Is the Indian Super League Serious about Soccer, or Is It Just a Cash Grab?

India is a cricket nation, and a huge cricket nation at that. Over 1.2 billion people live there, making it one of the biggest sporting markets on the planet. Cricket matches involving the Indian National Team draw hundreds of millions of television viewers, with the Indian Premier League—the country's premier cricket division—valued at around $3 billion, which brings up an obvious question: If cricket is so successful, why can't another major sports league —say a soccer league—be lucrative?

That's where the Indian Super League comes in, the inaugural season of which kicks off on Sunday. The league's launch has generated the kind of exuberant promises and predictions that come with any such venture, as eight franchises prepare to compete in a three-month season. To fill out those team rosters, aging stars have been flown in like foreign dignitaries, greeted by crowds of adoring fans on airport runways as the league's organizers attempt to win over a country that has largely resisted the sport thus far.

Nicolas Anelka, Alessandro Del Piero, Luis Garcia, Freddie Ljungberg, Robert Pires, and David Trezeguet are among those signed to ISL franchises; with Zico, Marco Materazzi, and Peter Reid included in the coaching lineup. Had these same players and coaches been signed to a fledgling league in a largely untapped market a decade ago, the soccer world's natural order may well have shifted. Instead, these players are so far from the peak of their powers that it's questionable whether they even have any power at all. The ISL has taken soccer back to 2006 and will soon find out that nostalgia ain't what it used to be.

Marketing blurbs describe the ISL as "India's unrivalled football championship," but that's not quite true. In fact, IMG-Reliance, the American media group that founded and organised the ISL, already has significant interest in another Indian soccer league, the I-League.

The I-League has been in play since 2007, with IMG-Reliance holding exclusive rights over the division's sponsorship, advertising, broadcasting, merchandising, and franchising. A deal struck in 2010 even gave the American group the freedom to create an entirely new league, which they have now done by forming the ISL.

The relationship between IMG-Reliance and the All India Football Federation—the body charged with ensuring the general well-being of Indian soccer—has long been a turbulent one, with the two organizations disputing what is best for the future of the Indian game. When then-Asian Football Confederation (AFC) President Zhang Jilong visited the country to discuss the development of soccer in India, a number of I-League clubs failed to even show up.

Still, the I-League has noted an improvement in recent years, and what's more, that development has been achieved somewhat organically. Last season's title-winning team, Bengaluru FC, fielded just four foreign players on their 33-man squad, with some derby matches attracting as many as 90,000 spectators.

Yet all this has been put on hold for the ISL. As if any further confirmation was needed of where Indian soccer's priorities can be found, the start of the I-League season has been pushed back to December to accommodate its splashy counterpart.

"In all European countries there are multiple leagues going on simultaneously," insists Kerala Blasters FC and Indian National Team defender Nirmal Chettri, who doesn't see the I-League and ISL as rival divisions. "In England there is the Capital One Cup and the EPL, and it will be similar in India. But the infrastructure must be in place."

Interest in soccer has spiked in India over the past five years or so, perhaps as a result of the country's increasingly affluent middle class, who have money to spend on sports television subscriptions and tickets to live events. So why has it taken this long for soccer to take root as a major sport in India?

"European leagues do well largely because of the branding of the sport," explains Shrinivas Dempo, chairman and managing director of FC Goa, one of the most prominent ISL teams. "Comparatively, Indian leagues haven't done so well. But that's what we will change with the ISL. It's a different form of league, but with better branding and marketing also comes talent."

Dempo also spoke of improving Indian football as a whole, targeting World Cup qualification for the Indian National Team on the back of what he hopes will be the ISL's success.

It's a sentiment that seeks to appease those who claim that the ISL is at odds with everything the distinctly domestic I-League has achieved. But such an argument hardly provides a convincing rebuttal.

Yes, the ISL will probably provide Indian players with a platform to showcase their talents to a wider audience, but what process is there to get them onto that platform in the first place? These clubs have no academies or community roots to speak of. The league's motto "Let's Football," conjures up images of executive luncheons and conference room projectors, and gives us an idea of the spirit of the league. The ISL as a whole, it would seem, was drawn up on that projector, outlined by a Bluetooth headset holding a laser pointer.

It is an exercise in marketing jargon that no ISL team embodies more fully than Atletico de Kolkata. The West Bengal-based club became the league's most expensive franchise when it was sold to an investment team comprising legendary former cricketer Sourav Ganguly and La Liga giants Atletico Madrid. So when it came time to reveal the club's squad for the upcoming ISL season, the owners did so at the Vicente Calderon Stadium in Madrid, not in Kolkata.

Why are Spain's reigning champions interested in co-owning a team in India? "That's a difficult question to answer," says Utsav Parekh, a member of the consortium that owns the Kolkata franchise. "I think they see a lot of value in coming to India. They see that a population of 1.2 billion people are getting into the game of football, and they see that this could become a big nursery and a big cradle for finding quality footballers and increasing the fanbase of Atletico Madrid." So they're in it to sell shirts? Parekh laughs.

Atletico de Kolkata isn't the only team to have attracted major backing, with Sachin Tendulkar—the Michael Jordan/Pele/Roger Federer of Indian cricket—and Bollywood actress Shilpa Shetty among those who have paid for a slice of ISL franchises.

In a country where 21 percent of the world's poorest people live, the base rate for an ISL match ticket is Rs.200, double what it costs to attend an I-League match. If the Indian Super League's true mission is to inspire a new generation of Indian soccer players, it will have to do so from a distance.

The ISL claims to have its sights set on becoming a global interest in the mold of the English Premier League, but as Parekh told me, "Games from all over Europe and the world are live on television here." So what exactly is the ISL's unique appeal? In reality, the ISL finds itself replicating a model that has failed many times before.

A similar league structure saw star players like Didier Drogba and Anelka attracted to the Chinese Super League two years ago, only for the hype to evaporate with little fanfare. North America's Major League Soccer has also been guilty of valuing star quality over genuine quality in the past, although it has since achieved more natural growth by focusing on homegrown talent.

While each ISL club must include 14 Indian players on their roster, competition with the I-League has left native talent thinly spread out. And yet, Indian players like National Team and Chennaiyin FC defender Gouragmangi Moirangthem Singh insist that the league's strategy of signing the aged stars of a bygone era will indeed help the domestic game. "It's a learning experience for us," he says. "And we hope that these legends can inspire youngsters."

But what is that inspiration worth if there is no process to harvest it? How much value does a season that only lasts three months even carry?

"This is an add-on league," explains Parekh, addressing that very question. "The I-League is still the main league, but this is an additional league and will therefore provide additional opportunities. If the league is bringing in quality players and we have players like Luis Garcia, Nicolas Anelka, Robert Pires, it will be considered a real league. Our brand is strong." But is the league? "It will be."