Starting Five to bring in investments worth Rs. 100 crore over 12 years

Kerala basketball sees investment surge with new partnership, promising Rs. 100 crore over 12 years for growth.

Three years after the Kerala Football Association offered its commercial rights to Meeran Sports and Scoreline Sports which will see the new Sports League Kerala coming up later this year, something similar has happened in Kerala basketball.

And while the KFA’s deal with Meeran-Scoreline has promised to bring in investments worth Rs. 350 crore over a 12-year period, the Kerala Basketball Association’s tie-up with Starting Five Sports Management hopes to bring investments in plenty too.

“This will be a kind of Rs 100 crore investment over the 12-year period of the agreement, if you are looking at the infrastructure costs too,” said R. Anilkumar, the Starting Five’s mentor and promoter, in a chat with The Hindu.

So what does the KBA get from this? “They will be paying us Rs. 12 lakh in the first year,” said Manohara Kumar, the KBA president.

“In the second year, if they permit us to do a National-level league, then the amount to KBA will go up to Rs 20 lakh. Otherwise, it will Rs 12 lakh plus an annual increase of 10%,” explained Anilkumar.

Starting Five has planned some big events this year.

“We will have a 3x3 league later this year, some time around September in the men’s and women’s sections and it will be held in Kochi, Kozhikode and Thiruvananthapuram. The total budget for the event could be Rs 50 lakh,” said Anilkumar, a former State player.