Sports goes simpler, one reel at a time

Instagram content creators are breaking down the nuances of football and Formula 1 with interesting snippets

- Nitin Sreedhar

SHASHWAT MISHRA (@thedrogbaba)

Football-centric content creator

111,000 followers

The year was 2014, and Samaakshi Jha, then 13 years old, was watching the Copa Del Rey final between Real Madrid and FC Barcelona with her two football-crazy elder brothers.

That match is famous among La Liga viewers for a winning goal by former Madrid player Gareth Bale. But for Jha, that goal was the moment she fell in love with football and Real Madrid.

Since then, Real Madrid has been a constant presence in Jha's life, pushing her to make content around football through her popular Instagram handle @littiii chokha (with around 243,000 followers) for the last three years. "I am not a football analyst. For me, the key is to create content that is easy to understand and enjoy for neutral viewers," says Jha, who is from Raipur, Chhattisgarh, on the phone.

A mural artist by profession, Jha often dives into the meme culture to create her football reels. A vlog on football rakhis made using club crests went viral with 5.3 million views. Her reel documenting her meeting with former footballer David Beckham during his recent visit to India has more than 9 million views. "I was connected with Peña Madridista de Bombay (the first official Real Madrid fans' association in India) through social media. I used to make bite-sized social media content for them, which gave me some more visibility on Instagram," says Jha, who now plans to create football content full-time.

Jha, 23, is part of an exciting crop of Indian sports content creators on Instagram who break down the nuances of different sports through exciting formats, topics, and content on the social media platform in Hindi. There's trivia, interviews, explainers, comedy and other snippets that just make these sports simpler.

GEET BAGRODIA (@f1withgeet)