Collaboration Over Competition
March 21, 2025
“It’s not about finding a seat at the table. It’s about building new tables.” I’ll never forget the energy in the room when Nik Dodani, Co-Founder of The Salon, issued this directive nearly three years ago. At the time, I was an Executive Assistant at The Black List, supporting CEO Franklin Leonard with his full slate of programs, partnerships, and initiatives. And it was the combination of conducting extensive research and pitching programming for a leader who stood so staunchly against tokenism and attending the UCLA MFA program that led me to share in Nik’s sentiments. I was seeing firsthand how the source of representation woes did not stem from a lack of talent, ingenuity, or creativity. The problem was back then and has remained now an immediate need for integrating culture into mainstream media, business, and social impact.
My first interaction with Indiaspora was during an initial meeting I took with Shoba Vishwanathan and Natasha Hindocha. Lists and media blasts had been a resounding success but Shoba wanted more than just a showcase. And watching her present the rationale, not by tapping into altruism and philanthropy, but rather pragmatic, universally understood market and economic principles inspired me. It was two hours after that meeting that I began work on Across The Line, an inaugural sports gala conference that is built on one principle: collaboration over competition.
If you know anything about my past, that might seem to be the most peculiar statement. I never set out to work in social impact or be a cultural consultant. In fact, I’m an athlete by trade, a writer and producer by training, and a Silicon Valley kid at heart. My pull towards social impact and changing the narrative for the South Asian community is not born out of altruism. It’s born out of a deep seeded belief that if done right, we can build a better world, one in which words like “representation” and “diversity” are not Instagram hashtags.
That better world will be built by dreamers, innovators, and thinkers that refuse to view the world through the frame that has been established. And that shift in perspective comes from direct experience with being trapped in the birdcage. I know it did for me. In the 2010s, the sport of track and field was unforgiving to Indian athletes, especially those in the distance discipline. I would often find myself toeing the line, whether it be at the USATF Junior Olympics or the California State Championships, alone in both race and culture. I started my career at 13 with my first appearance on the Junior Olympics stage and I professionally retired from my sport when I was 18. In that time, across every circuit, stadium, and platform, I could count on exactly one hand how many other South Asian athletes were competing on the elite stage. You know what’s odd about that? Track, as a sport, is not just about raw talent and power. Much like Formula One, it’s entirely strategy and biomechanics-driven. And you know who understands strategy and biomechanics the best? We do.
The problem with the modern interpretation of global sports is that everything is siloed. Sports, sports management, sports media, sports apparel, and sports technology are all individual sectors. Much like Nik Dodani hinted at, this game of musical chairs that we’re playing is simply not working for us. The key to establishing our presence in the sports and other global media sectors is by combining our forces. It’s through collaboration that we rise. My goal with Across The Line is to create this forum. Ahead of LA 2028, with the reintroduction of cricket to the Olympics stage, we have the opportunity to finally make our presence felt. As a community, we represent 85% of global viewership. And by leveraging our knowledge across sports medicine, tech, platform building, and performance, we can find ourselves not just duking it out for a seat at the table, but being the head of our own.
In our culture, we’re often presented with deterministic thinking. “What will happen, will happen.” I’d like to think that I’m humble enough to respect this but I’m too enthusiastic to completely agree with it. I do agree that purpose is perhaps ordained. At 18, I thought my life was over when I retired from my sport following a career-ending achilles injury. At 25, I now see that my purpose was to never run and compete for myself. It is to represent and collaborate with my people.
Statistics:
www.ilearncana.com/details/Sports-Industry-in-India/3508
www.researchandmarkets.com/reports/5753378/indian-sports-fitness-goods-market-report
www.researchandmarkets.com/reports/5753378/indian-sports-fitness-goods-market-report
www.marketresearchintellect.com/product/global-cricket-market-size-and-forecast/
About the Author
Niki Iyer is a film and television producer, former national-level track athlete, and bioengineer with a passion for diversity and storytelling. A graduate of UC Berkeley and UCLA, where she won the Alfred P. Sloan Screenwriting Grant, Niki has worked with top industry players like FilmNation and The Black List, and founded The Desi List to amplify South Asian voices in screenwriting. She currently produces Across The Line, an inaugural sports conference for the South Asian diaspora, aimed at empowering and connecting individuals in the sports world.
