“Discover PkSports®”
Polo Teams: Sponsorship History & Lahore Season Performances
To develop a professional sports environment – allsportspk takes yet another initiative by presenting to its readers a series of posts on topics which at present have limited or no information at all.
Through this effort allsportspk will enable due credit to people and companies which have contributed towards a sport. In addition effort will also be made to develop authentic information regarding various sports.
In the first post allsportspk briefly reveals how the Polo Teams in Pakistan became professionally managed and then introduces for the first time a seasonal consolidated data chart to show the performance of each team involved during the Polo season.
Since the country’s independence in 1947, Polo was mostly an Army Garrison affair, played in Garrisons of major cities including Rawalpindi, Lahore, and Karachi. However, in the 1970’s, as Lahore Polo club became the hub of Polo activity in Pakistan, so did the Polo fraternity. With time the fraternity which had been dominated by army personnel started to be influenced by Polo enthusiasts from business and landlord backgrounds. Thus, over the years Polo became more of a “Private Sector Entrepreneurs” game.
As most of these Polo fraternity members were into playing the game, thus, Polo started to receive financial support from the major business groups initially in the form of Team sponsorships. Ultimately, tournaments also started to be sponsored by major companies (to be covered in a separate post of “Discover PkSports” Series).
With the advent of sponsorships, competition increased and the team managements eager to perform the best, started to engage professional foreign players. This made the Pakistan Polo circuit more professional by being exposed to international standards of play. Consequentially, the local polo players, especially the youngsters steadily developed into professional players, with some playing in the internationally Polo circuits.
To start evidencing the performances of various teams, Allsportspk in conjunction with Lahore Polo Club has compiled a consolidated chart which for the first time records the team wise performance during a season.
Exclusive: The Fascinating Pedigree of Polo
In due course this effort will be extended to reviews of each top Team, along with Seasonal Analysis.
It may be noted that the top teams in the 2016 -17 season are among the major supporters of Pakistan Polo since the last 15 – 20 years.
For updates regularly visit: Allsportspk
