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

The various components of the proposed PHL Season II, henceforth referred to as the Hockey Bharata tour, can be as follows:

• 8 Tournaments (4 Grand Slam, 3 Elite and 1 Hockey Hinterland tournament)
• 8 Champion Foreign Teams from 8 Countries (one foreign team per tournament)
• 8 Institutional Teams (performance-based rankings)
• Season-ending Tour Championship (involving top 8 domestic and all 8 foreign teams)

1. Tournaments

The Hockey Bharata tour would comprise the following tournaments in its initial year:

The number of Grand Slam tournaments would always remain at 4. Any future expansion of the Tour would occur at the Elite Level. The Hockey Hinterland tournament's venue will rotate every year between the hockey hotspots of India - places like Kodagu (Coorg), Jharkhand, Orissa and Manipur.

2. Foreign Teams

Each tournament in the Hockey Bharata circuit will have the participation of one top-ranked foreign team, in order to provide color and competition to the tournament. No country can have multiple teams in the Tour, hence the 8 tournaments comprising the Tour will see teams from 8 different countries.

Some suggested foreign hockey teams, typically champions of their countries' hockey leagues, are as follows:

3. Institutional Teams

Each tournament in the Hockey Bharata circuit would have at least 10 teams as follows:

The suggested institutional teams above have come either 1st or 2nd in the domestic tournaments over the past couple of years. Besides, they are all venerable and established institutions. The Railways, employing 1.5 million people, is the largest single employer in the world. Similarly, national carriers Air India and Indian Airlines fly the largest number of air passengers in India.

The 10 teams would be split into two Pools of 5 teams each. There will be a total of 24 matches per tournament - 10 round robin matches in each Pool (total 20), 2 semi-finals, 3rd place playoff and final.

4. Season-ending Tour Championship

The season-ending Tour Championship will feature the 8 top-ranked domestic teams and the 8 foreign teams that participated in the individual tournaments of the Tour. The domestic and the foreign teams will be in separate pools.

The semi-finals will feature the top 2 domestic and the top 2 foreign teams. The semi-finals and finals will be held under floodlights, and the Hockey Bharata champion will be crowned on live television.

5. How Hockey Bharata Structure Compares With PHL Season I

The biggest drawback of PHL Season I was that it ignored long-standing institutional teams, both Indian and foreign, and created artificial teams which were a mish-mash of various teams handpicked by the IHF.

PHL Season I ripped apart existing teams, had teammates playing against each other, had a player from one city playing for another city (e.g., Bangalore-based Ignace Tirkey playing for Chennai) and created artificial teams like 'Bangalore Hi Flyers', while ignoring genuine high-fliers like Indian Airlines and Air India.

PHL Season I introduced a brand new league into an already packed Indian domestic and international calendar. Remember, one has to fit in the Olympics, World Cup, Champions Trophy, Asian Games, Afro-Asian Games, Commonwealth Games, Asia Cup, National Games, National Championships, 4-nation tournaments and premier domestic tournaments. All these tournaments have their own coaching camps and selection trials.

No other hockey event can be possible as long as the PHL is on. PHL's model is just not scalable, beyond its present 1-month, 1-venue approach. In contrast, the proposed Hockey Bharata circuit will co-opt existing Indian tournaments and established Indian and foreign teams into a Tour.

One unique selling point of the proposed Hockey Bharata tour will be the presence of 8 foreign teams, for a total of 128 foreign players. In comparison, PHL Season I had the services of around a dozen foreign players only, that too almost all from Pakistan and Malaysia, as the Europeans and Australians had their own leagues going on.

The reality is that no European/Oceanic country with an established league of its own will ever interrupt or disband its own league and send its players to participate in a foreign PHL. What Hockey Bharata proposes is to let foreign leagues continue their seasons. Instead, it picks an existing foreign team at a suitable point in their domestic season, and allows it to participate in the Hockey Bharata tour without either breaking up the team or moving its players around into artificial teams.