Up to six franchises will participate in renowned sites from the inaugural season of the World Bowling League (WBL) at the beginning of 2026, which is supported by the Grand Mookie Betts de Baseball and the celebrity of Cricket Virat Kohli, the head of the Adi K Mishra league, Reuters.
Thanks to a powerful combination of celebrity franchise owners, exotic places and technological innovation, the WBL hopes to transform a popular activity for millions of people around the world into a advanced event and made for television.
“It is an incredible sport that has not been properly structured over the past 50 to 60 years and everyone rejects it as a recreational activity,” said Mishra, founder and CEO of the sports company League Sports CO, during a video call from the United States.
“We are going to launch with six franchises in the first quarter of next year. It will be a team of four – two male quisters and two quisors.”
Mishra did not enter into detail on the format, but said that professional quisors would participate in the main sport while celebrities would participate in auxiliary events, the teams collecting points throughout the season.
With its origins in ancient Egypt, the peak of bowling in the United States was in the 1960s and 70s when each city and suburbs had its own alley.
Even today, some 200 million people have put shoes with flat soles and go to the tracks each year, including 75 million in the United States, Mishra said.
The WBL is in no way the first attempt to create a professional circuit in the tenpin game, and the American don ‘M. Bowling ‘Carter was the first athlete of any ink sport a sponsorship agreement of $ 1 million in 1964.
What separates WBL from previous attempts, says Mishra is its world scope – the league is at the advanced stage of the finalization of franchises in Japan, South Korea, Singapore and India – and ambitious vision.
“Our first fundamental premise was – How can we take this and make an ambitious product?” Mishra added.
“We want to take two ways and put them in emblematic places around the world – Hudson Yards in New York, Marina Bay Sands in Singapore, various different places in Dubai and India.”
Event made for television
Los Angeles Dodgers Shortstop Betts bought the first franchise announced in May and the WBL succeeded in another marketing coup when Kohli came on board as a strategic investor last month.
Mishra did not provide financial details on the purchase of Bett, but said that the negotiations on the sale of the remaining franchises were in the final phase.
The League plans to simplify the notation, to bring together a multitude of donors of celebrities and companies and to use the balloon and other technologies to create a product that works on television and digital platforms.
The weaving of free programs featuring celebrities like Betts and Kohli around the basic sport would make it an irresistible proposal for the broadcasters, said Mishra.
“We already have many lined up broadcasters and many of them think that this sport, the way we have designed it, can be integrated into their ultra-premium segment.
“Many of them believe that they can bring in other influencers and celebrities, who also come.
Mishra and Kohli know each other thanks to their joint property of a team in the electric world championship in an electric motor, and the penchant of the cricket player for the bowling alley was a pleasant surprise that the WBL was in the planning phase.
“Over the years, I have met a lot of celebrities who have been cupboard,” said Mishra.
“We were talking about various things about the team and it turned out that he has bowling and that he had been watching him since he was the age of 11-12.
“It was a big surprise for me and we wanted him to be part of it. I hope we will play it when he will have more time for that.”
