Buoyed by the success of the lads’s occasion, the organisers of Professional Kabaddi League are actually exploring the potential of launching knowledgeable franchise-based ladies’s match within the nation.
Mashal Sports activities, the organisers of PKL which is now in its tenth 12 months, mentioned they’re planning to launch the league in collaboration with the Novice Kabaddi Federation of India and the Worldwide Kabaddi Federation (IKF).
“Our plans for knowledgeable ladies’s kabaddi league are based mostly on the success now we have seen within the males’s league and our dedication to develop kabaddi as a contemporary world-class sport from India,” CEO of Mashal Sports activities and PKL Commissioner Anupam Goswami mentioned in a press release.
“We will likely be working with our numerous stakeholders, together with the AKFI and the Worldwide Kabaddi Federation to launch the ladies’s league.”
A take a look at match, Girls’s Kabaddi Problem, involving three groups — Firebirds, IceDivas and StormQueens — had already been organised in 2016.
Former India captain V Tejeswini Bai, who led the nation to its final Asian Video games gold medal in 2014 Incheon, mentioned a giant dream will likely be fulfilled if the ladies’s league takes form.
“Ever for the reason that launch of Professional Kabaddi League in 2014, ladies kabaddi gamers in India have aspired for knowledgeable kabaddi league of their very own,” Tejeswini, who captained StormQueens, mentioned.
“Now, a ladies’s model of PKL will likely be a giant dream-come-true for each girl kabaddi athlete in India, and in addition for girls kabaddi athletes from different nations,” added the Arjuna Awardee.
India’s main male kabaddi gamers additionally echoed related sentiments. “Professional Kabaddi has reworked the lives and picture of males kabaddi athletes throughout India,” mentioned former India captain Ajay Thakur. “I do know if Mashal Sports activities does a ladies’s league, it would do the identical for girls kabaddi athletes.”
Thakur’s views have been seconded by Pardeep Narwal, the best point-scoring raider of PKL.
“The standard and recognition of Professional Kabaddi League has enabled us to accumulate satisfaction and respect as kabaddi gamers. I do know {that a} ladies’s PKL will assure the identical recognition and reward for our ladies athletes.”
As conventional and long-standing a sport as kabaddi is, it started gaining traction in recent times after the launch of the Professional Kabaddi League in 2014. Season 9 of PKL attracted cumulative viewership of 222 million on Star Sports activities, the official broadcaster of Professional Kabaddi League and reached thousands and thousands of viewers by Disney+ Hotstar. The play-offs and remaining of Season 9 noticed a cumulative attain of 66 million, a 32% improve over the earlier season.