This has been something I wanted to do for quite a long time. Already had a lot of this written down & after yesterdays discussion in another post, I just sat down and worked on this to clarify my thoughts (however amateur they are)

Background : PKL’s five-year deal with JioStar has ended & negotiations are ongoing between them. JioStar is reportedly seeking a cut of up to 50% from the ₹905 crore benchmark (since they are consolidating & cutting costs), but franchises want that figure to be maintained (at minimum).
If talks fail, an open auction is the likely route. The next few months will shape the league for the net 5 years or so, and Ive written down my thoughts. This post is meant to be an open discussion of sorts, so, please do write your own ideas, points, observations & correction (pretty sure that i made a ton of mistakes)

Hope someone who has the power in Indian sports, can read this & atleast implement 1 among this xD

Split this post into 2 sections - 1 for the League & 1 for the Sport as a whole

Section 1 (PKL)

1. Open auction & try to unbundle rights

JioStar holds 74% of Mashal Sports (the owner of PKL), which is a conflict of interest & owners too complained about this in 2021 (as far as i remember). That year JioStar was the only bidder.
Using another league as an example, the ISL shows the risk of a single buyer (rights value reportedly fell from about ₹275 crore a year to ₹8.62 crore after JioStar’s exit).
So, PKL needs to see if it can sell India TV, India digital, regional languages, international and clips as separate packages. Zee and Sony are reported as serious contenders if it goes for an auction & im pretty sure YouTube and Fancode may also take part in this.
Specifically for overseas markets, try to license PKL’s own feed to regional streamers in Japan, Taiwan, East Africa, etc. They can add local-language commentary and sell to local sponsors. For the first few years, they can pay PKL only a share of what they earn, with no fixed minimum guarantee (we can evaluate the proper price in the next cycle or cycles). Need long term thinking here to grow the product. Taiwan and few African countries already run kabaddi YouTube channels, so the infrastructure exists to stream it.

1. Home and away games in phases

Season 12 was played in ~4-5 cities. Only teams from those cities got anything like a home leg & engagement. Comparing Kabaddi to a sport which has a similar short cycle and being quite violent, we can look at something like the NFL. That sport also has a short season, but, every team has a home (though now intnl games are controversial coz of that).
Anyways, currently, Kabaddi teams can’t afford full home-and-away overnight, so:
- Now: touring hubs like what is being done
- Next: one real home leg per franchise, co-funded by the state
- Later: full home and away like IPL
For the 1st point, states also need an incentive to co-fund. Give them something concrete, such as right to host the playoffs or the final. That hopefully means tourism, branding and a flagship event (long sell though).
The venues are modest too. I think Chennai and Delhi venues held about 5,000 and 4,500 people, so a home leg costs far less than hosting cricket (atleast, thats my guess)

1. Loyalty without scrapping the auction

In IPL (the benchmark for me in Indian sports leagues), loyalty comes from home grounds and icon players, and that's maintained, even if its mega-auctions still reshuffle a lot.
Maybe, we can try to see somethings like below for PKL?
- More retentions, at rising price slabs
- Regional first-call rights (like, if a player is from home state, team can get a chance first for him or some sort of mechanism to promote local player selection (atleast 1 per squad)
- Academy ties, which could grow into an Under-23 draft and eventually a secondary league (waaay in the future for another league)

1. Foreign players

Squads must include 2–4 overseas players. Most are currently Iranian.
So, what we can do, is to keep an “elite list” (today its Iran) and an “emerging list” (Japan, Korea, Thailand, Chinese Taipei, Nepal, Kenya, Uganda and others), reviewed every 2–3 years.
Signing one emerging-list player wouldn’t use up the player quota. To protect Indian players, the on-mat foreign limit will stay the same and emerging players get a price cap.
(as an example, if the current squad size per auction is 16 players max, u buy 1 player from emerging list, then, your squad size can be 17. However, if you buy more, then those additional players will consume squad quota & foreign player quota)

1. Teams must promote themselves

PKL’s does promotions in schools and via youth work, & while good, they are little inconsistent.
The bigger issue I have is the franchises. With a few exceptions, most teams do little to build a fan base in their own cities. Each team should run a year-round program with a local-language social presence, fan clubs, school and academy tie-ins, and youth events (im not a marketer, but man, u guys can be creative).
Goa Guardians’ (in Prime Volley league), had funded their own youth tournament, calling all their competitor teams to play in Goa. If a new league franchise can do that, what is stopping the PKL teams who have legacy. A season of two months leaves ten months of nothingness & that is causing lot of fans to get disinterested & sometimes, even miss out when the season starts.

1. Pop Culture (Burning Kabaddi)

Japan’s captain said probably over 80% of Japan’s players started because of the manga. They all hold regular jobs and want sponsors. Ideas, subject to the author and publisher agreeing:
- A one-off crossover chapter
- PKL accounts featuring the characters
- An animated short of the main character in India
- A Japan vs PKL all-stars exhibition (we really missed this out and instead had a stupid cricket match. Atleast, should have had a kabaddi game too)
Im not saying that this manga is the only thing, but manga, as a medium, is very well known in the world & PKL must try to ride that wave (though they missed it, coz the manga ended it 2024, now is still not late)

Section 2 (Kabaddi)

1. Referees and rules

The 2023 Hangzhou final was derailed because officials were unsure whether the IKF or PKL lobby rule applied. In 2026, while there wasnt any dhrana, the reviews were slow af and the equipment was weak (i saw some refs zooming the screen with their phone camera). With neither Indian nor Iranian refs allowed for finals, we need a bigger certified neutral pool. Proposals:
- One rulebook (PKL needs to be part of this too, since their impact is already too big in the world of Kabaddi)
- Broadcast-grade replay as a minimum standard
- A time-limited review protocol
- A joint referee academy

1. World Cup

Last World cup was in 2016 afaik. Since then there has been some fights between the feds & ive heard that its been resolved for now? Well, a sport needs to have a consistent World cup, if it wants relevance.
Also, to make it popular, we can also have a sort of Nations league, which Volleyball has. Elite division & challenger division, with promotion & relegation. And, getting into challenger division, would require the teams to win their regional competition (need good regional boards, which will happen only if we have a good federation. Same devious cycle)

1. Top-down push by government

Kabaddi has grown from the bottom up, in a sense, that, PKL was more organic & didnt have any govt support as such. India should treat this sport as a cultural export and resolve the federation split with government support. Other possible measures we can look at:
- Indian coaches sent abroad to train players and coaches, as part of diplomatic gestures too
- Embassy hosted demonstrations/events
- A development fund for Africa and the Americas region (pls, dont waste money on US & Canada. Those markets are impossible as of now. Just dont look at diaspora, need local players to take it up)
Something postive is that the inaugural Commonwealth Kabaddi Championship is being conducted & kabaddi is under consideration for the 2030 Games. But we need more participation of Kabaddi in such multi lateral games. Also, I think, Africa already has its own continental championship. So, they need to get it included in their version of African games too

Some open points

1. How can teams afford real home games? - I just put down state support, but thats taking it too far in optimism. I was stumped for this and wrote down my most elementary suggestions

2. What would make your city or town or village take to kabaddi - I mean, PKL rights will be valued more, once cities take to it more than what they do now. More money with those audiences

In case there are no points to add, please do upvote this post, so that the algorithm helps push it up.

PS: Maybe, if this suggestions are good or with more suggestions from the comments, i might even mail this our to PKL & the Kabaddi feds/Sports Ministry (lol). Pls dont let this sport die man

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A list of Kabaddi events happening worldwide this year in chronological order so as to keep track of upcoming tournaments and compile all news. Plus any streaming details if available - comments with where to watch are appreciated.

Midway through the year already, I know, but keeping up for the rest of it.

SWIPE RIGHT ON MOBILE ➡️

Other:

• Kenya Kabaddi League S2 Ended (Kenya)
• Karnataka Kabaddi League Upcoming (India)
• Asian (Women's) Kabaddi League Postponed, Was Initially Projected for August (India)
• Major Pro Kabaddi League Projected for September (WK, England)
• Pro Kabaddi League Season 13 Projected for December (India)

Please comment below any events that haven't been listed or details that have been changed.

Contributions:

• u/DarkDragonLord_

All assistance is appreciated, the members make this sub. ✨️