As part of its focus this year on the impact of sports on the broadcast industry, the National Association of Broadcasters (NAB) annual trade show invited Gotham Chopra to deliver a keynote speech on “Unleashing the Champion Within.”
Chopra, an author and documentary producer, owns, along with partners Tom Brady and Michael Strahan, Religion of Sports studio which has produced a series of films about athletes. The NAB Show promoted Chopra’s keynote as exploring “the evolving intersection of sports, entertainment, and storytelling, diving into how the narratives of athletes, teams, and moments of triumph or heartbreak captivate audiences worldwide andfuel our own quests to reach our Peak Selves and full Human Potential.”
Who is Gotham Chopra?
Chopra began his speech by explaining where he came from personally. He then moved on to the psychological and philosophical journeys that led him to pursue sports-focused storytelling.
He showed clips from his films which included biographies of athletes Tom Brady, Kobe Bryant, LeBron James, Simone Biles, Conor McGregor, and Serena Williams. He may be moving in new directions as his latest film was about Bon Jovi.
Chopra said, “For the last decade, I have been trying to not only tell great stories, but to learn from them.”
He shared how he was a first-generation American. “I was born in Boston, and I was different from the other kids at the Irish-Catholic school I went to. What we did have in common was sports. I was cursed with being a Red Sox fan. There was a point when we were only one strike away from winning the World Series. I was only 11 years old, but I was crushed when we lost. But my friends told me that because I was a Red Sox fan, I was part of something greater.”
Journalism Next
Chopra next explained his father’s influence. “My father started writing books,” he said. “My father is Deepak Chopra.”
Deepak Chopra studied medicine in India before emigrating in 1970 to the United States. In the 1990s, Deepak became a proponent of aholistic approachto health that includesmeditation, yoga, nutrition and other new-age therapies. After interviews about his books on The Oprah Winfrey Show, he gained a major following.
Chopra continued, “I got my first job out of college because of who my father was. I am not above nepotism. Lisa Ling was leaving her network correspondent job to be on The View. I took her position.”
He explained how he spent the next years all over the world in places of conflict – Chechnya, Pakistan, Iran, and Iraq. Chopra said that wherever he went people were in conflict, but all people wanted to talk about was sports.
One More Change
Gotham Chopra recalled how he moved his family to Los Angeles. “My wife and I were at Sonny McLean’s Irish Pub and Restaurant and the team I was sticking for hit a walk-off home run. As we were walking home, my wife asks, ‘Why do you care so much about this thing you have no control over?’ Everything since then has been a reaction to this question.”
Chopra explained how he left frontline journalism after 9-11 because “things got too dark”. He convinced ESPN he was an expert on cricket (he wasn’t) because he was an Indian. It took several years and a serendipitous encounter with Kobe Bryant, but this change allowed him to start creating the documentaries about “these figures that inspire me.”
Gotham Chopra’s documentaries can be found across Netflix, ESPN, Disney+, Hulu and more. Find out more about these inspirational films at the Religion of Sports website.
More NAB
The NAB Show took place April 5 to 9 in Las Vegas, Nevada. Over 55,000 attendees viewed talks, workshops and exhibits. Over a thousand exhibitors displayed cutting-edge technology for radio, TV and internet creativity and communications.
For more info about products and companies at this year’s NAB, check their social media connections: Facebook –@officialnabshow; X –@nabshow; LinkedIn –@nabshow/; Instagram –@nabshow; TikTok –@nabshowofficial; YouTube –@TheNABShow; or Threads –@nabshow.
