THAT McCULLUM MOMENT! Amongst the many leagues that have sprung up in the last few years with Big Daddy cricket's Indian Premier League as their base template, it is Premier Futsal which can boast that one explosive act of individual brilliance that set the tournament alight and as good as ensured its future.
If New Zealander Brendon McCullum's 158 off 73 balls launched the inaugural IPL season in grand style in 2008, it was Brazilian legend Ronaldinho's 5 goals in his side Goa 5s second game (versus Bangalore) that made India and the world sit up and pay close attention to Premier Futsal.
It is of course another matter that the footballing wizard took no further part in the tournament, discovering suddenly that he had been appointed ambassador of the 2016 Paralympics in his home country. He left behind a whole bunch of discontented fans who were deprived of the chance of seeing the two-time FIFA world footballer of the Year (2004 and 2005) in action on their home turf in the remaining games of the tournament.
Premier Futsal, which concluded its inaugural season in Goa Sunday with the tournament's best team Mumbai 5s pipping Kochi 5s on penalties in a well fought final, has already announced its second season will kick off in January 2017.
That is important because a year is a long time and the first mover advantage that the young Chennai based promoter team backed by Xavier Britto of the Indev Group has is already under threat, what with the All India Football Federation and its commercial partners Football Sports Development Limited (FSDL) planning a rival futsal tournament later this year (or so AIFF general secretary Kushal Das has declared.
Opposition from the AIFF apart, the promoters have their work cut out in the next six months.
There are some immediate questions SportzPower has.
Will India's cricket superstar Virat Kohli remain brand ambassador? As this website has already noted, there was always a conflict of interest what with his already being a co-owner in FSDL's Indian Super League franchise FC Goa. And there has nary been a peep (or should we say tweet) from him during the course of the tournament. Seeing as how the tournament has taken off and proof of concept has been established, it could well do without him now so it is not really critical to the league's future.
What of the franchises? Initially announced as an eight franchise league, "on the day", only six showed up, of which two - Kannada film star Puneeth Rajkumar, owner of the Bengaluru franchise, and Bengali superstar Jeet, the Kolkata franchise owner - are unlikely to have put in cash.
If this be the case, the promoters will have to immediately on the road again to not only find serious and committed owners for the remaining two (or more) teams, but also find "co-owners" for the above mentioned franchises.
Assuming this can be managed in the coming month, all franchises will have five odd months to sort out the basic hygiene factors in launching/relaunching their respective teams - name, logo, jersey, anthem, player camps, logistics, ticket sales, etc.
Have the organisers got commitments from the marquee players they signed on for the inaugural season? In any case there was one no-show in Deco and one "half-show" in Ronaldinho. The organisers have released statements from both that they would be back for the second season. We will know soon enough.
Next time round, the organisers will have to show the money. Advertisers were conspicuously absent, both on-air and on-ground in the inaugural season. Post the success of season 1, it is fair to assume that this will not be the case next season.
That's a future tale. This season has been a Rs1 billion cash burn at the minimum, SportzPower reckons. By the organisers' own admission, Rs450 million has gone into marketing alone. Add the costs of getting international stars on board and the overall logistics management costs, it all adds up.
Still, even looking at Premier Futsal as a start-up operation, which is what it is, the question that remains is what was the great hurry to launch before all the pieces were properly in place. Unless the promoters had forewarning that FSDL was launching its own futsal league later this year (purely going by what Kushal Das has been on record as stating), and wanted to beat them to the gun, then they really should have taken a leaf out of the Pro-Kabaddi League playbook. Now that is the ideal route map to follow for any wannabe league promoters on how to design, develop and deliver an IPL-templated league in this market. 
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