The Pro Kabaddi League (currently known as Vivo Pro Kabaddi is a professional-level kabaddi league in India. It was first established by Charu Sharma in 2014.
Video Pro Kabaddi
History
The Pro Kabaddi League was first held in 2014; its founder, Charu Sharma, was influenced by the popularity of the Kabaddi tournament at the 2006 Asian Games, which utilized an indoor version of the game played on a court. Sharma cited the Indian Premier League as an influence on the overall formatting of the competition, noting that "mere sport works well [in India], but if you package it better, it works better." The PKL uses a franchise-based model; the league began with eight teams, each of which having paid fees of up to US$250,000 to join.
There were doubts over whether the PKL would be successful, noting that there were many leagues attempting to emulate the IPL's business model and success, and that unlike cricket, there were relatively fewer well-known players in Kabaddi. However, it was also noted that kabaddi was widely played in grassroots community settings, and could thus attract a wide variety of rural and metropolitan viewers for advertisers to target if the league gained significant traction.
The inaugural season was seen by a total of 435 million viewers, placing it just behind the total-season viewership of the 2014 Indian Premier League season, while the inaugural championship was seen by 86.4 million viewers. Star Sports, the PKL's broadcaster, subsequently announced in 2015 that it would acquire a 74% stake in the league's parent company Mashal Sports.
For the 2017 season, the PKL added four new teams, and changed its format to split the teams into two divisions known as "zones",
Maps Pro Kabaddi
Format
The PKL's rules are similar to that of the indoor team version of Kabaddi, but with additional rules to encourage more scoring. Playing two "empty" raids in a row will trigger a "do-or-die raid", where the raider must score a point or they will be declared out. When a defensive side has three or fewer players remaining, tackles are scored as a "Super Tackle", which is worth two points instead of one.
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 INR12.80 lakh by the Patna Pirates. Sports Authority of India's Deepak Nivas was bought by Telugu Titans franchise for INR12.60 lakh. Tae Deok Eom was the highest paid overseas player bought for INR7 lakh by Patna 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 Jaipur Pink Panthers 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 U Mumba 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 men's final in Hyderabad, saw the Storm Queens defeat the Fire Birds.
Season 5
The 2017 season was the fifth edition of the Pro Kabaddi League, and it featured a total of 12 teams, including new teams from Uttar Pradesh, Haryana, Tamil Nadu, and Gujarat. The team from Haryana is known as Haryana Steelers owned by JSW Sports. Sachin Tendulkar co-owns the Tamil Nadu team named Tamil Thalaivas. The Uttar Pradesh team is named as UP Yoddha owned by GMR group and Gujarat team is named Gujarat Fortune Giants owned by Gautam Adani.
Auctions for the new season were held in May, before which the existing teams were allowed to retain one player each. The auction saw over 400 players go under the hammer and a total of Rs 46.99 crore spent by the 12 teams.
The Pro Kabaddi League Season 5 started on July 28, 2017.
The most expensive pick of the auction was raider Nitin Tomar, who was bought by the Uttar Pradesh team for a sum of Rs 93 lakh. Following in second place was Rohit Kumar after the Bengaluru Bulls picked him for a Rs 81 lakhs price. The most expensive foreign player was South Korea's Jang Kun Lee after he was retained by the Bengal Warriors for Rs 80.3 lakhs.
The new season was slated to be the biggest league tournament of its kind in the history of Indian sports in terms of geographical coverage and duration. It featured 138 matches spread across a time period of 13 weeks across 11 states.
A Children's Kabaddi tournament, known as KBD Juniors, was also organised between schools of the cities in which the matches were held.
Patna Pirates Beat Gujarat Fortune Giants by 55-38 in the final with the Man Of The Tournament Pardeep Narwal stealing the show with 19 raid points against a hapless Fortune Giant defense for the first time in the tournament.
The award ceremony of the finale was hosted by Pooja Bhamrah. Pardeep Narwal was adjudged the man of the finale.
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.
Teams
Personnel and kit
Tournament results
Two teams, Jaipur Pink Panthers, U Mumba have won the tournament once while Patna Pirates have won the Pro Kabaddi League thrice and the only champions to have defended their title twice.
Position of all the teams in all seasons
Performance
Tournament statistics
Best Raiders [Most raid points all season]
Best Defenders [Most Tackle Points]
Best All-rounders [Most (Total) Points]
Prize money
Prize money for the winner of Season 5 is INR 3 crore. The first and second runners-up will be awarded INR 1.8 crore and INR 1.2 crore respectively.
References
External links
- Official website
Source of the article : Wikipedia
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