The Premier Badminton League (PBL) is held in India. It is a league tournament whose inaugural edition was held in 2016. A total of seven franchise teams participated in the latest edition of this event. These franchises are from New Delhi, Bangalore, Chennai, Hyderabad, Mumbai, Lucknow and Guwahati.
An auction is held before each season that determines which player will go to which franchise. Both Indian and International shuttlers feature in this competition. Teams have a starting purse of INR 2 crores and they cannot spend more than INR 77 lakhs on one player.
Teams play each other in the round-robin format. One tie consists of five matches. Each win is worth one points. The format of the matches is two men’s singles, women’s singles, men’s doubles and mixed doubles. A team can call one of the matches as a Trump match beforehand. The Trump match is worth two points and the losing team also loses one point.
After the league stage, the top four teams qualify for the semi-finals. The winners of the semis contest the final. The most successful team of the Premier Badminton League is Bengaluru Raptors.
Since the COVID-19 pandemic, the league has come to a standstill. The fifth and the latest edition was played in 2020. Players are also given end-of-the-season awards for their performance in the league. These awards are Player of the season, Indian player of the season and Emerging player of the season. The latter two awards have a prize money worth INR 50,000 and the Player of the Season gets INR 1 lakh.
