Professional sports leagues have become the dominant form of sports in most of the developed sports markets. However, sports leagues are appearing for the first time in emerging sports markets like India. This research is exploratory in nature and is aimed at identifying the factors that contribute to the success of Indian professional sports leagues. A mixed methods approach was adopted using semi-structured interviews, focused group discussions, and surveys. Data was collected from sports' experts and fans. The results show that factors that impact success of leagues can be of broadly summarised into two types: operational factors like league-federation relationship, scheduling and infrastructure; and fan acceptability factors like celebrities, quality of players, marketing communications and match-day experience. The findings from this research have implications for developing sports industry and research in emerging sports markets.