Goa being a football loving state, is in the process of giving sufficient emphasis on many other games in the sports arena. Probably, the much-hyped 2011 national games are the reasons for that. Besides football, Goa is slowly emerging as a powerhouse of other disciplines like Cricket, Kabaddi, Softball, Chess and boxing to name a few. Indoor games like Table Tennis and Badminton are yet to make a mark on the national front. The competition at the state level of the two games is pretty convincing. But once the state players perform at national tournaments, their quality seems to be overpowered by other state players. The major reason to this could possibly be the absence of Corporate sponsors in TT and B'ton. Efforts still need to be taken in TT but B'ton players now have a reason to smile.
The novel concept of the Pro-Badminton League hit the minds of some members of the Panjim Badminton Club. According to the secretary of PBC, Sandeep Heble, the idea of having the league was to rope in the neccessary corporate sponsors which could raise the standard of the game. The PBC, I should say did a great job in getting the sponsors and raised a decent amount of Rs. 20000/- as the cash prize for the winners plus cash prizes to runners-up, losing semi-finalist and so on. After much efforts from the club members, the first ever badmionton league of the state finally commenced on 19th November 2009 - no doubt after a slight delay due to a couple of unavoidable circumstances. The league featured top shuttlers from state and were divided into 8 elite teams. Models Eagles captained by Sunny Sawant emerged as the winners of the league while PBC Gladiators finished runners-up. Mind you! the final was a higly entertaining match which went right down to the wire.
More than knowing who were the winners and runners-up and bla..bla.. what good to know is that many loved the concept of having such a unique league. The players had a stage to exhibit their talent against shuttlers from various catagories. The sponsors may have been the driving force to the success of the league. Now, what's interesting to see is that will the sponsors continue to shell in the finance in the future events that the game of Badminton requires?
All I can say about the Pro-Badminton League is "What an Idea Sirjee!"
First Ever Pro-Badminton League - What an idea Sirjee!
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2 comments:
Well written Patterson. You too were an integral part of the League. Thanks to you and Prudent, the League got a great exposure on the Cable network.
The media has an important role to play in the packaging of a game. If a game is packaged and marketed well, the sponsors will come in automatically. When the sponsors come in, the level & intensity of the game will definitely be raised by a few notches.
Indeed, the badminton Players have reasons to smile now. Hopefully, we will all carry the momentum forward from here so that Goa has a good Team to compete at the 2011 National Games.
Cheers!
Your right...kudos to you and PBC. I'am a complete football freak. But your idea of the league and the way it was organized and executed, compeled me to go ahead an write the article.
Keep up the good work
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