Blog

Kabaddi has been on the rise since the potential of the game was recognized in 2006. This culturally rich game had been an intrinsic part of a sports franchise in India. Kabaddi was introduced into the Indian culture in 1920. 

 

However, the competitive trance between kabaddi and widely admired sports, namely cricket and football, has given rise to suspicions among kabaddi enthusiasts. 

 

With the increasing recognition that the two sports franchises have gained over the years, the question related to the positioning of the kabaddi leaves many fans to be in a fix. In this article, we will present you with a statistical study of the kabaddi to determine its position. 

 

 

Since the breakthrough of 2006, when Charu Sharma, a tv personality, who recognized the potential that the sports held, that could compel many viewers to be mesmerized by its enthusiasm, the game took a path that led to national recognition. 

 

Collaborating with Star Sports, the Marshal Sports in 2024, added a new league in the catalog of a franchise-based Indian sports league, named the Pro Kabaddi League or rather known as the PKL. 

 

With the intention to turn this particular sports into commercially viable and fun-packed content, the organization was rolled out. 

 

However, in front of India's other two franchise-based sports league, cricket, and football, namely, IPL and ISL, which has been internationally recognized by many due to its inclusion of admired players, any relevance related to KPL had to take a back seat. 

 

 

Naturally, the statistic related to social media has to be dominated by the IPL. The result owes its ocuramce due to the widely recognized players which helped the games get interaction from multinational community. 

 

As the crochet league has an amalgamation of exotic players ranging from international as well as national teams, it has gotten the appeal that football and kabaddi lacks. 

 

Apart from that, the six-year head start has provided the IPL with a lead. Nonetheless, the deconstruction of the content from the IPL, the followers of PKL on Twitter is impressively shocking, with 300k.  

 

Though the realm of football has garnered attention from international peeps, as it managed to get 690k followers in 2019, kabaddi has a long way to go in the major league to win the race on Twitter. 

 

However, when it comes to the factors related to popularity on social media, it has been said that the top spot has been taken by the IPL while the second and third spots have been reserved for KPL and ISL consequently.

 

 

 

When it comes to viewership, the inaugural viewership for the PKL was recorded at 435 million viewers, whereas the finale was watched by 86.4 million audiences on a national level. Compared to PKL, the IPL, when announced received a viewership of 560 million. 

 

Though the IPL was inaugurated months before which gave it a nudge to win the race to acquire the title of most viewership for the first season, the win nonetheless was not significant. The third sport was taken by ISL with 429 million views. 

 

What is best about this is that the numbers didn't take a dip negatively. The main reason behind the success of PKL into pulling a fast one on football and giving a tough competition to cricket for viewership is Star Sports. 

 

Due to their extraordinary initiatives and inclusion of unique concepts to keep it crisp and innovative, the image of PKL was raised. How? 

 

The fruit of success was noticed as those who had never thought of watching kabaddi panning out a national level sports were hooked to screen because of its enthusiastic approach. 

 

While the season 4th of the game saw a 51% increase in viewership, the foundation of the game was not to waver as even after the pandemic, many think that the sports will manage to retain the attention of viewers nonetheless. 

 

 

The concept of promotion of franchise-based leagues depends solely on the inclusion of high profile legends. Though the recruitment process of ISL is different compared to PKL and IPL, the fundamental importance of the promotion depends mostly on the big-names. 

 

While IPL has accumulated a number of renowned players such as Singh, Dhoni, and Kohli, the PKL has to utilize other means to garner attention rather than offering big-names in the market. Here the profile of the players is built from the scratch. 

 

As the potential of the game has been noticed, so is the proficiency of the players as they leave to gather nation-wide recognition. Even the investment made in the tournament and sponsorship of the event has improved ever since. 

 

In 2016, the team brought the sponsorship of 62 crores while the on-ground sponsorship ranged within 122million. While in season 5 the prize money saw a hike of 8 crores. It can be said that the event is taking up its speed in the realm of sports.