A lot of countries have professional sports leagues. I've always found it cool to check out a local sports match wherever I've traveled. In Croatia, I stayed with a guy whose apartment was blocks away from the local football stadium (world football, not American); and it was awesome to drink and shout with the locals outside the stadium who couldn't a get a ticket.
I went back to India recently for work and got to check out India's newest professional sports league, the IPL. Cricket is India's national sport, and has the same basic elements as Baseball: Batting, Running, and Fielding. Most of the cricket matches I have seen until now have been... lengthy. Multiple day matches, each day lasting more than 5 hours. That- that's too much. But the inventors of this league have made a smart decision, using a format that lasts about 3 hours- very smart. I attended a match in my families' home city of Bangalore, which is without a doubt one of the coolest cities of India; and will be blogged about on its' own at a later time.
The Bangalore team "The Royal Challengers", is owned by a billionaire named Vijay Mallya.
Aside from owning an F1 Team, and an Airline, he is mostly known as the President of United Breweries, which makes India's staple beer, "Kingfisher".
I wasn't exactly sure what to expect from the match, and my expectations were blown away- I had an amazing time. Nice weather, good company, cheap beer, hot cheerleaders, everything was coming up Milhouse. I noticed the cheerleaders seemed familiar, I had honestly seen these girls somewhere before. Then I realized when you're a billionaire, its easy to fly over the Redskins' cheerleaders for a summer, and have them cheer for your team!
Bangalore ended up losing that night, but no worries. I had an amazing time, and a newfound interest in the sport- The beer helped too.
