Arindam Chaudhuri loves cars and unless he is “too tired to drive”, the Delhi-based Planman Group boss zips around in his Bentley convertible. After all, running a conglomerate that includes a consultancy firm, a sports management company and a business school calls for a race against time.

So when Bangalore-based Machdar Motorsports announced in October the launch of the i1 Super Series, a nine-team, franchise-based car racing event, Chaudhuri wasted no time. He revved up — and bagged the Delhi team for $20 million in franchisee fees payable over 15 years.

“This event is modelled on the IPL (Indian Premier League), so it is sports plus entertainment and it appealed to us,” Chaudhuri, 40, says.

If Chaudhuri is “excited” about the country’s first indigenous racing league, boxer Akhil Kumar is electrified, playing for Mumbai Fighters in the World Series of Boxing currently underway in India.

“We had never thought that Indian boxers, lapped up by franchisees like Mumbai Fighters, would have a chance to turn professional,” the Arjuna award winner says.

It’s a thrilling time for Indian sports. From boxing to wrestling and hockey to motorsports, a slew of IPL-styled, city-based leagues has sprung up, bringing in revenues and altering the country’s sports arena outside cricket.

Celebrities are plunging in too, adding glitz to the games. If Shah Rukh Khan and Jai Mehta, husband of actor Juhi Chawla, have bought the Mumbai racing team, actor Suniel Shetty heads a consortium that runs the Bangalore franchise of the World Series Hockey, a joint initiative of Nimbus Sport and the Indian Hockey Federation.

And with Sachin Tendulkar signing up as brand ambassador of the i1 Super Series, advertising agencies are looking forward to what the leagues can offer. Till now, over 90 per cent of the estimated Rs 4,000-crore sports advertising expenditure has been on cricket.

“Almost every advertiser is looking for an alternative to cricket. First, ad rates have become very high. Second, it is difficult to build an association with cricket, as advertisers want, because of the high costs of sponsorships, etc,” says Debraj Tripathy, managing director of MediaCom, which plans and buys advertising for multinational companies.

It’s not just about money. Some believe the franchise-based professionally run leagues could revive traditional games like hockey and wrestling.

“The format of the World Series Hockey, I am sure, will generate interest and eventually help us regain the lost glory in our national game,” says Harish Thawani, executive chairman of the Mumbai-based Nimbus Communications, which owns Nimbus Sports.

The first match of the hockey series —with eight teams from cities ranging from Delhi and Mumbai to Ranchi and Rourkela — is expected to be played in Delhi on December 17.

The Union sports ministry — which seeks to promote all games in a country devoted to cricket — pledges help to the new leagues. “My ministry is fully supportive of these private initiatives since they will help broadbase sports in our country,” says Union sports minister Ajay Maken.

More important, Maken says these leagues will bring in the “much needed glamour and resources” that almost all games — barring a few such as cricket — lack.

That glamour and entertainment are the buzzwords in Indian sports today was made apparent by the IPL experience.

Indeed, IPL, launched in 2008, changed the rules of the games. It introduced the franchise-based system in Indian sports for the first time, selling city-based teams to the highest bidders. It formed strategic partnerships with leading brands and sold television rights to the highest bidder. It blended entertainment with sports, bringing cheerleaders to cricket fields for the first time.

The result was that the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) earned $1 billion in 2008. Currently valued at $4 billion, it was labelled the “world’s hottest sports league” by Forbes magazine in 2009.

It’s this format that the hockey, boxing, motor racing and wrestling leagues will largely follow, with a franchisee owning a city team consisting of Indian and foreign players.

Again, like IPL, the 14 wrestlers in each of the six city-based teams will be auctioned. Each team will have seven men and seven women, drawn from such countries as India, Canada, Japan and South Korea. The league gets rolling on February 20, 2012, says S.S. Dasgupta, managing director of the Calcutta-based Leisure Sports Management, the league organiser.

All the matches of the new leagues will be telecast live — à la IPL — on sports channels, including ESPN Star, Ten Sports, Neo Sports and Neo Cricket. However, the promoters and the broadcasters refuse to divulge details about the deals.

“We don’t disclose financial terms,” says Rathin Basu, a spokesman for ESPN Star, which has signed a deal with TransStadia Boxing India Pvt. Ltd, the local organiser of the series and owner of Mumbai Fighters.

The prize money varies from one league to another. While the boxing league offers $0.5 million, it is $2 million for the car racing. Against Rs 1.2 crore being offered in wrestling, the prize money for hockey is over Rs 10 crore.

Experts believe the “decent” prize money will undoubtedly help draw talent, with live telecast acting as a catalyst for popularising the games.

“There can be one mass game in a country, as cricket is in India but there is certainly enough room in a country for other sports to thrive,” says Mediacom’s Tripathy.

The promoters are confident that their ventures will be commercially viable. “One just has to understand the dynamics of boxing and invest in it to make it viable,” says TransStadia CEO Udit Sheth, who reportedly paid the International Boxing Association $5 million for Mumbai Fighters — the only Indian franchisee — for 10 years.

Already, the sport has been gaining eyeballs. Launched last year, the boxing league has 12 teams from 12 countries — including India, Russia and Italy. The organisers say crowds for the matches are growing. “It’s becoming more and more popular,” says Sheth.

Likewise, excitement is brewing around the racing event. The success of the recent Formula 1 race — which saw unprecedented crowds — has also given a boost to the sport in India. “The huge turnout showed the sign of things to come,” says Chaudhuri.

Nine city-based teams will participate in a race beginning in Abu Dhabi, UAE, on January 7, 2012. Each team will have two cars and three drivers, including a Formula 1 driver from overseas.

“Worldwide, motorsports has the number one television viewership, much ahead of football and even the Olympics,” Chaudhuri adds.

For motorsports enthusiasts, the climate seems right for the i1 Super Series that will take place in India, Malaysia, Bahrain and Qatar, apart from the UAE.

“Today, almost all major automobile manufactures are present in India. Youngsters are growing up with more and more exposure to Formula 1 and other motorsports,” says Machdar Motorsports managing director Darshan M.

Yet for all the hoopla about the new leagues in sports circles, none of these leagues can outdo cricket in terms of viewership and advertising revenue.

The good news is that they can carve out a niche for themselves. “Companies are growing and people are looking at newer things, so certainly the ad market can accommodate all these new games since it’s bound to grow as well,” says Amin Lakhani, principal partner (exchange) at Mindshare in Mumbai.

Further, small and medium-size advertisers will welcome the new leagues because of the steep rates that cricket commands, points out Starcom MediaVest Group (India) chairman C.V.L. Srinivas. Of course, much will depend on how the new leagues are packaged and promoted. “They can learn from the way IPL has been branded,” he says.

Interestingly, though IPL ad rates for television soared from Rs 3.75 lakh per 10 seconds in 2008 to Rs 4.6 lakh per 10 seconds in 2011, the F1 event in Delhi overtook Test cricket in terms of ad rates. It earned about Rs 1,00,000 per 10 seconds, double that of Test cricket.

“You can read the writing on the wall,” says the Machdar managing director.

What’s equally clear is that promoters of the new leagues have to tread with caution, given the way the Premier Hockey League, launched with much fanfare in 2005, wound up by 2009.

Dasgupta of Leisure Sports Management, which had organised the failed league, blames the closure on “internal problems” afflicting hockey bodies. “These problems led to the Indian hockey federation, our partner, becoming defunct,” he says.

As he prepares to launch the wrestling league, Dasgupta says he is being doubly careful. Others, he adds, should be equally vigilant.

Or else the league bubble could easily burst.