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The inaugural World Series Hockey, a franchise-based league, which is scheduled to take place from December 15 to January 22 across eight cities of India is reported to already have in place four franchises.
The tournament will be an eight franchise affair, of which four franchises have been invited while the remaining four will be selected through tendering process. Among the four invited franchises, two are already reported to have signed the formal franchisee contract.
The four franchises come from six cities that have been selected as venues. Bangalore, Chennai, Delhi, Hyderabad, Mumbai and Punjab (Amritsar, Jalandhar and Chandigarh) have been selected as venues for inaugural WSH which will run from 15 December to 22 January.
Speaking to the media, Nimbus Communications chairman Harish Thawani said
“The invited franchises hands have been shaken and in fact two have already signed contracts, let me not steal their thunder they will make separate announcement each week down the road.
“The process we are following is that in August we want to sign-up broadcasters. There are four interested broadcasters; we will run a competitive deal for who gives the best deal for the World Series Hockey.
“Once we conclude that then we will announce the franchises as we have mentioned the first four franchises will be by invitation and the next four by competitive process.”
Nimbus Sports would be investing close to Rs 125 Crores for the WSH while each franchise is expected to invest around Rs. 215 Crores over a period of 15 years. Nimbus’ investment, which will include player’s salaries, marketing and staging of the tournament among others would be recovered through sale of on-ground sponsorships and telecast rights as well as through sale of franchises.
“We believe by the time tournament starts our investment will be in the region of 125 crores (Rs 1.25 billion) everything put together but we will recoup a major portion of that from sponsors, broadcasters and franchises and over a period of time hopefully make some money,” said Thiwani.
