Symbiosis School of Sports Sciences MBA Review By Rehan Mansuri

While doing engineering one thing that I realized was that one should do things in life they will they are good at. After watching Hyderabad’s performance in most of the leagues, I was always like; wish I could have managed the team. All these thoughts lead me to one of the only and best school of sports sciences and that is the Symbiosis School of Sports Sciences. Sports have become one of the most successful businesses in India. All the European clubs are in huge debts but all the Indian leagues and their clubs are minting money and all thanks to the leagues who have hired students from SSSS. Almost in all the Indian leagues, you will find students from SSSS. I knew one person who works for one of the franchises and it was he, who advised me to go for SSSS. Entrance is mandatory as only SNAP score is the only way to get here. There are other ways but way too expensive for my pocket size.

It was a full time MBA program where we studied some of the best cases studies and understood the story of sports boards and leagues becoming rich from rags. One such exciting case study was of BCCI. Does anyone know that BCCI didn’t have the money to organize the 1987 World Cup and it was Dhirubhai Ambani who bailed out BCCI then. People may call Lalit Modi absconded but it was he who brought all the money to BCCI. BCCI today is one of the richest boards and one that has its case studies being studied even at the Harvard. Thus, studying case studies and understanding what sports management is all about is what we learned at the campus.

Many international faces were at the campus to teach us some of the best and interesting subjects. India still doesn’t have many sports managers forget about the teachers. Among guest faculties we had owners of Rajasthan Royals, and KKR’s Venky Mysore who have hired a lot of students from SSSS. We were not trained just to work for the franchise in selecting players but also in finding sponsors and marketing the franchise. Sports Management is as vast MBA of other specializations and our faculties taught us all the spectrum of it.

Reliance Industries are the promoters of ISL and the league is growing rapidly. To make sure the pace doesn’t come down they hired as many as they could from our batch. Some of the students were recommended by them to various leagues of ISL. Football being my favorite sport and one that needs enthusiast more than the leaders to grow the popularity of the sport, I said yes even with a reduced pay. I may not be earning as much as other MBA does but I am working for a cause and that cause is to make Football popular in India.

One has to stay at the hostel for doing MBA from SSSS. Apart from SSSS there were other MBA colleges inside the campus and hostels were common for all the colleges of the University. Hostel was huge and one that can never let anyone gets bored. Symbi is a global university and interacting with students of different ethnicity was possible only at the Symbi hostel. I was not sure of staying at the hostel as I have never stayed at the hostels before but Symbi hostels will make your first time at the hostels a journey to cherish.

Symbiosis International University is the only landmark that Lavale village has. There’s absolutely nothing in the vicinity of the college and though some construction was going on but it will take few years, before Lavale becomes a household name. The campus had all the facilities inside and was strict too as students were warned if they take their vehicles beyond a certain point. Campus promotes green environment and therefore they have stacked the campus with enough cycles to use from. Pune witness heavy rainfalls but the drainage system of the campus is such that once the rain stops the puddles will be gone in few hours. Sporting facilities were great and had the best kit for playing any games such as Cricket, Table Tennis or Volleyball.

Sharing space and rubbing shoulders with foreigners was an experience that can’t be described. Yes, the university hosted events to boast for, invited celebrities to boast for but staying with foreign nationals was definitely the biggest takeaway for me. I don’t know any other university where students from entire states of India and from some countries of abroad stay together like they did at SIU campus. One thing that should be boasted is the quality of the crowd that Symbi has. From junior college to MBA colleges, the quality of the crowd was terrific.