India Super League

Football in India has existed in many forms since the game first arrived in the country during the 19th century with the first nationwide club competition, the Durand Cup, beginning in 1888. Despite the long history of the game in India, the country's first nationwide football league did not begin until the semi-professional National Football League commenced in 1996. Before the creation of the National Football League, most clubs played in state leagues or select nationwide tournaments.

In 2006, the AIFF, the governing body for the sport in India, reformatted the league as the I-League to professionalize the game. However, during the following seasons, the league suffered from a lack of popularity due to poor marketing.

In September 2006, the AIFF signed a 10-year television and media contract with Zee Sports. Zee would broadcast the National Football League, later the I-League, and other tournaments organized by the AIFF and selected India's international matches. However, in October 2010, the deal between the AIFF and Zee Sports was terminated over payment and marketing disagreements.

On 9 December 2010, it was announced that the AIFF had signed a new 15-year, ₹700 crore deal with Reliance Industries and the International Management Group.

The Indian Super League was officially launched on 21 October 2013 by IMG–Reliance, Star Sports, and the All India Football Federation. The competition was announced to take place from January 2014 to March 2014, but was postponed shortly thereafter to September 2014.

At first, it was announced that bidding for the eight Indian Super League teams would be completed before the end of 2013 and there was already high interest from major corporations, Indian Premier League teams, Bollywood stars, and other consortia. However, due to the rescheduling of the league, bidding was delayed to 3 March 2014. It was also revealed around this time that bidders would need to comply with financial requirements as well as promote football development within their area. Finally, in early April 2014, the winning bidders were announced. The selected cities/states were Bangalore, Delhi, Goa, Guwahati, Kochi, Kolkata, Mumbai, and Pune. Former India cricket player Sachin Tendulkar, along with PVP Ventures, won the bidding for the Kochi franchise. Another former Indian cricket player, Sourav Ganguly, along with a group of Indian businessmen and La Liga side Atlético Madrid, won the bid for the Kolkata franchise. Meanwhile, Bollywood stars John Abraham, Ranbir Kapoor, and Salman Khan won the bid for the Guwahati, Mumbai, and Pune franchises respectively. Bangalore and Delhi were won by companies while Goa was won by a partnership between Videocon, Dattaraj Salgaocar, and I-League side Dempo.

The first team to be launched officially was the Kolkata franchise as Atlético de Kolkata on 7 May 2014. On 7 July 2014, the team announced the first head coach in league history, Antonio López Habas. The next day, Kolkata also announced the first official marquee signing in the Indian Super League, UEFA Champions League winner Luis García.

Eventually, all eight teams were revealed as Atlético de Kolkata, Bangalore Titans, Delhi Dynamos, Goa, Kerala Blasters, Mumbai City, NorthEast United and Pune City. However, on 21 August 2014, it was announced that due to Bangalore's owners dropping out, Chennai would be given a franchise instead. The team was eventually named Chennaiyin FC. At the same time, the original marquee players were Luis García, Elano, Alessandro Del Piero, Robert Pires, David James, Freddie Ljungberg, Joan Capdevila, and David Trezeguet.

The inaugural season began on 12 October 2014 at the Salt Lake Stadium when Atlético de Kolkata defeated Mumbai City, 3–0. The first goal was scored by Fikru Teferra. The first Indian to score in the league was Balwant Singh for Chennaiyin FC.

For the first three seasons of the Indian Super League, the competition operated without official recognition from the governing body for football in Asia, the Asian Football Confederation (AFC), and the world football governing body FIFA. In October 2014, then FIFA Secretary General Jérôme Valcke stated that the world governing body only recognized the ISL as a tournament, not a league. The official league for football in India remained the I-League. With no recognition from the AFC, the teams also could not participate in Asian club competitions, the AFC Champions League or the AFC Cup.

During the first three seasons of the Indian Super League, attendance across the competition exceeded the expectations of pundits and the domestic I-League mainly due to the timing of the matches, mostly on working days, and extensive promotion. Television ratings were also strong for the competition, due to better commentary and telecasting, pre-match and post-match shows, as well as hourly reminders in various channels and social media interaction. However, despite the general success off the pitch, the competition drew criticism in other areas. Due to the need to accommodate the ISL into the Indian football calendar, the I-League season was shortened and went from having an October to May schedule to a January to May schedule. Indian players would play for both an ISL team and an I-League club while the I-League continued to suffer from a lack of visibility compared to the ISL. India's then head coach Stephen Constantine had called for both the ISL and I-League to either run together at the same time or merge.

For the first three seasons Atlético de Kolkata emerged as the dominant team by finishing in the top four every year, and winning the Final twice (2014 and 2016) by defeating Kerala Blasters both times.

On 18 May 2016, IMG–Reliance, along with the AIFF and I-League representatives met at a meeting in Mumbai. During the meeting, it was proposed that starting from the 2017–18 season, the Indian Super League become the top-tier football league in India while the I-League be reformed as League One and restructured as the second division. The competition would also expand by two teams and continue to operate without promotion and relegation, as stated earlier due to the 15 crore attraction of the FSDL each year, but run for 5–7 months instead of 2–3. The idea was not entertained by the I-League representatives.

In June 2017, IMG–Reliance, the AIFF and the I-League representatives met with the AFC in Kuala Lumpur in order to find a new way forward for Indian football. The AFC were against allowing the ISL as the main league in India, while I-League clubs East Bengal and Mohun Bagan wanted a complete merger of the ISL and I-League. A couple weeks later, the AIFF proposed that both Indian Super League and I-League run simultaneously on a short–term basis with the I-League champion retaining the AFC Champions League qualifying stage spot and the AFC Cup qualifying stage spot going to the ISL champion. The proposal from the AIFF was officially approved by the AFC on 25 July 2017, with the ISL replacing the domestic cup competition, the Federation Cup, a true knockout cup competition. It was also stated that the competition would now run for five months, starting with the 2017–18 season, expand to 10 teams.

A month before, on 11 May 2017, the ISL organizers started to accept bids for 2–3 new franchises for the 2017–18 season. The bids would be for ten cities, namely Ahmedabad, Bangalore, Cuttack, Durgapur, Hyderabad, Jamshedpur, Kolkata, Ranchi, Siliguri and Thiruvananthapuram. It was also clarified that if Kolkata were to win at least one bid that the new Kolkata side would have to play away from the city for only two seasons. A month later, on 12 June, it was announced that I-League side, Bengaluru, and Tata Steel (for Jamshedpur) had won the bidding for the new teams.

On 22 September 2017, the competition announced officially that it would be extending its season by two months, thus making the league last for five months instead of three. The competition would also go from having matches played daily to being played between Wednesday and Sunday.

The next year, before the 2018–19 season, it was reported that Reliance Industries had bought out IMG's shares in the Football Sports Development. IMG realising that the robust business model will soon be exposed, pulled out, thus giving Reliance Industries 65% ownership while Star Sports retains 35%. In this season, Bengaluru had achieved the feat of being the first club to win the final after topping the league standings. Following the 2018–19 season, Pune City was disbanded in 2019. The club's franchise rights were then transferred to an ownership group which founded Hyderabad FC. In August 2019, Delhi Dynamos became the first ISL club to relocate when it moved from Delhi to Bhubaneswar and rebranded as Odisha FC.

On 14 October 2019, the AFC held a summit in Kuala Lumpur, chaired by the AFC Secretary General Windsor John, which involved key stakeholders from the AIFF, the FSDL, the ISL, and the I-League clubs, and other major stakeholders to propose a new roadmap to facilitate the football league system in India. Based on the roadmap, that was prepared by the AFC and the AIFF at the summit and approved by the AFC Executive Committee on 26 October in Da Nang, in 2019–20 season the Indian Super League will attain the country's top-tier league status and run parallelly with I-League, allowing the Indian Super League premiers to play in AFC Champions League and the I-League champions to play in AFC Cup. In addition, starting from the 2022–23 season the I—League lost top-tier status and the Indian Super League became the country's sole top-tier league. The champion of the I-League will stand a chance to be promoted to the Indian Super League with no participation fee, a basis fulfilling sporting merit and the national club licensing criteria to be set out by the AIFF, but there will not be relegation from Indian Super League up to the 2023—24 season. In its recommendation for 2024–25, it was agreed to fully implement promotion and relegation in between the two leagues, and abolition of the system of two parallel leagues. The club finishing at the top of the Indian Super League table was crowned the season's premiere, and Goa became the first to achieve the title in 2019–20 season.

Another key recommendation by the AFC in the roadmap was to open a pathway for two I-League clubs’ entry into the Indian Super League by the end of the 2020-21 season, subject to the criteria being fulfilled. Therefore, efforts were taken early on by the organizers to include two historic clubs– Mohun Bagan and East Bengal into the league, which succeeded in the following season. Before the start of the 2020–21 season, the owners of ATK merged its brand with the football section of Mohun Bagan on 1 June 2020 and entered the league. On 27 September 2020, after securing investment from Shree Cement, East Bengal joined the league as an expansion team, thus becoming the 11th team in the league.

Following the Indian football roadmap, the Indian Super League became the sole top-tier league in the country from the 2022–23 season. Before the 2023-24 season, Punjab FC became the first club to be promoted to the league from the I-League. Similarly, Mohammedan won the next I-League and was promoted for 2024-25 ISL season.

The Indian football roadmap also recommended relegation to be adopted by the 2024-25 season. However, no official confirmation of its implementation has been released yet.