Edmonton co-founder of Brown Ballers aims to branch out from all-Indian basketball success story

It was a big moment on July 26, one Edmonton's Navin Ramharak will never forget: a major U.S. tournament win broadcast to 11 million people by the all-pro Indian basketball team he helped organize.

India Rising shocked the basketball world by beating the top seed in regional play at this year's edition of The Basketball Tournament (TBT), a five-on-five, single-elimination tourney involving 64 teams broadcast on ESPN with a $1-million prize for the winning squad.

India Rising, in its second year of competition, came into the tournament as the lowest seed in the Dayton region. Their 77-67 win over No. 1 Dayton seed Red Scare, a team comprised of Ohio State alumni, is considered by some to be the biggest upset in TBT history.

India Rising's run ended in its second game at TBT two days later, but the precedent was set: it is the first team made entirely of players of Indian heritage to win a major game in the U.S. It's a team made up of people from many walks of life. Among them are real-estate agents, graduate students and an orthopaedic surgeon.

"It’s an incredible feeling because that’s what the whole point of our platform is — to show we exist but that we can compete against the best players in the world," said Ramharak, a content-creation entrepreneur who co-founded the squad two years ago with Gautam Kapur, its GM and a former manager of basketball strategy with the NBA.

When it comes to raising the profile of brown athletes, however, Ramharak has his sights set on more than just basketball. He's created an online entity that seeks to engage with and bring voice to South Asian athletes in any sport.

"We got so much traction, people were talking about us, but India Rising was simply a basketball team, so we came in and thought 'What’s bigger and grander?'" Ramharak told CTV News Edmonton. "That’s where Brown Ballers was born."

Brown Ballers is a sports media platform for brown athletes around the world, Ramharak said. With it and through reaching people via social media — Brown Ballers reaches 1.5 million people per month via social media — he hopes to inspire the next generation and break cultural expectations.

"It's not about the game, it's not about basketball or specific sports," he said. "It's about showing we exist and showing people all over the world — little kids, even our moms and dads who don't really understand what's going on because this is such a different age we live in — that we can go on ESPN and we can play.

"The biggest, most important thing we want to show people is you can do both. You can be a doctor, an engineer, a lawyer but you can also play basketball. In our culture, you're told to study. Just go be a doctor, go be an engineer, 100 per cent, A-plus and put sports to the side. But every single one of our players ... we have so many unique individuals that are doing both, so that's the bigger picture. We want to bring it to light so kids in the next generation know you can do it and that these people exist."

With TBT under their belts, Ramharak and Kapur plan to start other sports teams for brown athletes and generate even more community.

"In our next phase, we're going to start doing some camps, clinics, more social programs for people to get more engaged with us and see the bigger picture of what we're doing but impact more people, not just in the game of basketball," Ramharak said.

"I feel like we have so much to prove to people that brown people can do (so much) ... how much can we do on a big stage because one game is only one game. We need to win multiple games. We need to win the championship and do it in other sports for people to be like 'These guys are serious about making change.'"