BAI to start Indian Badminton League in 2013 to promote the sport – Badminton news
The Badminton Association of India (BAI) decided to launch the first edition of Indian Badminton League in February 2013 in which all top shuttlers from India and also from all over the world will participate.
BAI decided it in the executive committee’s meeting that took place in the opening month of October when the 77th Senior National Championship was in progress.
The Indian Badminton League is intended to grab the attention of people and game lovers from all over the world just like the cricket event of Indian Premier League (IPL).
The core objective of this move is to bring in more interest of people in Badminton and to make the game one of the most popular sports in India considering that the country has a vast talent pool and Indian players have strong made their presence felt to
the world in the current era.
In Indian Badminton League, 6-8 teams will participate from all over the country in which foreign players will also participate.
Akhilesh Das Gupta, the BAI president, said that commercial partners for the event have been finalised.
He stated, “BAI has given the go ahead to Maharashtra for hosting the Indian Badminton League. We will have 6-8 teams. The commercial partners have already been finalised but a few modalities are yet to be done, so we will be making the major announcement
in the last week of this month along with the commercial partners.”
Das Gupta also expressed that BAI is in contact with the world’s governing body, Badminton World Federation (BWF), and will have many international players to make the event a success.
He added, “It is going to be a first of its kind tournament. We are in touch with the BWF. We will have international players and we want to host it around February next year.”
BAI also took another initiative and decided to make it compulsory for all top shuttlers of India to participate in national events which will certainly improve the reputation of sport in the country.
For that purpose, BAI formed a committee comprising on three members including Pradeep Gandhe who is the president of Maharashtra Badminton Association, former badminton player Vimal Kumar and the national coach Pullela Gopichand.
These prestigious members of the committee will try to convince all top shuttlers to participate in national events with a view to promote badminton in India.
The BAI has planned to organise different tournaments across India which will help them to find the talent and also to get a considerable room for badminton in the spotlight in a cricket-crazy country.
The badminton’s governing body in India will also award a prize money of Rs. 1 million for the coach Gopichand and 0.5 million for the talented young shuttler P.V Sindhu who has proved her worth at international stage recently.
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