Pro Kabaddi League has contributed to making Kabaddi the second-most watched game in India

Cricket may be a religion for Indians but with PKL’s inception in 2014, Kabaddi is the third-most competitive sport in the country, in terms of viewership and revenue

Pro Kabaddi League has contributed to making Kabaddi the second-most watched game in India

This has recently been revealed by online sportsbook Betway in an infographic from their latest article.

This has recently been revealed by online sportsbook Betway in an infographic from their latest article.

At the end of PKL’s first season in 2014, Kabaddi had a total of 435 million viewers while a staggering 86.4 million Indians alone watched the final. The fact that the Indian Premier League was viewed by 560 million people months earlier and the Indian Super League (football) was watched by 429 million during its inaugural season, also in 2014, made PKL’s debut remarkable in more ways than one. The icing on the cake was that these figures were no flash in the pan. Superb television marketers that Star Sports have been, they pulled out all stops – from short videos, laser shows, sharpened physical appearances of Kabaddi players – to enhance the sport’s profile ahead of the debut. No wonder that a sport that not many Indians had taken any interest in before could be seen beating football and inching closer to cricket in terms of TV viewership right from Season 1. By Season 4 of the PKL, there has been a steady increase in the viewership.

The IPL has had a six-year head-start on PKL and it has the best cricketers in the world, who pull in the biggest crowds but in 2021, 5 years after its debut, the fact that conversations within the sports corridors are genuinely veering towards PKL’s remarkable success and how it mirrors the healthy competition between the leading sports of the country.

Despite IPL’s six-year head-start, the 300k+ followers of PKL on Twitter are impressive, to say the least, considering the fact that Kabaddi is hardly followed outside India. The earthy appeal of Kabaddi is a major factor driving eyeballs to the sport, which doesn’t depend upon the cult of the individual’, as is the case in IPL or even ISL.

Some of the data included was taken via The Insider.

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