The Pro Kabaddi League vs. the IPL

Rise of Kabaddi as a Leading Sport

In 1936, it was introduced in the Berlin Olympics and in 1938 it was played at the Indian Olympic Games that was held in Calcutta. However, kabaddi started reaching new heights recently in the 2006 World Cup. The Legendary TV persona Charu Sharma was the first person to notice its huge potential of rising as a leading sport in the world.

Since then kabaddi has come a long way and it can also be said that in a few years, kabaddi may be able to compete with huge sports like IPL and IFL.
In 2014, the first Pro Kabaddi League was started by Marshal Sports along with Star Sports. From then on kabaddi started being a franchise-based sports league.

Competition with Other Sports

Indian people have been watching cricket and football games even before Indian was an independent country. Thus it is natural that a new game in the competitive market will not be able to topple cricket and football easily.

However, kabaddi is not a new sport. Its introduction as an international sport is a new one. Kabaddi has been played in India since 4000 years ago. Thus there is already a fan base of kabaddi in India.

Many people have already started betting on the Pro Kabaddi league just like they do with IPL or any other sports league. Thus it can be concluded that the kabaddi league is gaining fast popularity among Indians.

However, it is still a long way from IPL. The Indian Premier League has started six years before the Pro Kabaddi League. Therefore it has a lot more fan base and budget than kabaddi and has followers from all over the world. Moreover, kabaddi is followed only by Indian people. Thus even though the popularity of the Pro Kabaddi league may be greater in Indian than IPL, in terms of international sports, IPL is the winner by a huge margin.

Followers of Pro Kabaddi League

Despite the Pro Kabaddi league being a new addition to Indian leagues; it has a lot of viewers who watch the matches both live and later on. The first season of the Pro Kabaddi League of 2014 had more than 435 million viewers. Moreover, the final match alone had 86.4 million people watching it. Thus it can be clearly deduced that kabaddi has made a big name for Indian sports.

Moreover, the active role of Star Sports has helped Kabaddi a lot in gaining recognition. They have made a lot of promotional short videos that focus on kabaddi players and their love for sports. Thus all these factors have combined to push kabaddi into being a sport that can topple IPL or football leagues in popularity in the future.

Furthermore, the TV series of the kabaddi league has gained a lot of viewers. Previously only IPL used to have such a huge number of people watching the game from their homes. But now many people stop everything they are doing and take time off from their jobs when the Pro kabaddi league is shown on the television.

IPL has a lot of big-name players who have a lot of popularity both among the Indian people and also among international sports fans. Thus IPL auction prices for the players can rise very high. Compared to that, the Pro KabaddiLeague auction has a relatively low budget. This can be attributed to the fact that most international sports fans have never heard of the kabaddi players in India. Thus the financial support given to kabaddi is a lot less than cricket.
However, there is a growing interest in the Pro Kabaddi League. Indians love watching all kinds of sports and they love watching Indian players compete in international leagues even more. Thus although the pro kabaddi league is an Indian league, the players can gain international acclamation after the matches.

Thus it can be predicted that if the rise of the Pro Kabaddi league goes in the same way it is now, kabaddi fans will surpass IPL or other sports very easily.