The financial impact of the HIL, not just for Indian players but for global stars too, is significant.
In 2023, in the aftermath of India’s early exit from the hockey World Cup on home soil, legendary Aussie coach Ric Charlesworth pointed to the key reason for the debacle — the dissolution of the Hockey India League (HIL). The game’s foremost thinker, while listing the benefits of having a world class league, had underlined that it was HIL that made the young Indian players realise that the international players too had “two arms and two legs” and they could compete against them as equals. After a seven-year absence, the competition is set to return in December.
The HIL’s return can only be good news for the sport. It isn’t a coincidence that the architects of three major Indian milestones in the last decade — the 2016 Junior World Cup title and the bronze medals at the Tokyo and Paris Olympics — were players who were a part of the HIL. The post-HIL generation has seen a drop in the quality of players because the domestic structure lacks competition and coaching methods are archaic. HIL could be an important catalyst in India’s ambition to convert the Olympics bronze into gold.
The financial impact of the HIL, not just for Indian players but for global stars too, is significant. That the International Hockey Federation created an exclusive space in its calendar for the next 10 years shows how crucial HIL is. In the past, hockey has made three attempts to start a league but those ventures couldn’t be sustained. The game’s stakeholders need to learn from their mistakes. An unclear business model and financial burden on the team owners was why the league became defunct. The onus is also on the investors who must realise they need to be in this for the long haul. Rather than chasing IPL’s heights, it’ll be prudent to create a niche for the HIL to thrive and not just survive.