Bengaluru, March 7:
The second season of the Grand Prix Badminton League (GPBL) scheduled to be held in the month of August this year, will kick off with the player auctions to be conducted in the last week of next month, with teams looking to secure the best talent ahead of what promises to be a thrilling season of badminton.
The GPBL, which was held in August last year with top players from Karnataka taking part, has now been elevated to the National level. GPBL Season 2 will also see two more teams being added to the existing eight teams. The team auctions will be on an invite basis and will be held online before the player auctions on April 29.
Revealing details about the auction, Prashanth Reddy, League Commissioner GPBL and CEO, Bitsport, the promoting company, said that the player pool will have both National and International players. “GPBL Season 2 will be conducted as a National League and is open to all badminton players in India. The player roster will have over 250 players including about 50 international players,” said Prashanth. “Many talented players from other parts of the country were left out last year. We want all the players to benefit from the League.”
The first season of the GPBL was a grand success with the teams being mentored by the who-is-who of Indian badminton including PV Sindhu, Kidambi Srikanth, Ashwini Ponappa, Sai Praneeth, Satwiksairaj Rankireddy, HS Prannoy, Chirag Shetty and Jwala Gutta. With the success of the first season, GPBL is expected to be bigger and better in its second edition. “We are expecting fierce bidding wars for top players, both National and International, as teams vie to build the best possible squads for the upcoming season. It’s going to be an exciting time for the fans and the players,” said Prashanth.
With the addition of two new teams and the inclusion of players from all over India and abroad, the GPBL Season 2 is sure to be a hotly contested affair.
