Ultimate Kho-Kho League to get Rs 10 crore investment in first year

Consumer goods company Dabur India Limited's vice-chairman Amit Burman is investing a whopping Rs 10 crore in the first year of the newly-launched Ultimate Kho-Kho league, the country's first such initiative.

Ultimate Kho-Kho, a franchised based professional league, was launched on Tuesday by the Kho-Kho Federation of India (KKFI) in collaboration with Burman, who is associated in his personal capacity.

The 21-day IPL-style league will see eight franchise teams playing a total of 60 matches in a double round-robin format. The league will be held either in September or October this year.

"In the first year, I will be investing approximately Rs 10 crores. This is the franchise fee which I have to pay to the KKFI," Burman told PTI at the sidelines of the launch event.

Elaborating more on the investment he is pumping in the league, Burman said the eight teams will be picked through a tender.

"I own the league and I will have to pay the franchise money to KKFI. The team owners will be making their payments to me. We will be floating a tender and the bidding will begin subsequently. All this will happen in a month's time, we have already begun the process," he said.

Kho-Kho is played in around 20 countries in the world, mostly in Asia. Kho-Kho match consists of four innings of nine minutes each and the league will be played on specially developed mats in state-of-the-art indoor stadiums.

Each team will have 12 players which will include two international and under-19 athletes each and one marquee player.

"In each team we are allowing two international players. There will be one marquee player who will be decided through an auction. Nine players will play the match and three player will be in the reserve," Burman said.

KKFI and Burman have together appointed Tenzing Niyogi (former sports advisory leader at Ernst and Young) as the CEO of the league while Indian Olympic Association Secretary General and former KKFI president Rajeev Mehta is the chairman of the league.

The organisers are still finalising the host cities for the event along with the other nitty-gritty.

"We are looking at two cities to host the matches. The cities we are looking at are those which have big following of the sport. Kho-Kho is popular in West India and South India. There is also big following of Kho Kho in east India -- in Jharkhand and Bengal," Niyogi said.

"We are also in talks with the broadcasters, Sony and Star but nothing has been finalised yet," he added.