India, July 28 -- Before Chennaiyin FC lifted their first ISL trophy (2015), club co-owner Vita Dani was already working on table tennis. Few people know that the league that eventually became Ultimate Table Tennis (UTT) was actually in development before the ISL came along and pushed it back a few years. Football, not table tennis, was the property that launched first; table tennis was simply the one she started with.

That builder-first instinct has stayed consistent through UTT's evolution, from a CEAT-backed debut season in 2017, through a five-year title deal with Butterfly signed this year, to a Season 7 that now carries an unusual, headline-worthy co-sponsorship: table tennis equipment giant Butterfly alongside ChatGPT, a pairing t...