Theres plenty going right with badminton at the moment. There are at least ten Indians playing tournaments across the globe at any point of time. In Olympic silver medalist PV Sindhu, the sport has an extremely popular icon. So if you were a marketer, the Premier Badminton League auction on November 9 might have seemed an easy product to sell. Yet at the convention center of a South Delhi five star hotel, where six teams of the Premier Badminton League (PBL) would bid for players for the third edition of the league, there was something else on everyones mind. The auction had been upended just a few hours earlier by a far bigger announcement. The previous evening, prime minister Narendra Modi declared that 500 and 1000 rupee notes were no longer legal tender. It was the start of whats been termed demonetization.The auction got completely hijacked by the issue. Some of the media who we expected to cover the league werent around because they were running around trying to make sense of this. We knew that things had changed, says Prasad Mandipudi, managing director of Sportslive, which owns the rights to the PBL.The governments decision was expected to have an impact - certainly in the short term - on the Indian economy. And indeed the alphabet soup of sporting leagues in India were not going to be immune to those changes. Within a few days, the Pro Wrestling League (PWL), scheduled to begin from December 15, was postponed to January. Last week Mahesh Bhupathis International Premier Tennis League (IPTL) announced that two of their biggest names - Roger Federer and Serena Williams - would not be returning to the league this year.We have had challenges this year, Bhupathi admitted. He blamed the current economic climate in India and uncertainty of spending money for the withdrawal of big names.Its an assessment shared by other sport leagues in the country too. 99 percent of organized sports are funded by the market scenario. I think we were the first guys to say ten days ago that demonetization has hit us really bad. Its time that everyone should be honest and talk about it, says an official associated with the PWL.There is no doubting that financially the leagues have been hit particularly since advertising spends - the primary source of revenues -- have fallen across the board. According to reported estimates, advertising will take a hit of between Rs. 1500 and 2000 crore this quarter.There is pain. Team owners are worried because sponsorships have dried up completely. Because for a company, spending on sports is last in terms of priority. Ive read a figure of Rs 5000 crore thats been cancelled for the next two quarters. So yes, it has had an impact, says Mandipudi.While the overall economic uncertainty is the predominant cause of concern, the shortage of hard cash - currency notes - is causing headaches as well. While leagues say that all athletes receive their payments through official banking channels, there are other costs that need to be taken care of as well.Twenty percent of my league budget is spent on travel and lodging. Another 20 percent goes in marketing. 60 percent of my budget is spent in operational costs. Thats money I need for buying equipment, security, labour etc. Operational costs are almost entirely conducted in cash. If you have some exigency, you are still going to need some cash. Suppose a light goes off, you will have to pay cash and get it replaced. If you have to get a stage made, you cant hope that the labourers will accept Paytm. Thats not happened yet, says the PWL official.Not all leagues are created equal and indeed some will weather the current economic climate better than others. It depends on what the owners are in the league for. Owning a team is very aspirational. Because if you have the intent to stick around in this business and if money is not a concern then you will not be bothered, says the official. He is referring to the Reliance-owned Indian Super League (ISL), which began before demonetization and has seemingly not been affected by it.There is more of a challenge?for smaller leagues. In order to cut costs, the PWL has shifted all its matches to Delhi. We cant overspend. The main objective is conducting the league and by shifting to Delhi we have halved our operational costs, says the official.But while the PWL has scaled down, Mandipudi has said there are no plans to do so for the PBL, which remains a multi-city tournament. This isnt to say they have found a loophole in the system.We have been able to go to the team owners and tell them that they will lose more money than they planned this time. We ourselves had to rewrite our expected profit and loss statements three times from what we began with. Some of the franchises have asked us to help out with their marketing costs and we have done that as well. We have accepted that we will take a hit but we will keep moving forward, he says.Mandipudi says after the initial shock, leagues are adapting to the change. A couple of days ago, the league had a press conference in Hyderabad on short notice. This would be one of the moments where cash might have been needed for an exigency.Usually the vendors - these are the guys who make the backdrop, the standees and photographers were paid in cash. This time around they have submitted their bills and given their account numbers, Mandipudi says.He adds that in the current scenario, leagues need to have credibility. I needed some T-Shirts for the press conference. I knew a vendor in Mumbai and he made the T shirts and couriered them to Hyderabad. In the past I would have had to pay a cash advance but this time around, he was willing to wait for his payment, he says.Mandipudi says that there are still some positives sports leagues can take away from the current climate.Normally the season between the festivals of Diwali (November) and Pongal (mid-January) is when advertisers make the most money. Now, since there have been so many cancellations, I can negotiate good terms with the TV guys, newspapers and hoarding guys to promote my own brand. The newspapers, TV guys will have to sell their ad space. I can get better value for my own budget, he says.Mandipudi believes ticket sales will pick up as well. Demonetisation doesnt make you poorer as an individual. Your cash is tied up in the banks but Im confident that my target market will not be affected. The audience for this league is urban, upper middle-class people who mostly buy tickets online, says Mandipudi, who expects to sell 70 percent of tickets for the league.The demonetization scenario is just a temporary bump on what Mandipudi calls the beginning of a growth curve. Do you think because of the current crisis, the corporate world will stop investing in the country? It doesnt mean that the Indian story is doomed. This league isnt a goose that you can make money off in a years time. It will take five years at least to see something out of it. Our team owners understand this as well, he says.Indeed if the events of the day of the auction are any clue, the PBL has reason to be hopeful. After some of the TV crews didnt come for the auction, they called me and asked if I had any video I could share. They still wanted to carry it on air, says Mandipudi. JK Scott Super Bowl Jersey . 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Hargreaves began his career in 2008 with the Winnipeg Blue Bombers and has played with the Edmonton Eskimos and last season with the Saskatchewan Roughriders. KENT, Ohio -- Kent States players made their home opener memorable, and it had little to do with winning.In a sign of unity they hope catches on, the Golden Flashes invited fans onto the court to stand with them during the national anthem before Wednesday nights game against Mississippi Valley State.Moments before tip-off, Kent States players went into the crowd and each of them asked a fan of a different race to join them while the schools Flasher Brass pep band performed the anthem.We understand all of the issues going on in our world, sophomore point guard Jalen Avery said. In these times, we felt it was important to show a sign of unity in our community. Our meaning behind it was to let everybody aware of all the things that are going on in our country know that we wanted to make a stand for unity. That was basically our symbol, and we wanted to treat everybody as one.Kent State coach Rob Senderoff said the players approached the coaching staff with the idea.It takes courage for our players to make a statement like this, and I believe iit is a representation of the unity in our campus community, Senderoff said.dddddddddddd Theres a lot of people protesting the national anthem, or protesting the election, or religion. You see all of that nationally, and our guys wanted to make a statement. To me, it was a tremendously positive statement. Hopefully everybody can recognize that. I have a lot of African-American players on my team, and they have faced discrimination because of the color of their skin.The statement they wanted to make was that `I am greater than that. Im a person. We are all people, and we are going to try and bring some unity here on campus. I think they made a positive statement with what they did.One of those asked to join the players, was Kent State president Beverly Warren.The team plans to continue to have fans on the court for every home game at the M.A.C. Center this season.Kent State defeated Mississippi Valley State 93-63. ' ' '