Interest in Dempo: Can Shah Rukh Khan save the football business in India?

Is football in India having a cricket moment? This maybe a good time to ask because of the ongoing Euro championship and with no cricket around for sometime, though the question does surface every time we are in the thick of a major international football tournament.

With the Euro among us, you will notice a spring in the steps of the colleague with a constant frown in office, feel the extra emphasis on deadlines by the boss or in the case of this correspondent, hear the lament of the editor who has to be away when football makes it to the cover of ET on Sunday.

Data by television audience measurement company Tam Media Research show football is breathing down cricket's neck in terms of viewership (see In India, Football's Closing...). The faithful in India who stayed indoors on Friday night and watched Poland and Greece battle to a hard-fought draw in the inaugural Euro match would run into millions. That is a lot of people, certainly many more than those who watched the Indian hockey team beat Britain for the bronze in last week's Sultan Azlan Shah Cup.