The Archery Premier League, a brand-new professional sports franchise launched in India on Friday 19 September 2025, with the first matches of the 2025 season scheduled to be held in October.
Organized by Archery Association of India, the national governing body, it is the first franchise-based archery league in the world.
Almost a decade in development, the APL brings together 36 Indian archers and 12 leading internationals, distributed among six teams. For the opening season, players were selected through a draft system familiar to American sports franchises.
Each squad consists of eight athletes—four men and four women—with the option of signing up to two overseas players. At least one overseas archer must feature in the main playing lineup. Matches will be held in mixed recurve and compound events, outdoors at 70m and 50m under floodlights.
The round-robin stage schedules three matches per day, each lasting 20 minutes, and the shooting time per arrow is capped at 15 seconds, rather than the normal 20 seconds.
