Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB) women's team captain Smriti Mandhana wants a multi-city model for the Women’s Premier League (WPL), as she discussed during the RCB Innovation Lab’s Leaders Meet India in Bengaluru last week.
Mandhana expressed her excitement about the idea of adopting a multi-city format while reflecting on the success of the WPL at the summit that brought together key leaders from various businesses to discuss the future of sports.
From its very inception, the IPL has been played in a multi-city format, evolving into the most lucrative and richest franchise-based domestic T20 league globally. The league, which commenced with eight teams and has since expanded to ten, has always adhered to a home-and-away format.
"It would be great to have WPL in the multi-city format. I think that might be the next step and I am sure the people right here would look into it and make it happen. As an RCB fan, I would love to play in Chinnaswamy where people are chanting 'RCB RCB' and just to be in that environment. That is something which is one step ahead for us that it (multi-city format) can reach to places where women's cricket hasn't reached and to get new audiences going into women's cricket," Mandhana said.
The 27-year-old cricketer believes that the RCB Innovation Lab’s Leaders Meet India provided a much-needed platform to understand how various business individuals perceive sports to generate digital engagement. She emphasises the importance of holding such events more frequently for interactions with fellow sports icons and business leaders.
RCB captain asserts the significance of the conducive environment created by the franchise ahead of the WPL auction and tournament’s second season. She said that she would prioritise the time spent with the team.
"A lot of thoughts have gone into what kind of combinations we need in terms of releases or retention. So we are really looking forward to the WPL auctions and hopefully, we get the players who we are looking forward to getting," Mandhana added.
Mandhana lauds the growth of Women athletes in recent years while speaking about the development of women's sports in India. She emphasised the cultural shift, saying, “Women in India are doing amazing stuff in the last five to 10 years not only in women's cricket but in women's sport in general. If you see the last Olympics or Commonwealth or Asian Games, the kind of medals women's athletes have gone and got for the country is a big inspiration for a lot of smaller city girls out there to pursue their passion. I think women's sports in general should be treated separately and by doing that they can definitely sell a lot of things in terms of the ticketing or the digital rights.”
(Powered by AI, Inputs by India Today)
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