Elite Football League of India - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

The Elite Football League of India (EFLI) is a proposed men's professional American football

American football

American football is a sport played between two teams of eleven with the objective of scoring points by advancing the ball into the opposing team's end zone. Known in the United States simply as football, it may also be referred to informally as gridiron football. The ball can be advanced by...

league in India

India

India , officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world...

. When play begins in late 2012, there will be ten teams, located in various cities across India. The ELFI will be India's first professional

Professional sports

Professional sports, as opposed to amateur sports, are sports in which athletes receive payment for their performance. Professional athleticism has come to the fore through a combination of developments. Mass media and increased leisure have brought larger audiences, so that sports organizations...

American football league, and its launch is backed by the Government of India

Government of India

The Government of India, officially known as the Union Government, and also known as the Central Government, was established by the Constitution of India, and is the governing authority of the union of 28 states and seven union territories, collectively called the Republic of India...

and the Sports Authority of India

Sports Authority of India

The Sports Authority of India is a body set up by the Government of India. It was created in 1984 to help promote sport throughout the country. Presently, it has seven regional centres at Bangalore, Gandhinagar, Kolkata, Sonepat, Delhi, Mumbai and Imphal and two sub-centres at Guwahati and...

Founding

The ELFI was founded in mid-2011 and publicly announced on August 5, 2011. The aim of the league is to introduce American football to the Indian market and its large consumer base. The organization's management team consists of both American and Indian business and entertainment executives as well as several American

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

sports figures. American brand marketing consultant Sunday Zeller is noted as the main founder.

Prominent investors include former Green Bay Packers

Green Bay Packers

The Green Bay Packers are an American football team based in Green Bay, Wisconsin. They are members of the North Division of the National Football Conference in the National Football League . The Packers are the current NFL champions...

linebacker

Linebacker

A linebacker is a position in American football that was invented by football coach Fielding H. Yost of the University of Michigan. Linebackers are members of the defensive team, and line up approximately three to five yards behind the line of scrimmage, behind the defensive linemen...

Brandon Chillar

-St. Louis Rams:Chillar joined the St. Louis Rams as a fourth-round draft pick in the 2004 NFL Draft. On July 26, 2004, Chillar signed a four-year $2.1 million contract with the Rams. Having a father, Ram Chillar, of East Indian descent, Chillar became one of the handful of Indian Americans in the...

, Super Bowl

Super Bowl

The Super Bowl is the championship game of the National Football League , the highest level of professional American football in the United States, culminating a season that begins in the late summer of the previous calendar year. The Super Bowl uses Roman numerals to identify each game, rather...

-winning head coach Mike Ditka

Mike Ditka

Michael Keller Ditka, Jr. is a former American football NFL player, television commentator, and coach. Ditka coached the Chicago Bears for 11 years and New Orleans Saints for three years. Ditka and Tom Flores are the only two people to win Super Bowls as a player, an assistant coach, and a head...

, former Dallas Cowboys

Dallas Cowboys

The Dallas Cowboys are a professional American football franchise which plays in the Eastern Division of the National Football Conference of the National Football League . They are headquartered in Valley Ranch in Irving, Texas, a suburb of Dallas...

wide receiver

Wide receiver

A wide receiver is an offensive position in American and Canadian football, and is the key player in most of the passing plays. Only players in the backfield or the ends on the line are eligible to catch a forward pass. The two players who begin play at the ends of the offensive line are eligible...

Michael Irvin

Michael Jerome Irvin is a former American football player for the Dallas Cowboys, and actor. He is also a former broadcaster for ESPN's NFL Countdown and currently an analyst for NFL Network. Irvin was self-nicknamed "The Playmaker" due to his penchant for making big plays in big games during his...

and former NFL quarterback

Quarterback

Quarterback is a position in American and Canadian football. Quarterbacks are members of the offensive team and line up directly behind the offensive line...

Ron Jaworski

Ronald Vincent "Ron" Jaworski is a former American football quarterback and currently an NFL analyst on ESPN. He is also CEO of Ron Jaworski Golf Management, Inc., based out of Blackwood, New Jersey, and manages golf courses in southern New Jersey, northeast Pennsylvania, and West Virginia...

. Both Ditka and Irvin are in the Pro Football Hall of Fame

Pro Football Hall of Fame

The Pro Football Hall of Fame is the hall of fame of professional football in the United States with an emphasis on the National Football League . It opened in Canton, Ohio, on September 7, 1963, with 17 charter inductees...

and Chillar is of Indian descent.

The EFLI will not be the first attempt to establish a professional American football league outside of the USA

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

. Canada's

Canada

Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...

Canadian Football League

The Canadian Football League or CFL is a professional sports league located in Canada. The CFL is the highest level of competition in Canadian football, a form of gridiron football closely related to American football....

and NFL Europe

NFL Europe

NFL Europe was an American football league which operated in Europe from 1991 until 2007. Backed by the National Football League , the largest professional American football league in the United States, it was founded as the World League of American Football to serve as a type of spring league...

were established in 1958 and 1991, respectively. Officials from the National Football League NFL have also expressed the possibility of starting a franchise in the United Kingdom

United Kingdom

The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...

, citing the popularity of the NFL's periodic exhibition games in London

London

London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...

. Additionally, professional American football leagues exist throughout Europe, South Korea, Japan

X-League

The X-League is a professional American football league in Japan. It was founded in 1971 as the Japan American Football League. It changed its name to the X-league in 1997. There are four divisions between which there is promotion and relegation. Teams in the four-tier league are split into...

, Israel

Israeli Football League

The Israel Football League was founded in the Summer of 2005 by a group of Israelis, led by Mr. Ofri Becker, who wanted to play tackle American football. The first season, played without pads or an official governing body, began in the Fall of 2005...

, New Zealand, and many other countries. Cricket

Cricket

Cricket is a bat-and-ball game played between two teams of 11 players on an oval-shaped field, at the centre of which is a rectangular 22-yard long pitch. One team bats, trying to score as many runs as possible while the other team bowls and fields, trying to dismiss the batsmen and thus limit the...

enjoys dominating popularity in the country, but the domestic Indian Premier League

Indian Premier League

The Indian Premier League is a professional league for Twenty20 cricket competition in India. It was initiated by the Board of Control for Cricket in India , headquartered in Mumbai, and is supervised by BCCI Vice President Rajeev Shukla, who serves as the league's Chairman and Commissioner...

and the proposed EFLI seasons do not overlap; IPL matches generally begin in April, and EFLI games are slated to commence in November and end in February.

The first regular season games are scheduled to begin in November 2012 and the playoffs will end in February 2013. Games will be broadcasted on television domestically and in Sri Lanka

Sri Lanka

Sri Lanka, officially the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka is a country off the southern coast of the Indian subcontinent. Known until 1972 as Ceylon , Sri Lanka is an island surrounded by the Indian Ocean, the Gulf of Mannar and the Palk Strait, and lies in the vicinity of India and the...

, Maldives

Maldives

The Maldives , , officially Republic of Maldives , also referred to as the Maldive Islands, is an island nation in the Indian Ocean formed by a double chain of twenty-six atolls oriented north-south off India's Lakshadweep islands, between Minicoy Island and...

, Bangladesh

Bangladesh

Bangladesh , officially the People's Republic of Bangladesh is a sovereign state located in South Asia. It is bordered by India on all sides except for a small border with Burma to the far southeast and by the Bay of Bengal to the south...

, Nepal

Nepal

Nepal , officially the Federal Democratic Republic of Nepal, is a landlocked sovereign state located in South Asia. It is located in the Himalayas and bordered to the north by the People's Republic of China, and to the south, east, and west by the Republic of India...

, Hong Kong

Hong Kong

Hong Kong is one of two Special Administrative Regions of the People's Republic of China , the other being Macau. A city-state situated on China's south coast and enclosed by the Pearl River Delta and South China Sea, it is renowned for its expansive skyline and deep natural harbour...

, Indonesia

Indonesia

Indonesia , officially the Republic of Indonesia , is a country in Southeast Asia and Oceania. Indonesia is an archipelago comprising approximately 13,000 islands. It has 33 provinces with over 238 million people, and is the world's fourth most populous country. Indonesia is a republic, with an...

, Japan

Japan

Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...

, and Pakistan

Pakistan

Pakistan , officially the Islamic Republic of Pakistan is a sovereign state in South Asia. It has a coastline along the Arabian Sea and the Gulf of Oman in the south and is bordered by Afghanistan and Iran in the west, India in the east and China in the far northeast. In the north, Tajikistan...

on Ten Sports

TEN Sports

TEN SPORTS is a sports channel, widely broadcast in Asia. Its key programming includes Cricket, Football and sports-entertainment shows viz. WWE. Ten Sports was launched on April 1, 2002, and became the world's premier sports channel for South Asians, reaching over 55 million homes across the Arab...

. This will represent a potential audience of over 500 million viewers.

League Structure

EFLI will comprise ten teams, all of which have yet to determine rosters, management and coaching staff. Players and coaches will be native Indians, but representatives from American franchises will be supporting the eight teams. The league management team's intent is to draw current rugby

Rugby football

Rugby football is a style of football named after Rugby School in the United Kingdom. It is seen most prominently in two current sports, rugby league and rugby union.-History:...

players from India over to the sport, in part by paying higher salaries than the rugby leagues. In the initial announcement of the league on August 5, 2011, CEO Richard Whelan noted that orientation programs had attracted over 4,000 interested players in the previous month alone. Similar orientation events are planned for Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Nepal and Pakistan to attract a wide talent pool.

Ownership of teams will follow a franchise system, similar to the structure of the NFL, and intial ownership will be determined in an auction

Auction

An auction is a process of buying and selling goods or services by offering them up for bid, taking bids, and then selling the item to the highest bidder...

format. Unlike ownership rules in other Indian sports leagues, bidding will be open to both Indian and non-Indian investors alike, so it will be India's first true international sports league.

Although specifics about league finances have not been formally announced, officials note that 15% of revenues will be shared with India's sports ministry.

While the teams represent cities across India, all games for the inaugural season will be hosted in a custom-fit stadium in Pune

Pune

Pune , is the eighth largest metropolis in India, the second largest in the state of Maharashtra after Mumbai, and the largest city in the Western Ghats. Once the centre of power of the Maratha Empire, it is situated 560 metres above sea level on the Deccan plateau at the confluence of the Mula ...

. The Sports Authority of India is providing the stadium, Shree Shiv Chhatrapati Sports Complex

Shree Shiv Chhatrapati Sports Complex

Shri Shiv Chhatrapati Sports Complex, Balewadi, Pune is an Indian sports complex. This complex is situated in Balewadi, Pune, about 14–15 km far from Pune downtown and 4–5 km from Rajiv Gandhi Infotech Park, Hinjewadi, Pune...

, which has capacity to hold roughly 20,000 spectators. SAI may also allow for similar arrangements in other cities across the country.

Fifty-six regular season games and two playoff games will determine the top teams. Games will be held in a round-robin

Round-robin scheduling

Round-robin is one of the simplest scheduling algorithms for processes in an operating system. As the term is generally used, time slices are assigned to each process in equal portions and in circular order, handling all processes without priority . Round-robin scheduling is simple, easy to...

scheduling format so that all teams play each other.

Teams

Team	City, Region	Home Arena	Founded	Head coach
Bhubaneswar Warhawks	Bhubaneswar Bhubaneswar Bhubaneswar is the capital of the Indian state of Orissa, officially Odisha. The city has a long history of over 2000 years starting with Chedi dynasty who had Sisupalgarh near present-day Bhubaneswar as their capital... , Orissa Orissa Orissa , officially Odisha since Nov 2011, is a state of India, located on the east coast of India, by the Bay of Bengal. It is the modern name of the ancient nation of Kalinga, which was invaded by the Maurya Emperor Ashoka in 261 BC. The modern state of Orissa was established on 1 April...	TBD	2011	TBD
Mumbai Gladiators	Mumbai Mumbai Mumbai , formerly known as Bombay in English, is the capital of the Indian state of Maharashtra. It is the most populous city in India, and the fourth most populous city in the world, with a total metropolitan area population of approximately 20.5 million... , Maharashtra Maharashtra Maharashtra is a state located in India. It is the second most populous after Uttar Pradesh and third largest state by area in India...	TBD	2011	TBD
Hyderabad Skykings	Hyderabad, Andhra Pradesh Andhra Pradesh Andhra Pradesh , is one of the 28 states of India, situated on the southeastern coast of India. It is India's fourth largest state by area and fifth largest by population. Its capital and largest city by population is Hyderabad.The total GDP of Andhra Pradesh is $100 billion and is ranked third...	TBD	2011	TBD
Goa Swarm	Goa Goa Goa , a former Portuguese colony, is India's smallest state by area and the fourth smallest by population. Located in South West India in the region known as the Konkan, it is bounded by the state of Maharashtra to the north, and by Karnataka to the east and south, while the Arabian Sea forms its...	TBD	2011	TBD
Pune Black Tigers	Pune Pune Pune , is the eighth largest metropolis in India, the second largest in the state of Maharashtra after Mumbai, and the largest city in the Western Ghats. Once the centre of power of the Maratha Empire, it is situated 560 metres above sea level on the Deccan plateau at the confluence of the Mula ... (Balewadi Balewadi Balewadi is a suburb of Pune, India. It is located to the north west of the city, and is famous for the Shree Shiv Chhatrapati Sports Complex... ), Maharashtra Maharashtra Maharashtra is a state located in India. It is the second most populous after Uttar Pradesh and third largest state by area in India...	Shree Shiv Chhatrapati Sports Complex Shree Shiv Chhatrapati Sports Complex Shri Shiv Chhatrapati Sports Complex, Balewadi, Pune is an Indian sports complex. This complex is situated in Balewadi, Pune, about 14–15 km far from Pune downtown and 4–5 km from Rajiv Gandhi Infotech Park, Hinjewadi, Pune...	2011	TBD
Kolkata Vipers	Kolkata Kolkata Kolkata , formerly known as Calcutta, is the capital of the Indian state of West Bengal. Located on the east bank of the Hooghly River, it was the commercial capital of East India... , West Bengal West Bengal West Bengal is a state in the eastern region of India and is the nation's fourth-most populous. It is also the seventh-most populous sub-national entity in the world, with over 91 million inhabitants. A major agricultural producer, West Bengal is the sixth-largest contributor to India's GDP...	TBD	2011	TBD
Delhi Defenders	Delhi Delhi Delhi , officially National Capital Territory of Delhi , is the largest metropolis by area and the second-largest by population in India, next to Mumbai. It is the eighth largest metropolis in the world by population with 16,753,265 inhabitants in the Territory at the 2011 Census... , National Capital Territory of Delhi	TBD	2011	TBD
Punjab Warriors	Punjab	TBD	2011	TBD
Jaipur	Jaipur Jaipur Jaipur , also popularly known as the Pink City, is the capital and largest city of the Indian state of Rajasthan. Founded on 18 November 1727 by Maharaja Sawai Jai Singh II, the ruler of Amber, the city today has a population of more than 3.1 million.... , Rajastan	TBD	2011	TBD
Chennai	Chennai Chennai Chennai , formerly known as Madras or Madarasapatinam , is the capital city of the Indian state of Tamil Nadu, located on the Coromandel Coast off the Bay of Bengal. Chennai is the fourth most populous metropolitan area and the sixth most populous city in India... , Tamil Nadu Tamil Nadu Tamil Nadu is one of the 28 states of India. Its capital and largest city is Chennai. Tamil Nadu lies in the southernmost part of the Indian Peninsula and is bordered by the union territory of Pondicherry, and the states of Kerala, Karnataka, and Andhra Pradesh...	TBD	2011	TBD

Seasons

2012-13 EFLI Season

2012-13 Elite Football League of India

2012-13 Elite Football League of India is the first season of Elite Football League of India. The season will begin on Monday 12th November 2012 and will last till Monday 18th February 2013. This will have 56 matches in group stage and two play-offs making a total of 58 matches...

The first season will begin on Monday 12 November 2012 and will last till Monday 18 February 2013. This will have 56 matches in group stage and two play-offs. The first match will be played between Mumbai Gladiators and Pune Black Tigers and the last match between Hyderabad Skykings and Mumbai Gladiators.

Future Expansion

League officials plan to double the number of teams for the 2013-2014 season and four in each following season until 2022. This expansion would mean that the EFLI would boast 52 teams, one for each Indian city with 1 million or more residents.

Founding

League Structure

Teams

Seasons

Future Expansion

See also