A crowd of about 100 people waits anxiously in front of the Sree Kanteerava Indoor Stadium in Bengaluru. It’s a Wednesday night and they’re lining up to watch a Pro Kabbadi doubles game – Gujarat Giants vs UP Yoddhas and Bengaluru Bulls vs Tamil Thalaivas.
An announcement from a speaker instructs people to view the ticket in their email or ticket booking app, rather than a screenshot. Some start searching their phones. A family of four – a middle-aged couple, an elderly woman and a child – dressed in red and black Bengaluru Bulls jerseys wait their turn to enter the gate. Pro Kabaddi has been her dinner routine for the past three years.
“We don’t even watch cricket as much as Kabaddi,” says Sharadha D, a bank teller. “Yes, there is just too much cricket these days,” chimes in father Krishnaraja (although the auditorium later quite absurdly yelled the name of the local IPL team – “RCB, RCB” – when Bengaluru Bulls make a point). As the boy begins to talk about his interest in Pro Kabaddi, team buses enter the site one after the other. He frantically waves his hands at the bus windows, shouting the names of his favorite players and hoping to wave in return. One of the names is Chandran Ranjit, the captain of the Gujarat Giants.
RANCHI, JHARKHAND, 09/21/2017 : Nitin Rawal raids for Jaipur Pink Panthers against Haryana Steelers in Vivo Pro Kabaddi League (Season 5) at Harivansh Tana Bhagat Indoor Stadium in Ranchi on September 21, 2017. Photo by Manob Chowdhury | Credit: MANOB CHOWDHURY
Chandran hails from Alathankarai, a hamlet in Kanyakumari and one of the many scattered Kabaddi centers in Tamil Nadu. Established in 1989, Alathankarai Kabaddi Club has produced several national and international players. Chandran has been playing kabaddi since he was 15 years old. His trainer initially told him he was too skinny to play the sport; he suggested volleyball instead. But whenever the coach wasn’t looking, Chandran was taking part in a game of kabaddi. “I just wanted to do sports,” he says. “I never thought it would help me get a job; if it would help me support my family; if it would get me anywhere in life.” But it did – he built a house for his parents; his sister married; and after being relatively unknown in Alathankarai, he now has fans in Bengaluru screaming his name.
Pro Kabaddi, founded in 2014 (as the Pro Kabaddi League), changed Chandran’s life – and the sport itself.
A Brief History of Kabaddi
Kabaddi is said to have existed in one form or another on the subcontinent since prehistoric times. There are apocryphal stories of Krishna and later Buddha playing the ancient form of the sport. Rononjoy Sen’s book Nation At Play speculates that it arose during the Vedic age (between 1500 BC and 600 BC). According to the Amateur Kabaddi Federation of India (AKFI), the national sports federation of Kabaddi, the first set of rules for the sport was created in Maharashtra in the 1920s. One of the earliest tournaments of modern Kabaddi, the All India Kabaddi Tournament in 1923, was played under these modified rules. A little-known sports institute from Amravati, Maharashtra presented the sport at the 1936 Berlin Olympics (although it was not officially part of the event). This was the sport’s first major international appearance. Kabaddi gradually grew in the second half of the 20th century. In 1990 it was part of the Asian Games where India won the first gold medal. It went on to win the gold in each of the next six editions. India was the undisputed Kabaddi champion.
glorification of the game
Despite being so good at it, India did not have a large following for Kabaddi. It was considered a rural sport. The enthusiasm for the sport came only once in four years when the men’s team (and later the women’s team) won the gold medal at the Asian Games.
During the 2010 Asian Games in Guangzhou, Deoraj Chaturvedi, an official of the Asian Kabaddi Federation, met with commentator Charu Sharma to discuss the idea of a professional league for Kabaddi. The Indian Premier League was launched just two years ago and was a complete success. The duo felt a league would work for Kabaddi too.
Four years later, Mashal Sports, a company founded in 1994 by Sharma and industrialist Anand Mahindra, launched the Pro Kabaddi League with Disney Star. It glorified the game with colorful mats, laser lights, DJs, and movie stars (some of whom owned teams).
“We knew there was a cultural appreciation of sport in India. For example, you can easily recall popular movies where the hero is a Kabaddi player. We had to resonate with this following and reform the sport,” says Anupam Goswami, Managing Director of Mashal Sports and Pro Kabaddi League Commissioner.
It wasn’t just the exterior decorations. The league, Anupam adds, has invested heavily in sports science and analytics to ensure the highest standard of competition and broadcasting. “Players have access to the best coaches, the best conditioning and the best injury management. We have foreign players. We made sure no one team dominated the league – the talent was equally divided. All of this ensured that the people who came to the stadiums witnessed the highest quality of sport,” he says. “Those who see it on their screens have access to some insightful numbers they wouldn’t get anywhere else.”
Pro Kabaddi made an upstate sport the focus of primetime television.
Fans at Pro Kabaddi | Photo credit: special agreement
Rapid growth
After IPL, Pro Kabaddi is the most watched sports league in India which also has Indian Super League (soccer) and Premier Badminton League among others. In its inaugural season in 2014, 435 million people watched the 37-day event (in the same year, IPL had 552 million viewers). Pro Kabaddi also has the most participants (12) of any sports league in the country.
The value of the league also seems to have increased. For example, the top bid during the game auction rose from Rs. 12.8 crore (for Rakesh Kumar of the Patna franchise) in 2014 to ₹2.26 crore (for Pawan Kumar Sherawat of Tamil Thalaivas) in 2022. To mark the ins To put it in perspective, the grand total Season 4 prize money (£2 crore) was less than what Pawan got this year. Another indicator of the league’s tremendous growth is the value of its media rights. Last year, Star India bought the rights until 2025 for £905m. Team owners unhappy with the auction process believed the league could have achieved higher broadcast earnings.
Star India’s blazing marketing worked beautifully. In rural and urban centers, numerous people tune in to the league. Ajith Kumar of Jaipur Pink Panthers says his entire neighborhood in his village of Samipillaipudur (in Karur district of Tamil Nadu) is switching from TV soaps to Pro Kabaddi when the league is on. The league seems to have spread across different age groups and genders. Keerthana C, an aspiring kabaddi player in Bengaluru, says she never misses any of the Bengaluru Bulls’ games. Although Kabaddi is traditionally a male-dominated sport, there is growing interest among women as well. For example, the women’s national team has won two gold medals and one silver medal at the last three Asian Games.
One of the reasons for Pro Kabaddi’s success, at least on television, is the brevity of the sport. The whole deal, from throw to presentation, is done in an hour – that’s less than a T20 game. Games start late in the evening, a convenient time for the entire household.
Despite these impressive numbers, the league is still in its infancy. The organizers are still experimenting with the rules, format and timing. They must set themselves the task of increasing public interest in the sport. “We have to constantly update ourselves with breakthrough technologies, for example in relation to refereeing. We have to discover and promote young talent,” says Anupam. “Hopefully the success of the league will result in medals for India at the Asian Games and other international events. We’ve just started. It is a long way.”
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