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MUMBAI: The Elite Football League of India (EFLI) has retained
Madison Street Capital, a provider of corporate finance and
mergers and acquisition (M&A) advisory services, to raise
capital and explore equity finance opportunities for it.
Ten
Sports will telecast later all the 31 matches that the first
season for the EFLI will have. The tournament has been preponed
from November to 20 July in Sri Lanka.
Eight
teams will take part, five of which are from India, two from
Sri Lanka and one from Pakistan. They will compete in American-style
football.
Madison
Street Capital senior MD of the Capital Markets Group Barry
Petersen said,“We are excited to be partnering with a
highly experienced management team in media/entertainment
who raised the initial equity and secured the global partnerships
that will produce a successful first season launch. Given
the demographics and the proven success of the IPL, Ten Sports
and the WWE in India, the opportunity is substantial.”
EFLI
director of operations Tausif Sheikh said that the company
is not selling team franchises to corporates in the first
year. "We want to take it to a stage where we establish
value. People should feel that it is a good time to get involved.
Once it airs on Ten Sports, people will come to know what
it is all about. For the first year, we focussing on doing
sponsorship deals for the teams. We are doing the event in
Sri Lanka partly due to the monsoons. The players are ready
to play and holding the event in November would not have made
sense.
The
tournament will be held next year in India. "We could
hold it either just before the start of the IPL or just after,"
said Sheikh.
EFLI
has support from high-profile sports and entertainment figures
such as Kurt Warner, Mark Wahlberg, Mike Ditka, Michal Irvin,
Brandon Chillar, and Ron Jaworski.
Coaches
and players for the current eight-team league were selected
from a field of 10,000 applicants, and were trained by US-based
football coaches affiliated with EFLI.
EFLI
will use the same model as the IPL, which recently received
$2 billion for a 10-year broadcast contract, utilising a single
stadium as the venue. The broadcast team is led by Sandy Grossman,
the only television executive to direct 10 NFL Super Bowls.
The
EFLI was established by the Elite Football Federation of India,
the first sanctioned and recognised American football federation
in India. The Federation acts as a pass-through entity for
EFLI, distributing 15 per cent of its revenue to the Sports
Ministry of India to help maintain its ongoing programs and
facilities.
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