The Marine Sports is the largest stockist for sports books in India, was established in 1946 by the late Bruno Braganza as a sports goods shop at Marine Lines. Bruno Braganza’s love for sports and literature made him divert his energy and business skills into trading in sports books. Soon he developed his contacts in England and other parts of the world and imported the books that helped in the growth and development of sports in India. They were one of the major suppliers of sports books to individuals like officials, coaches, professors, journalists, also institutes like sports colleges, associations and libraries. Bruno Braganza also developed his trade by displaying his books at cricket matches, athletics meets, martial art, bodybuilding competitions and sports seminars, thereby reaching the sports lovers, sportsmen and increasing his distribution network and building a good mail order service. In the sixties when Indian publishing came of age and many sports books were published in the country, the firm took up distribution, marketing and assisted major Indian publishers and foreign publishers to distribute throughout the country. The BCCI, AAFI, IHF, AIFF and other sports bodies, appointed the firm as their official distributors to promote, market, and distribute their books, specially the rule books.

In 1972 Theo Braganza gave up an engineering profession and employment with Brown Boveri, Baroda and came into the business to assist his father. The firm continued to organise book exhibitions, displays to promote their sports books. In 1983, Bruno Braganza passed away leaving his son the firm, the specialisation, good distribution and a name in sports books. Theo Braganza made good use of the leverage given to him by his father and excel further.

In the late 90’s when the Indian rupee started growing weak and book prices started raising and going out of reach, Theo Braganza ventured into publishing and again maintained the speciality of sports. This open new avenues and opportunities, new marketing strategies and modern distribution skills were adopted. They encouraged Indian writers to look at the opportunities of writing for book publishers. They obtained foreign rights to publish and bring to India sports books that would help in the development of sports in the country and price these within reach of the sportsmen. The firm also involved sponsors in sports books so that quality publications could be produced and priced these publications within reach of the Indian buyer. Today the firm has published over 150 titles and most of them bear the pride in quality, content, layout and printing.

The firm is now looking to excel further into publishing and have gone into publishing of sports books in Hindi and be a major contributor to the development of sports in the country through books and be a leading publisher of sports books in the world.

There are many book publishers in the world, but a handful are specialised in sports. There are only three specialised sports booksellers, Sportspages in England, Human Kinetic of the US and the Marine Sports in India. The Marine Sports is the oldest in the world. A household name in sports books in the country and known throughout the sporting world.