The Tokyo Olympics has brought back the attention on non-cricket sports and banking on this Abhinav Banthia, President of Bluesport Entertainment Pvt Ltd is hoping that the new league he is introducing will find traction amid Indian sports enthusiasts.
The new kid on the block is Premier Handball League (PHL) of which Bluesport Entertainment is the official licensee holder.
Banthia along with two other investors will be launching the league next year after COVID-19 played a spoilsport and delayed the initial launch scheduled for June 2020.
The league due to the coronavirus situation will be restricted to one city for the launch year. The men's league will take place in Jaipur next year. The league also plans to have a women's league.
The first season will have six teams and the first team will be rolled out by the end of August. And by November all the teams will be closed. So far, along with corporates, Bollywood celebrities have also shown interest.
Along with discussions for team owners, Banthia said that they are in touch with sponsors as well.
"There are brands from Europe that are showing interest and they want to enter the Indian market so they are looking at long term deals. Indian companies with the current market situation with IPOs, there are mandates for companies to invest in sports. And, the Olympics is going to help us in raising funds as well. If we talk about big companies, around 15 at the moment have shown interest and we are expecting around 100 companies to get associated," said Banthia.
When it comes to investments, Banthia, who is part of several angel investment conglomerates said that he along with the other two investors looked at the league as a startup.
"After the angel investment round we will look outside in the market. We are trying not to be in the red zone in the balance sheet in the first year," he added.
And here lies the challenge. Will the league sustain?
India is home to around 12 professional sports leagues and the most successful is the Indian Premier League (IPL). In fact, IPL is considered as the fourth most successful league in the world.
But brand expert and founder of PLAY sports, media and entertainment pvt ltd, Darshan M, said that it is unfair to compare leagues with IPL.
"IPL is successful because cricket is already being played everywhere, every day. So, it had a huge fan base. If you look at other leagues, many of them failed to even do three seasons. So, the promoters of the handball league need to first invest not looking at profit. In the initial stage whatever money they make they need to put it back into expanding the sport to create a pool of players. There's a lot of development work that they need to do if they're looking at a new sport, said Darshan.
He added that it all depended on the reach of the new league.
"If a sport is able to capture audiences, advertisers will follow. And a sport catching audience attention has nothing to do with the popularity of the sport. If you see every school has athletic events but how many people watch any athletic event? Even the marathons are all broadcast live yet there is no audience. Even badminton, probably the most popular sport in terms of playing, didn't take off despite having world class players. Whereas something like kabaddi which is not necessarily a sport that everybody played at school but it took off."
If we look at the reach of some of the sporting leagues, IPL had recorded362 million viewers, Indian Soccer League (ISL) saw 224 million viewers, Indian Kabaddi League attracted 220 million viewers, the Pro-Wrestling League was viewed by 109 million, Hockey India League by 43 million and Pro-Badminton League by 36 million, according to 2016 Broadcast Audience Research Council (BARC) data.
This shows that the audience has the appetite for non-cricket sports leagues.
Yet, only time will tell whether the new league-- Handball Premier League will take off.
Meanwhile, the International Handball Federation is betting on the growth of the sport in India and to give it a boost is looking to extend its support by providing foreign coaches and experts to train local coaches and technical officials.
In fact, the Handball Federation of India’s (HFI) Executive Director Anandeshwar Pandey met International Handball Federation’s (IHF) President Hassan Moustafa on the sidelines of the 2020 Tokyo Olympic Games and discussed the roadmap to boost the growth of handball in India.
In addition, IHF has also promised to support the Handball Premier League.
Even Banthia is looking at giving international exposure to the league.
"If COVID-19 permits, we will get foreign players from Europe, two players for each team. And this will be great learning for Indian players. Also, there's discussion on to let the winners play in international clubs in Europe," he added.