Introduction	Indian Context		Tour Name	Tour Structure
Tour Logistics
Tour Venues	Tour Logistics		Money Matters	Media Matters

1. Tour Calendar

For the proposed PHL Season II, ESPN-Star will have to devise a tour calendar for the 9 tournaments that comprise the Hockey Bharata tour - 4 Grand Slams, 3 Elites, 1 Hockey Hinterland and 1 season-ending Tour Championship.

ESPN-Star can coordinate with the various tournament organising committees and freeze on a tour calendar. An approximate tour calendar is given below:

2. Foreign Teams

The glamour factor in each Hockey Bharata tournament will be the top foreign club team that will be participating. ESPN-Star has to locate 8 top foreign club teams from the top 8 ranked hockey countries in the world.

The choice of the foreign teams will be dependent on the tournament dates in the Hockey Bharata tour calendar, as well as the domestic league dates in the respective countries. No country will be allowed to field multiple teams during the course of the Tour.

3. Rankings and Awards

Hockey Bharata will be a circuit of linked tournaments. ESPN-Star has to devise a ranking system and compute the periodic changing totals for the following categories:

• Forward of the Year
• Midfielder of the Year
• Full Back of the Year
• Goalkeeper of the Year
• Coach of the Year
• Top 8 Ranked Institutional Teams (for the Tour Championship)

4. The Tour Championship

The season-ending Tour Championship will be the only Hockey Bharata event to be newly introduced into the Indian hockey calendar. ESPN-Star has to completely manage the event - from finding a floodlit venue, to dealing with the local association, to arranging the participation of the 8 foreign and domestic teams.

For the 8 domestic teams that qualify for the Tour Championship, ESPN-Star will work with the respective institutions to come up with catchy logos, team names and team jerseys. ESPN-Star has to devise television-friendly, on-field promotional activities for the Tour Championship, examples being half-time shows, marching bands, etc.

In all the above aspects, the Tour Championship will be a mini-version of the present PHL Season I.

5. How Hockey Bharata Logistics Compare With PHL Season I

a. Role of the IHF

In PHL Season I, Leisure Sports Management (LSM) had to work with the IHF and state associations to provide on-ground logistics for the smooth functioning of the league. In the proposed Season II, LSM will work with existing tournament organising committees and institutional teams, and less with the IHF.

b. Foreign Players

PHL Season I had around a dozen foreign players participate in the league - almost all from Pakistan and Malaysia.

In contrast, ESPN-Star will have to provide a much stronger foreign component - 8 top foreign teams comprising a total of 128 players - taking into account the league dates in the individual countries. In this respect, Hockey Bharata logistics will be more challenging than PHL Season I.

c. Corporate Sponsors

ESPN-Star and LSM had to arrange for corporate sponsors to underwrite Rs. 71 lakhs of prize money for a 1-month tournament. Only 2 sponsors were found for PHL Season I - confectionary major Perfetti, makers of Mentos, and Western Union Financial Services Inc., a money transfer company. Most of the expenses of PHL Season I were subsidised by ESPN-Star. Going forward, it will be hard to sustain such a financial model, year after year.

In the proposed PHL Season II, ESPN-Star will only underwrite the prize money of the tournaments in the Hockey Bharata circuit. Corporate sponsorship and the actual running of the tournaments would be the responsibility of the individual tournament organising committees.