Sport Kabaddi Inaugural season 2014 Director Charu Sharma | Founded 2014 Owner(s) Mashal Sports | |
Motto Jeethta hai wohi jo haar naa maane | ||
Pro Kabaddi League (PKL) (officially known as the Star Sports Pro Kabaddi for sponsorship reasons) is a professional kabaddi league in India, based on the format of the Indian Premier League T20 cricket tournament. It is an initiative of Mashal Sports.
Contents
History
The Pro Kabaddi League was founded in 2014 with the inaugural 2014 edition of the tournament being played between eight franchises representing eight Indian cities respectively. The league has a "caravan format," with the teams travelling together to all the eight venues to play a total of sixty matches. The organizing company Mashal Sports was co-founded by Mr. Anand Mahindra, Chairman, Mahindra Group and Mr. Charu Sharma, director of Mashal Sports. Star India acquired a 74% stake in Mashal Sports, and now has control over the entire league as a majority owner of Mashal Sports. Mashal Sports has acquired the rights to organize the league for a period of ten years from International Kabaddi Federation (IKF) with an option to renew it further.
Broadcasting rights
Star Sports was named as the official broadcaster in May 2014 with the online rights going to Starsports.com. In 2015, hotstar.com and starsports.com were the online broadcaster for Prokabaddi. Fox Sports serves as the official United States broadcaster for Prokabaddi. The Commonwealth Broadcasting Network, a service of the Asian Television Network, serves as the official broadcaster for Prokabaddi in Canada. ESPN serves as the official broadcaster for Prokabaddi in Brazil, the Spanish-speaking Latin America and Commonwealth Caribbean countries
Season 1
The first signing and auction of players for the 8 teams was held on 20 May 2014 in Mumbai. India's national kabaddi captain Rakesh Kumar was the priciest among the players bought for ₹12.80 lakh by the Patna Pirates. Sports Authority of India's Deepak Nivas was bought by Telugu Titans franchise for ₹12.90 lakh. Mostafa Noudehi was the highest paid overseas player bought for ₹6.6 lakh by Pune franchise.
The duration of the season was from 26 July 2014 to 31 August 2014. There were double round robin matches along with two semi finals, third place and final games. 56 games were to be played in first round and 4 in play off stage making total of 60 games. 8 teams took part in first edition. First game was played on July 26 between U Mumba and Telugu Titans and the final was played on August 31 at Mumbai. Jaipur Pink Panthers beat U Mumba by 35-24 to win the inaugural Pro Kabaddi League.
Season 2
Star Sports Pro Kabaddi season 2 was from July 18 to 23 August 2015. They were a total of 60 matches played these season with two semifinals, a third place play-off and a final. First game was played on July 18 between Telugu Titans and Jaipur Pink Panthers and the final was played on August 23 at Mumbai between U Mumba and Bengaluru Bulls. U Mumba beat Bengaluru Bulls by 36-30 to win the 2015 season of Pro Kabaddi League. U Mumba stood first, Bengaluru Bulls stood second and Telugu Titans stood on third position in the league.
Season 3
Star Sports Pro Kabaddi Season 3 will have two editions. The COO of Star India, Mr. Sanjay Gupta confirmed that Star Sports Pro Kabaddi wants to make Pro Kabaddi, a 5-week event, happen 10 weeks a year by having two editions a year. The idea is to play the tournament once in January–February 2016 and once in June–July 2016. It also had 8 teams. Patna Pirates beat U Mumba by 3 Points in the final in Delhi to take home the trophy. Puneri Paltan came third this season.
Season 4
The fourth season took place from June 25 to July 31, with the existing eight teams participating. Patna Pirates beat Jaipur Pink Panthers in the men's final. Season 4 also saw the launch of first professional woman kabaddi league, Women's Kabaddi Challenge (WKC). First season saw 3 teams namely Ice Divas, Fire Birds and Storm Queens battle it out to be the first ever WKC champions. The final scheduled along with the mens' final in Hyderabad saw the Storm Queens defeat the Fire Birds.
Viewership
As per the available data of the opening 2 weeks, Star Sports Pro Kabaddi viewership on TV increased by nearly 56% from the 2014 year’s viewership. During the inaugural season tournament viewership was 43.5 crore(435 million) viewers, which was the second in India after the 56 crore(560 million) of IPL viewership. The online viewership also increased 1.3 crore unique visitors, which is 18.5 times than of last year’s 7 lakh unique visitors. The third season which was flagged off on 30 January, recorded a surge in viewership with the opening week ratings 36 per cent higher than the week one viewership for its last season.
Tournament results
Two teams, Jaipur Pink Panthers, U Mumba have won the tournament once while Patna Pirates have won the Pro Kabaddi League twice and the only champions to have defended their title.