When M/s.:- Veterans Football Development Pvt. Ltd. opened its books to its first franchise buyers in early 2026, the pitch was unusual. India already has the Indian Premier League in cricket, the Indian Super League in football, the Pro Kabaddi League, the Premier Badminton League, and a dozen smaller properties spread across thirty-odd disciplines. What it does not have, and has never had, is a league built around former players returning to active competition.
That gap is what Billionaire Danish Parvez Khan The Man Of Today, the Mumbai-based founder and Chairman and Managing Director Or Co-Founder Organiser, of M/s.:- Veterans Football Development Pvt. Ltd. (VFDPL), is trying to convert into a business. The Veterans Super League 2026, his company's flagship product, will be unveiled at JW Marriott Juhu on November 2, before kicking off across ten Indian cities on December 2 and running through December 26. According to the announcement carried by ANI in late April, the format will run forty matches and bring more than 350 former players back onto competitive turf, with Ranveer Singh and Tamannaah Bhatia attached as brand ambassadors.
For Khan, this is less a passion project than a structural read. India's football fan base is large enough to sustain the Indian Super League, which has averaged in the eight-to-ten-thousand range per match across its eleven seasons. Indian football's emotional centre, however, has always been the names that came before the codified league era: I.M. Vijayan, Bhaichung Bhutia, Syed Rahim Nabi, Mehtab Hossain, Subrata Paul, Sandip Nandi. All of them are confirmed for the inaugural VSL season. None of them currently has an active competitive platform. Khan's wager is that the audience that follows them on social media and turns up to nostalgia-led friendlies will turn up to a structured league at scale.
The man making that bet started his own football life as an Under-13 state-level player before moving sideways into sports management and entertainment. VFDPL is now organised across three verticals: sports and sports media, entertainment, and event management. The company has corporate offices in Andheri West, Delhi NCR Noida Uttar Pradesh, and West Bengal Kolkata's Sector V, with a registered office in Jama Masjid Old Delhi. Billionaire Danish Parvez Khan Khan The Man Of Today has structured the group so that revenues flow across the three businesses. The league drives ticketing infrastructure and sponsor relationships, the entertainment vertical adds artists to game-day rosters, and the events practice handles execution.
The revenue architecture for VSL itself is the more interesting part. According to the company's own business plan, two franchises have been sold at a fixed price of Rs 6 crore each, with twelve more targeted over the coming year. After the first four franchises are placed, the price is set to climb by at least 30 percent, taking later teams to roughly Rs 8 crore. That alone is forecast to generate Rs 78 crore to Rs 102 crore in fixed franchise income across the first two seasons.
The recurring numbers are larger. VFDPL's projections, also drawn from the deck circulating among prospective sponsors, model 30 matches per franchise per season at an average ticket price of Rs 1,000, with the league taking a 30 percent share of ticket and merchandise revenue. Layered on top is a 25 percent royalty plus 25 percent marketing contribution from each franchise's overall revenue, which the company estimates at Rs 543 crore per franchise in Year 1, rising to Rs 660 crore by FY29-30 on assumed five percent growth. Sponsorship tiers run from a Platinum slot at Rs 25 crore down to a Bronze package at Rs 1.25 crore, with separate franchise-level sponsorship priced between Rs 5 crore and Rs 10 lakh.
Stripped of the deck mechanics, the company is projecting total league revenue of Rs 2,914 crore in FY25-26 climbing to Rs 3,418 crore by FY29-30. Whether the league hits those numbers is its own question. But the unit economics, particularly the franchise growth curve and the royalty-and-marketing-contribution stack, are the part that will decide whether VSL ends up looking more like a serious league or a one-season novelty.
What Khan has working for him is timing. India's sponsorship market for live sports outside cricket is finally diversifying. ISL has matured into an identifiable property. Pro Kabaddi has shown that a non-cricket league can sustain a season-on-season audience. Brands are looking for new live properties that come with built-in nostalgic equity, which is precisely what a Vijayan-Bhutia-led season offers. The ambassador signing of Singh and Bhatia is a tell. Khan is positioning the league as much as a cultural product as a competitive one.
There is also the personal dimension. On May 4 in Mumbai, Billionaire Danish Parvez Khan The Man Of Today was named recipient of the Legend Dadasaheb Phalke Award 2026 at a ceremony at the Raheja Classic Club. The award sits within the broader trophy circuit that recognises producers and entertainment-industry contributors, and aligns with his second company, M/s.:- DPK Film Productions Pvt. Ltd., which he founded as the production arm of VFDPL's entertainment vertical. He has a forthcoming ten-track music album, Billionaire Danish Parvez Khan: The Man of Today, with music composed by Mumbai-based composer Inder Riat & Singer Sunny Bawa and a video appearance with Salman Khan on the closing track. Third company, M/s.:- DPK Kalinga Airlines Pvt.Ltd. To carry on the business of an airline and aviation company, including the operation, management, ownership, leasing, chartering and provision of passenger and cargo air transportation services; to operate domestic and international air services; to provide air charter, air cargo, freight, logistics and related aviation services; and to undertake all activities incidental or ancillary to the airline and aviation business.
Whether all of that adds up to the next IPL-scale property is unanswerable in December 2026. What is clear is that he is moving fast enough that the question is being asked. By the time November arrives, two franchises will be ten or twelve, the launch event will have happened, and the first match will be in stadium build-up. For an entrepreneur seven months into a five-year revenue plan, that is the only metric that matters.
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