After a successful run last year, the Indian Badminton League (IBL) Governing Council announced that this year's IBL will be held from September 30 to October 15.
This year, the IBL allows its franchisees to strengthen their teams by having 11 players in the rosters last year to up to 13 players this year. Furthermore, each franchisee can pick two more players who can be either from India or from foreign countries, with the hope that this would intensify the competition.
"IBL's schedule actually works out nicely with the 2014 Asian Games, which will end at 29th of September, 2014. Players who are done with Asian Games can fly-in from Incheon for the league," said Dr Akhilesh Das Gupta, he is the President of Badminton Association of India and Chairman of IBL Governing Council Chairman.
"Last year, players also flew in after participated in World Badminton Championships, Guang Zhou. The way we set up the IBL schedule is to ensure world's best players can come here to play and to bring more excitement to the audience."
"Our success last year had made our counterparts in international federations more confident about the league. This year more countries and more stars are eager to join us," added the BAI chief.
Dr Das Gupta said: "Badminton World Federation (BWF) is very impressed with how we run IBL last year, and India is a very important country and market and can get bigger. That's why they've decided to held the BWF Annual General Meeting (AGM) in India during the Thomas and Uber Cup."
On last year's IBL was won by PVP Ventures-owned Hyderabad Hotshots. The team captain Saina Nehwal had performed exceptional well on the way to the title triumph.
This year's IBL will be played in Six Indian cities – Pune, Hyderabad, Lucknow, Delhi, Mumbai and Bengaluru.
