested in their success. They show that ownership and the zeal to make sure that they improve as players because they know that when they are invested in their own success truly, there’s nothing that’s going to stop them.
Devashish: I think all three anecdotes and your organizational philosophy on learning and development. These are best practices, and we would certainly want to quote them in our report whenever it comes out. Fantastic!
Question 6: Talent Acquisition and Retention Challenges
Devashish: With this, this section’s last question, Kevin: What are some of the biggest challenges Dream11 faces in acquiring and retaining your talent? I mean, especially you have such a large tech workforce, and we know how competitive it can be.
Kevin: Everybody out there is like a cricket team, and everybody is looking for a Virat Kohli to join the cricket team. That’s the market out there. The question is: How do you get a Virat Kohli-like batsman on your team? How do you get many of them? And how do you get them to stay?
You can get them because of the amazing perks you have, the salary you pay, the policies that you have, the underlying culture that you propagate. But you get them to stay because of what they experience. I talked about this earlier, you have to provide challenge, you have to provide groundbreaking work. That’s the only reason that they’re going to stay. And whatever promises you’ve made on culture have to really bear fruit. If you’re going to tell a person they have autonomy and they come in and they don’t find autonomy, they’re not going to stay. They’re going to jump to the other team that’s telling them, “Yeah, come. I’m very happy to have you on my team.”
For us, making sure that what we promise is delivered. We’re not making fake promises, that’s absolutely clear. Making sure that happens ensures that we always get people who are here not just because they see it as a pay check, but because they see this as a way to change sports in India for the better.
Devashish: Amazing! And do you create narratives around such success stories a lot?
Kevin: I think anybody who joined here at Dream11 ages ago, 2017 or before, I don’t think they came for a salary increase. These were people who were counting on the purpose. They knew that this is a space nobody has, it’s untapped. Nobody has tried it before. These are the first guys that are trying to do something in the space. “I want to be part of this mission. This is changing things that have never been done before.”
I think you will always have that. Even when a company grows, like Dream11, Dream Sports, FanCode, DreamSetGo, all of them have grown. You’ll always find opportunities where it becomes mission-driven and purposeful for a bunch of people. Even today, it’s still a purpose-driven company. We are still just taking baby steps. There’s still a lot to do. We’re very excited about that.
Devashish: Wonderful! Just fantastic, Kevin, and very, very inspiring!
SEGMENT 2: SPILLING THE BEANS
Devashish: With this, friends, we come to the end of our first segment, which was “Decoding the Jobs,” and we move to our second segment. Be ready to spill the beans because this is called “Spilling the Beans!”
Question 1: Creating the Employee Value Proposition
Devashish: So, Kevin, the first question here: As early movers in an emerging sector like gaming, how did you create your employee value proposition?
Kevin: Lots of EVPs out there. One of the things that we were most inspired by on our journey was Netflix, freedom and responsibility. They truly live it at Netflix. For us, it was about sport.
Just to draw a parallel, what we felt is that we need to be authentic all the time. We are a sports company at our core. A lot of people here love sports, they either watch it or play it. The reason why they’re here is largely because of sport, and the reason why they don’t leave is also largely because of sport.
But sports is not just about work. The reason why people are here is twofold: one is to create an impact, and the second is to really have fun doing it. For us, our EVP is focused on the impact that you’re going to create. You’re going to change sports and the way it’s consumed in India, and you’re going to have fun doing it. It’s not about work because sports has always been about play, right from your school days. You went on the field because you wanted to play. As a sports company, it’s all about play and having fun doing it and being on a winning team while you’re at it.
Devashish: You’ve literally made that old Hindi anecdote, “Khel khel mein,” sound true! Amazing, amazing! Thank you, Kevin.
Question 2: Digital vs. Human Connection
Devashish: You are a born-digital company, Dream11. As the HR leader in this organization, what parts of the employee lifecycle do you think are today still manual or semi-manual, and what are your plans for that?
Kevin: I think you have to have a very focused balance on making sure that there is a strong human connection. It’s very easy to use technologies because you’re a digital-first company. When I say digital-first, it doesn’t mean that other modes are outmoded. It means that you prefer using digital technologies to scale your processes. But there are some things that people absolutely love and adore, and that’s human connection.
When we look at our talent acquisition process—I’ll give you a small example—the talent acquisition team at the company is not responsible for hiring.
Devashish: They’re not responsible for hiring?
Kevin: No. The hiring manager is. Even if the TA team doesn’t do anything, the question is going to be asked of the hiring manager: What did you do? Did you go and meet candidates? Did you go and speak to them? Did you shortlist? Did you prepare the JD? It’s not about the scouts who can get you talent. If the scouts can’t get you talent, it’s still your accountability as a captain to go and find your players. You can’t say you’re helpless because your scout didn’t do something.
When we did that, our jobs got filled faster. Candidates spoke directly to people that they’re going to be playing with on the field. The conversion rate was much, much faster. I think the beauty is that you made sure that the accountability ended up going where it truly had to be.
I honestly think that when it comes to making sure that leaders are accountable, driving that accountability to the core person who actually has to do it is very, very important. Sometimes we lose track of it. We end up saying, “Hey, listen, this team is responsible. This tech is responsible for making sure we can speak to our users.” But the owner is the hiring manager, and you can always use tech. For example, we use tech for reach-outs. We use tech to match candidates to the right position. You can always do that. But when you are reaching out to a candidate—tech can help you navigate swim lanes through your talent process, but the hiring manager is the one who’s accountable.
You have to meet a candidate physically. You have to take the candidate out for lunch. You can’t do it through tech. You have to be present because this is the person who’s going to work with you.
Devashish: And in today’s world where jobs have become location-agnostic, assuming you have someone sitting out of Kerala working for you, how does that work out? How does the lunch happen then? Do you still use technology?
Kevin: We have a hybrid model, but you need to be in the office four days a week and one day wherever you want to be. Very clearly, a lot of folks have realized after the pandemic that true development happens when they’re working with people in proximity. That’s truly worked for us as well. We don’t find this quandary where we’ve got a 100% remote organization.
Devashish: Fantastic, fantastic!
Question 3: Success Story of How Dreamsters Are Made
Devashish: I think the last question in this section: Can you share a success story of how Dreamsters are made?
Kevin: They’re made over decades, I would say, with the hard work of everybody involved. I truly think that everybody who’s been here, who’s dreamed of being at Dream11 and made it here, they’ve truly mastered a couple of things.
One is that they are focused on data and the decisions that they take, but they also have a little bit of gut. What we end up saying out here is “90% data, 10% gut.” That match and mix, you’ll never have all the data all the time. If we had all the data, and this is what our founders also say, we’d never have entered this space. Everybody told us, “Don’t take the risk.” You’ve got to take it. That 10% gut is very, very important.
You have to show ownership. We’ll always pay fewer people, but we’ll do groundbreaking work, very enriched work. You can’t do that when you can’t rely on the next person to take ownership, or if you’re not transparent with them, saying, “I’m expecting you to do this. You’re not doing it.”
The other elements are a bit around how much we persevere. You will never see people giving up. They’re still focused on it. As a company, our beginning was such that we had to go to close to 150 VCs before we got our first round of funding. If you’re not going to be persistent during that, every time something doesn’t work out, you can’t just be heartbroken. You always find us, irrespective of the turmoil, irrespective of the changes that we see around us, irrespective of the speed of the changes, we’re still positive.
The last bit is about making sure that whatever you do, you’re not doing it for yourself. You’re doing it for your users. You’re doing it for sports. You’re doing it for the country. It’s always about something bigger than us. At Dream11 and at Dream Sports, whatever we are creating, it’s bigger than the company. It’s not for us.
Devashish: Lovely, lovely! What a fantastic answer!
SEGMENT 3: EXPERTS ADVICE
Devashish: With that, Kevin, we come to the end of “Spilling the Beans,” and we move to segment three, my friends, which is “Expert’s Advice.” Kevin, all spotlight on you once again!
Question 1: Top Three Skills for Graduates
Devashish: First question: What are the top three necessary things that a graduate should learn before scouting for jobs in a new-age company like Dream11? Some softer aspects on the skill set, cultural aspects?
Kevin: A lot of what I’m going to say right now is a mix of what I’ve experienced and a mix of what I’ve seen young graduates who’ve joined us succeed at.
The first I would say is adaptability. You will always face so much constant change – structures changing, business changing. Every day is in turmoil sometimes. You need to be adaptable because some people are fixated on “this was what was said—how did this change?” But the world’s changing. Your businesses are changing. Your priorities keep changing. The team keeps changing and evolving. Your thoughts keep evolving, and there’s no right answer all the time. People who can adapt to that pace thrive, especially as a young graduate. When everything around you is changing and you’re not, the problem is not with everything around you—, he problem is with you. So change and adaptability is very important.
The second I would say is your fluency with technology. You have to be technology-agnostic as well as fluent with any technology. You can’t say, “Hey, I don’t know this.”
Devashish: Technology-agnostic and technically fluent together?
Kevin: Yes, you have to have that balance. Let’s say I joined this organization. I’m not a person who ever used WhatsApp, I hate to use WhatsApp, and it was a pain. I never used a Mac in my life, and I had a lot of number-crunching to do. I remember in my first two months of joining, my Excel skills on a Mac were slightly different because the tools and the commands are different. But you’ve got to adapt. You’ve got to be fluent in all sorts of technology, and especially for a graduate in a technology profession or as a software engineer, the tools that are going to come your way every single month, the developments in that tool are going to be crazy. If you’re not going to jump on being fluent with that, you’ll soon find yourself outmoded.
The third I would say is entrepreneurship, and that’s where you require people to show ownership. It’s not about complaining about what the world didn’t give you or what happened to somebody else. It’s about taking your own destiny in your hands and acting with initiative. A lot of folks don’t do that. It’s always sometimes about an external force, but the biggest force that you have is the force of self-belief in you. Never lose that.
I think these three, adaptability, fluency on tech (especially in the world of GenAI), and the last one, an entrepreneurial spirit translating to being able to do your own thing with true self-belief, would make any graduate succeed.
Devashish: Absolutely fantastic! Lovely, lovely!
Question 2: Keeping Dreamsters Relevant
Devashish: Last question, Kevin. The gaming industry is ever-evolving in its skill landscape. Technology is its backbone. Like you just said, every week there’s something new. What is working for Dream11 to keep its Dreamsters relevant even today?
Kevin: When you look at just the digital side of it, you end up focusing on all the cool things, “Oh wow, this is a fancy tech platform.” But there’s also an offline part of it. There’s one of our businesses called DreamSetGo, it’s a bespoke premium travel experiences company. It takes about 5,000 to 10,000 people to marquee sports events every year.
When you look at that business and the kind of focus that they have, very clearly they focused on making sure that they give an experience that nobody has ever seen, at least from an Indian standpoint. You’re getting authentic tickets. You know that if you have to go and watch a certain marquee event, maybe it’s a tennis event in the US or in the UK, you can totally rely on them.
When I look at that, what’s working for us and what’s working for all our companies is the strong belief that sports is only growing. Each of our businesses, if you take sports and sports tourism, sports tourism is growing much bigger than tourism itself. You’ve just cited what you’re seeing about the size of the gaming market.
The true belief that you are at a tipping point, it’s a great opportunity, it’s a fabulous place to be, you are a market leader, there’s groundbreaking work still because we’ve just broken stone, the foundation has been laid, we still need to build a castle. Multiple castles. Not just for us, I said earlier, this is for everybody. This is for what we can contribute to the sports ecosystem because as that gets bigger, there’ll be a lot of companies coming in. We’ve just been one of the first, one of the pioneers. But I’m sure there are going to be countless many that will come in, and we’d be pretty happy if we were one of the first to make sure that happens.
Devashish: Wow, amazing, amazing, Kevin! What you said right at the start of this beautiful conversation, that the stadium’s full, everyone’s cheering on, and we’re at that pivot point in this industry for its future, where the match is about to begin.
CLOSING
Devashish: With that, my friends, we come to the conclusion of this episode. I want to thank Kevin Freitas, Chief Human Resource Officer of Dream Sports, from the bottom of my heart. Thank you on behalf of Taggd, the Confederation of Indian Industry. What you’re going to say becomes part of great conversations that come to the trinity of academia, industry, as well as government, and are published in the India Decoding Jobs report.
I thank you, and I want to wish Dream Sports and Dream11 great, tremendous success as we wait for the game to start.
Kevin: Thank you! I’m humbled to help in any way I can. Thank you so much, Devashish.
Devashish: Thank you, sir. Thank you!
