Hockey India League: A job well begun, but bigger challenges lie ahead

The Hockey India League (HIL), back in its new avatar after a seven-year gap, was good news for its legion of fans in the sport which has won India the highest number of medals in the history of Olympics. Capacity crowds on major match days at Birsa Munda Stadium in Odisha's Rourkela, the presence of some big overseas names, and quality action culminated in Shrachi Rarh Bengal Tigers taming Hyderabad Toofans 4-3 in a thrilling final to lay their hands on the sleek trophy on Sunday.

‘’The impact of HIL among fans had to be seen to be believed. Give it three years and it should become one of the most followed leagues in the country after cricket,’’ said Shrachi Sports chairman Tamal Ghoshal, on behalf of the owners of the champion franchise from Kolkata. They fielded a women’s team in the four-team women’s HIL too, where they finished third.

Unlike the men’s event which had eight teams in the fray, Hockey India found a dearth of takers for women’s teams and it had to be a four-team affair in the end. Odisha Warriors beat Soorma Hockey Club 2-1 in the women’s final in Ranchi in late-January while Bengal Tigers and Delhi SG Pipers were the other two teams.

Speaking to National Herald over phone, Ghoshal said: ‘’Teething problems will be there, but if we look at the positives, the world had come to play there. Thanks to the performance of our national hockey teams over the past four to five years, Hockey India could not have chosen a better time to get the league on track again. We will give our feedback to the national body on how to build the product from here.’’

Looking back at how the first season of the league in its new avatar panned out, Hockey India president Dilip Tirkey admitted that the league has to be marketed better. “More marketing is needed because this time, we had less time to promote the league,” the former India captain told the media.

‘’We will talk to franchise owners. We also want the capping of the purse for the men and women’s teams (currently Rs 7 crore and 4 crore respectively) to increase. The good thing is that the owners are showing interest in how we can make it better,” the man with 412 international caps added.

Incidentally, the previous edition of HIL had to be discontinued after five years (2013-17) owing to reported financial constraints and a packed international calendar. There was an upswing in the fortunes of Indian hockey since then with the senior men’s team ending a 41-year-old medal drought in Olympics with a bronze in Tokyo 2020 and following it up with another podium finish in Paris 2024. The women’s team, led by the inspirational Rani Rampal, finished fourth in Tokyo and won the women’s Asian Champions Trophy in Rajgir late last year.

The disparity between salaries of top players in cricket and other sports in franchise leagues in India — even with a great lineage like in hockey — is too stark to be glossed over. A glaring example is Harmanpreet Singh, men’s hockey captain and FIH Player of the Year,  who became the highest paid player in this HIL auction with a price tag of Rs 78 lakh, which could be the takeaway for a young and uncapped player in the IPL.  

‘’The HIL is a step in the right direction so that hockey can eventually become a career option for aspiring players. It will start building up a bigger pool of players among both men and women. As far as the success of our team is concerned, we see this as an opportunity to revive the sport in Bengal – which had once provided a galaxy of Olympics legends,’’ Ghoshal said.

  There are a number of areas like better marketing, a tighter schedule whereby the league can start after the Christmas holidays and better quality of broadcasting – which can do with improvement. However, Dutchman Jip Janssen, a member of the gold medallist men’s team in Paris Olympics who played for Tamil Nadu Dragons, was quite happy with how it all went: ‘’Not much (I’d change), I am really happy with how the league went. If it’d be possible to continue to organise this without interfering with our national team programmes, that’d be good. I’ve never seen such a tournament so well organised, so I hope to be here next year.”