Introducing, a franchise-based league for motorsports
CHENNAI : After everyone from football to snake-boat racing followed cricket’s lead in establishing a franchise-based league, it’s now motorsports’ turn to drive down that path.X1 Racing League saw various racers drafted into franchises with the first race weekend scheduled for November 30 at the Buddh International Circuit. A brainchild of racers Aditya Patel and Armaan Ebrahim, the race will see six city-based franchises (Hyderabad, Bengaluru, Mumbai, Ahmedabad, Delhi and Chennai) go against each other in 12 races each. Each team will have two cars and five drivers will take turns driving them. Two drivers will be Indians, while another spot has been reserved for an international female driver. The cars involved will be redesigned versions of the Formula BMW cars that used to run in the JK Tyre National Racing Championships until last year.
Even before its launch, the league has attracted attention due to the quality of drivers. On the grid are no less than three former Formula One figures — Vitantonio Liuzzi, Alex Yoong and Narain Karthikeyan, who owns the Chennai franchise. Also present are the best of Indian talent including Gaurav Gill, F2 racer Arjun Maini and former national champions Vishnu Prasad, Raghul Rangasamy and Karthik Tharani.
“It’s a concept that Armaan and I came up with,” says Aditya. “The idea was to give Indian motorsports a complete revamp and a different outlook.”One of the biggest advantages for the league is that it already has a TV deal in place, something that motorsports in India has struggled to find. “We have signed a television deal. It’s a mainstream channel, with high-definition telecast,” says Aditya. The duo thought a lot about how to attract more people to the track than a typical racing event and it shows. X1 will have concerts and food festivals on the sidelines. But perhaps the most novel of their innovations is X1 esports, a virtual gaming competition to run concurrently with the league. The winner will even get a stint driving in the league.
“It (esports event) started off as a marketing campaign initially but grew into a competition by itself,” says Aditya. “We decided to go to all the franchise cities — we can’t have races in all those cities as tracks are only there in Chennai and New Delhi. But by going to these cities, X1 becomes accessible to the people in Bengaluru, in Pune, in Ahmedabad.”
This unique concept has seen the league attract investors from a non-motorsports background. Aditya is confident that as the league grows, all the stakeholders will begin to see returns on their investment.
“We have a bunch of investors from various backgrounds,” he says. “The model is that the teams will pay a certain fee (`2.5cr) every year. Within that fee, we have the drivers, we run the car, we have the events. Teams are already working from their end on own sponsorships. But as the property grows, in year 3 and year 4, the media rights will come into play.”