India's most Googled: How to get good at kabaddi was at No. 3 among 'how to' searches in 2023. What gives?

Year Ender 2023: Some kabaddi teams in India are now investing in youth development programmes, the way football clubs around the world do. (Photo by Avinashsatamraju via Wikimedia Commons 4.0)

The 10th season of the Pro Kabaddi League (PKL), which began on December 2, is already off to a solid start, if the league’s broadcasters are to be believed. Star Sports has quoted BARC figures of 80.1 million viewers for the first four matches of this season, or 2.7 billion minutes of watch time. The broadcasters also declared a 38 percent growth in ratings for the opening weekend compared to the previous edition, “showcasing the enduring appeal of Pro Kabaddi”.

For a league that started under much scepticism in 2014, a seemingly wild thought that was founded by Mashal Sports and Star Sports to drag a niche, rustic endeavour from mud pits to air-conditioned urban auditoriums, nearly a decade of existence reinforces its popularity. The rules were tweaked a little, movie stars brought in glamour, television made it accessible to all as kabaddi became a sport that went beyond medals at the Asian level.

The PKL’s influence is one of the reasons why, when Google unveiled its ‘Year in Search 2023’ report, the third most popular search in its “how to…” category was “how to get good at kabaddi”. The first two are, “how to prevent sun damage for skin and hair with home remedies” and “how to reach my first 5K followers on YouTube”, respectively.

“In a nation as diversified as India, one form of solidarity works around heroes,” said Anupam Goswami, chief executive officer of Mashal Sports and league commissioner of PKL, in an interview in 2018. “We have to look for heroes from sport, make them role models and icons. Some of our heroes have evolved through PKL. This league is creating careers. In places where kabaddi has a strong grassroots presence, there is a mushrooming of academies. Families are increasingly confident of putting their youth into Pro Kabaddi. All cricketers would like to play the IPL and all kabaddi players want to play PKL.”

Kabaddi’s popularity, through the lens of the PKL, becomes evident from the player auctions and how they have evolved over the years. In the first edition of the PKL, teams had a purse of ₹60 lakh, with the most expensive buy of the season being Patna Pirates’ recruit, former India captain Rakesh Kumar (₹12.8 lakh). Eight teams competed in a season that lasted over a month and 60 matches.

The 10th edition has 132 league games, played between December 2, 2023, and February 21, 2024, across 12 cities for each of the teams. The first set of matches was played in Ahmedabad, followed by Bengaluru, Pune, Chennai, Noida, Mumbai, Jaipur, Hyderabad, Patna, Delhi, Kolkata, and Panchkula.

Pawan Sehrawat became the most expensive raider in PKL season nine, going to Tamil Thalaivas for Rs 2.26 crore, with several players earning upwards of Rs 1 crore. In 2021, the league’s broadcast rights for the next five years were sold to Star for $109 million.

A FICCI-EY report, ‘Playing by New Rules: India’s Media and Entertainment sector reboots in 2020’, put the PKL in fourth position among sports seen most positively in India (in 2020), with the Indian Premier League (IPL), ICC cricket World Cup and FIFA World Cup taking the first three spots. A Yuva Kabaddi series started in the summer of 2022, aims to be a year-round sports tournament to promote kabaddi among youth.

“Personally, through the strides made in kabaddi through the Yuva Kabaddi series, we have witnessed a substantial boost at the grassroots level and its positive impact extending to the Pro Kabaddi League,” said Suhail Chandhok, CEO of PKL team U Mumba, in a statement. “Our investment in young talent is yielding results and we are confident that we are on the right track in terms of empowering the youth through sport.” Through the Yuva Kabaddi series, they reached over a thousand players in 2023, and their goal is to surpass that number in the upcoming year, Chandhok added.

Adani Sportsline-owned Gujarat Giants’ Little Giants initiative that aims to tap into the grassroots and train young kabaddi players, is another one on the lines of sports teams investing in youth development programmes, the way football clubs around the world do. Ram Mehar Singh, coach of the Adani Gujarat Giants in the PKL, believes such programmes are essential to elevate the profile of the sport in the state and a tool to connect with grassroots talent. “Another pivotal aspect of this programme is hoping that the state produces more professional kabaddi players,” he said in a statement a few months ago.

The programme, which covers four sporting disciplines, currently runs across four cities, Ahmedabad, Surat, Baroda, and Rajkot. In the inaugural edition, more than 3,000 children from over 224 schools participated, the statement said.

The advantage kabaddi has, over several other sporting disciplines, is the ease of playing. There is no equipment needed, just enough players and a dirt/grass pitch. Matches on television are a useful tool to learn from, but more than that, the PKL has driven aspiration, given an indigenous, ancient sport a leg up.