6) Indian super league---birth of a footballing nation
Football in India will never be the same again and Indian Super League (ISL) can take all plaudits for this monumental change in the country's sporting culture.
The inaugural Indian Super League trophy was lifted by Atletico de Kolkata, co-owned by Sourav Ganguly. Mohammad Rafique has written his name in history after scoring the goal in the final against Kerala Blasters just 30 seconds before the full time.
For the first time in Indian football, globally renowned footballers like Del Piero, Luis Garcia, Marco Materazzi etc played alongside the Indian footballers. With a mission to revolutionize the sport, Indian Super League is positioned as a high quality and dynamic league that will elevate Indian football to an international level.
The average match attendance for the tournament since its commencement Oct 12 is 24,357, the highest across Asia, and according to the organisers the league trailed only Germany's Bundesliga, the Barclays Premier League and Spain's La Liga.
The tournament kicked off with 65,000 people attending the opening game between Atletico de Kolkata and Mumbai City FC Oct 12. The league also recorded over 16 million online video views through the course of the tournament.
Additionally, the official ISL online channel registered 28.7 million visits. On social media too, the ISL captured the minds of football fans, recording over 1.8 million conversations, 10 billion impressions and 275,000-plus unique authors.
The semi-final clash between Chennaiyin FC and Kerala Blasters FC recorded the highest number of online video views - 1.1 million - ever witnessed in India for any single sport game.
Besides making football popular again, the most important thing ISL did was to make young Indian footballers see the sport as a viable career and this in turn is expected to increase the pool of players and improve the quality of the national team.
The popularity with which the ISL has been received only spurs towards realizing the eventual dream of giving rise to a footballing nation and participate in 2026 FIFA World Cup.
