Shut down for 5 years, Premier Badminton League set for a comeback in new avatar

The Premier Badminton League, which has been in limbo for the last five years, is set to restart in 2026, confirmed Badminton Association of India (BAI) secretary Sanjay Mishra. Speaking to India Today, Mishra clarified that the association is cutting ties with the previous promoter of the tournament, SportzLive, and is looking to begin the tournament with a revamped format.

Badminton, one of India's top medal hopes at the Olympics, enjoys tremendous popularity across the country. The BAI had twice announced plans to restart the popular franchise tournament, before and after India's Thomas Cup win in 2022, but missed both deadlines it had set.

PBL was last played in 2020, and then halted because of the Covid-19 pandemic. The tournament was hosted for 5 editions and enjoyed popularity amongst the badminton fans in the country.

Mishra revealed that the BAI spoke with SportzLive twice to relaunch the tournament, but the promoter failed to honour the request. According to him, the promoter was given an ultimatum, and the association has now begun proceedings to formally cut ties.

"BAI used to collaborate with a company called SportzLive. We told them to restart the tournament. We gave them the dates but they were not able to start the tournament due to differences with the team owners. They did the same thing twice. Now, we have given an ultimatum that you end the contract with BAI. We will restart PBL within a year. It is likely that the name of the tournament will not be PBL, it will start with a different name," Sanjay Mishra said.

India Today reached out to PBL promoter Prasad Mangipudi but received no response.

New format on the Cards

Mishra suggested that the seven franchises involved in the tournament were not happy with the earlier format. PBL matches were played in a round-robin format. Each tie consisted of five matches — two men's singles, women's singles, men's doubles, and mixed doubles — all played in the best-of-three format.

The first two games were played to 11 points, and if the match went to a third game, it was played to 15 points.

Mishra said that BAI is currently trying to figure out a better format and is in discussion with the franchise owners regarding the same.

"We are trying to better the PBL format. I don't think that the PBL owners were very happy with the previous format. Within the next six months, we will announce the tournament, and within the next year, the tournament will start under a different name," Sanjay Mishra concluded.

The Indian players are the moment are focusing on the BWF World Championships. Majority of the players have received thought draws but Mishra is hopeful of India peaking at the right time.