Riding on PBL success, BAI mulls league for domestic shuttlers

After the success of the Premier Badminton League (PBL), the Badminton Association of India (BAI) is now mulling to organise another lucrative domestic tournament for the national players later this year.While the PBL saw the who’s who of world badminton descend to India to entertain the spectators with their superior display, the proposed new league could see the Indian stars playing in six different cities after the Rio Olympics.“PBL was a success but we can’t stop here. While it was a great event, we want to give more opportunity to our Indian players to connect with the audience. So BAI will be holding an event in the lines of the PBL but at a smaller scale after the Rio Olympics (in August),” BAI president Akhilesh Das Gupta said.Like PBL, this new league will be a six team affair with 10 Indian players each. While PBL was held in Delhi, Mumbai, Chennai, Hyderabad, Bangalore and Lucknow, BAI is planning to take this new league to six new cities of India.“The idea is to take badminton to new cities. It will help the game to grow further. So we want to take it to cities such as Nagpur, Ahmedabad, Vijaywada, Jaipur, Patna and Gurgaon,” Das Gupta said.BAI is mulling to keep the auction purse for each of the franchise at Rs 50 lakh with the total prize money of the event at around Rs 1 crore.“We also want to get StarSports on board as the broadcasters as they have been the pioneers when it comes to promoting Indian badminton. Also the ticketing system will be smooth so that people make their plans in advance and come to watch the sport,” Das Gupta said.BAI had organised the Indian Badminton League (IBL) in 2013, before revamping it as PBL which was held from January 2-17 this year. There have been other leagues like in Maharashtra and it will be interesting to see what the proposed league holds for Indian badminton.

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