India has no dearth of sporting talent. Walk into any training facility in the country and you will find dedicated, disciplined competitors who have dedicated years of their lives to their sport. Some of them are very good. A few are exceptional. Most of them you’ve never heard of.
The ones you’ve heard of are doing well. Virat Kohli sells everything from energy drinks to luxury cars. Big names from cricket, tennis and badminton are on billboards, showcasing campaigns and signing contracts that would be the envy of most professionals. Fame in Indian sports is extremely lucrative. But fame is also extremely rare.
For the vast majority of Indian athletes, there are no billboards. They do not receive any brand offers in their inbox. There’s just training, competition, recovery and the monthly reality of trying to fund all three without a salary, sponsor or safety net. The question of how they will survive, financially and professionally, is one that Indian sport has never adequately answered.
Niharika Vashisht found one answer. The triple jumper is among a select group of Indian athletes who have cleared the 13m barrier and qualified for the Asian Games in Aichi-Nagoya this September. He has been competing for fifteen years. He is also a five-time content creator. In her telling, one career would not survive without the other.
THE ECONOMY OF ATHLETES IN INDIA
Ask Vashisht what it actually costs to maintain an elite sports career, and she doesn’t hesitate. Physiotherapy costs around Rs 1,500 per session once or twice a week. Quality accessories, especially imported ones, cost Rs 30,000 to Rs 35,000 per month. Then there’s daily nutrition, organic foods, strength and conditioning, and various other expenses that quietly pile up in the background. Don’t forget the usual expenses like accommodation, travel and everything else.
Add it all up and you’re looking at monthly expenses that would strain most household budgets. Here’s a perspective that makes that number difficult: according to a 2023 research paper on labor income in India, an individual earning Rs 50,000 a month is in the top five percent of the country’s overall income distribution. For a serious athlete, the same number is not a salary. These are operating costs.
“If you want to be the best in your field, you need the best of everything,” Vashisht said in an exclusive interview with India Today. “For athletes without sponsorship, it’s all expensive and difficult to manage.”
Regular employment is also not an easy solution. An athlete’s day is built around training, recovery and diet. The rhythm of top sport does not leave much room for nine to five. By her mid-twenties, Vashisht was clearly aware of the bond. She finished college, competed seriously, and didn’t want to keep relying on her parents to fund it all.
“That was the point where I started thinking that I needed a steady source of income to support myself and my training,” she says. “Social media came into my life at exactly the right time.
THE PHONE AND THE PANDEMIC
Before 2019, she was barely on social media, keeping a private account and largely ignoring the platforms. The turning point came after returning from the World University Games where she represented India. Recognizing where things were headed commercially, her agent encouraged her to start building a presence.
“My agent told me that social media is going to take off in the next few years and that it could be a good avenue for discovery alongside my sports career,” he says. Vashisht wasn’t immediately convinced, but she listened.
Then came the pandemic. Gyms closed, competitions were canceled and the country moved indoors. For most athletes, the lockout was a period of frustration and stagnation. For Vashisht, it turned out to be the best possible time to start. With training relegated to whatever space she could find and no competition calendar to focus on, she began posting.
Training clips, training snippets, behind the scenes footage of a career that most people knew nothing about. Nothing elaborate, nothing over-produced. Just an athlete doing her thing with her phone pointed at her.
“I started posting workout clips, behind-the-scenes videos and training snippets just for fun,” she says. “People slowly started to respond really well and that’s how the journey began.”
The answer surprised her. People watched, shared, came back for more.
WHEN INJURED, POST
The real test of what she built came not when things went well, but when they fell apart. An ACL injury halted her season and sent her into a rehabilitation process that lasted the better part of a year. Treatment meant regular travel to Bengaluru and Chandigarh. The cost, on top of everything else, was considerable.
She was still publishing. Updates from the physio chart, progress reports from the gym, the slow and seedy business of getting the knee back to full strength. It was honest rather than polished, and the audience responded to that honesty. More importantly, the revenue kept coming.
“My ACL rehab involved frequent travel for treatment,” he says. “I had to pay for physical therapy, diet and rehab. Social media income made it possible. Without that, I would have had to rely entirely on my parents.”
However, the financial lifeline was only part of it. There is a special kind of responsibility that comes from having an audience, however modest, watching you recover. Each contribution was a small commitment. Each update was a reason to show up for the next session. Vashisht found that the platform she built to fund her career also helped her hold herself together during the toughest stretch.
“I kept posting parts of this journey on social media and in a way that helped me stay accountable and consistent,” she says.
“Knowing that people are watching the process and looking for updates has given me extra motivation to keep going.”
Injury has always been one of the most financially and psychologically critical moments in an athlete’s career. You are not competing, you may be losing visibility, and costs are higher than usual. Social media, for Vashisht, solved both problems at once. It kept the gas going and kept her anchored in a sense of purpose when the training track seemed so far away.
Her presence on these platforms also began to open doors outside of sports. A casting director found her on Instagram and cast her in a commercial alongside Akshay Kumar. It was an early sign that the platform could work in ways it hadn’t originally anticipated, creating opportunities in advertising and entertainment that an athlete operating entirely offline would never encounter.
CAMERA NEVER SHUTS OFF
The practical reality of how Vashisht creates content is worth understanding because it dispels the assumption that this kind of work requires significant time or resources. At the end of most practices, her father, who is often present, records a rep or two on his phone. She edits the shots herself. She notes that the cut has an unexpected bonus: watching her own movement back helps her analyze her technique.
“It’s very simple,” he says. “I usually ask my dad or a training partner to record a rep or two of the workout. I edit my videos myself. It’s not overly complicated or demanding.”
This simplicity is part of why he believes content creation is a real and replicable avenue for athletes across disciplines. You don’t need a production crew or a media strategy. You need a phone, a platform and some consistency. The story, the effort, the stakes: the athletes already have it all. Just point the camera at it.
However, once the camera is on, it cannot be easily turned off. The pressure to stay consistent doesn’t stop when training is going poorly or when the mental energy just isn’t there. Working with a brand depends on engagement. Engagement depends on consistency. Which means that next to every training session, every recovery day, every moment of doubt, there is always a silent duty.
“Even if training isn’t going well or you’re not in the right mental space, you still feel the need to post,” she says. “That pressure to always be seen is probably the hardest part.
It’s a tension that shouldn’t be underestimated. Athletes already bear the physical and psychological weight of performance sports. The obligation of the content creator to always appear online adds another layer to this. The financial benefits are real.
However, they come at a price that doesn’t always appear in the main role.
JAPAN EXPECTS
The Asian Games in Aichi-Nagoya are scheduled for September and Vashisht has accomplished her task. The 13 meter boundary is erased. Whether she makes the final traveling squad is a decision that rests with the selectors, not her. Characteristically, she is not bothered by things beyond her control.
When asked if her profile on social networks can somehow be reflected in the competition, if her rivals watched her content or formed impressions, she answers with someone who has spent fifteen years learning what matters and what doesn’t.
“Maybe competitors have seen my content, maybe they have opinions, maybe they haven’t,” he says. “I don’t think too much about it.
The two worlds she inhabits, athlete and creator, have never really been at odds for her. They always served the same purpose. One funds the other. One documents the other. And when the competition begins, only one of them matters.
“My aim is to approach the Asian Games with a neutral mindset and remain fully prepared, regardless of what happens off the field,” he says.
But Vashisht is not alone in coming up with this. A silent exchange takes place across the disciplines. Rishika Khajuria, a 25-year-old fencer and content creator, uses her platform to fence what Vashisht did for athletics: make an invisible sport visible and find a way to fund it. In an interview with India Today in August 2025, she openly said that it was necessary.
“Since fencing is a new sport in India, we don’t get many sponsors,” she said. “So it’s important for us to get attention through social media. That’s the plan.”
It turns out that the plan is the same throughout. Train, post, recover and repeat. For the thousands of Indian athletes still figuring out how to finance the next training block, the next physical therapy session, the next supplement order, this story is no longer just Vashisht’s. It’s becoming a movement. You are already doing the work. You can also document it.
– The end
Issued by:
Amar Panicker
Published on:
02 May 2026 10:31 IST
