Our League Has Transformed Stature Of Young Players

Pro Kabaddi League has become one of the most watched leagues all over India. How easy or difficult is it to get players these days, considering the pressure on students to do well in academics?

The reality is that academics is hardly a serious distraction for elite-level sportsmen anywhere in the world of sports. At the same time, at a relatively junior level, particularly in the school-going age groups, it is good for sportspersons to strike the right balance between studies and the playing field.

As far as Vivo Pro Kabaddi is concerned, the national kabaddi ecosystem acknowledges that our league has completely transformed the opportunities as well as stature of young and emerging kabaddi players. We have a unique and exemplary programme for young kabaddi athletes titled Future Kabaddi Heroes that opened up the league and the overall sport of kabaddi to a totally new generation of kabaddi players. Since Season 5 of PKL, we have successfully included more than 50 debutants each year. The MVPs of Season 7 and 8, the best defender of Season 7 and the Best Débutante of Season 8 were products of our FKH programme. This in turn has encouraged some PKL teams to launch year-round kabaddi academy programmes to engage more youth and bring them into the professional pipeline. Players like Aslam Inamdar, Naveen Kumar, Rohit Gulia, Nitesh Kumar and Surinder Singh have come out of the VIVO PKL youth programmes and have become household heroes across the world of kabaddi. One outcome of this is the great mushrooming of kabaddi academies in several states of India, such as Haryana, Himachal

Pradesh, Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu and Uttar Pradesh; along with a surge in enrolment of youth therein. Furthermore, recent trends show that other leading kabaddi playing countries such as Iran, Bangladesh and Kenya are beginning to use PKL opportunities to bring their young kabaddi players to the fore.

National and international players have for years had job security while playing for the country. What are the incentives to be given to the league players as security?

Obviously, playing for national or state teams and playing for privately funded league teams brings respective frameworks for reward and compensation for sportspersons. This is true for sports world over, although as an overall trend it is clear that mainstream, best-in-class sport is linking with private investment and enterprise the world over. This is the direction for Indian sports as well.

These are still early days for PKL but again it is absolutely clear that kabaddi players across the world see the opportunity as exceptionally rewarding for salaries and rewards, aspirational status, as well as for overall career development. A benchmark is that entry-level PKL athletes get salaries very comparable to what aspirational sectors of the mainstream services sector such as media and medicine offer. Again, the highest-paid PKL athletes are among the highest-paid athletes, outside of cricket, in India.

Interestingly, playing the PKL is the surest route for Indian kabaddi athletes to get a government or public sector job.

Why has glamourising the sport becomes necessary to make the league famous and allure sponsors?

Glamourising the sport is part of making it aspirational for the younger generations and to create large fan bases. This in turn creates a conducive environment for sponsors as well as well as other stakeholders in the business of sport. This creates a value proposition for individual heroes as well as the overall sport.

How have sponsorships in sports evolved over the years?

More and more sponsors, both individually as well as emerging classes of sports-sponsors, are engaging with successful sports leagues and PKL is a leading example of this. We are seeing this at the league level as well as with PKL Teams.

How has Covid-19 affected the game and players?

The pandemic had a deep impact on the world of sports and some of it continues amidst all the ongoing endeavours to continue and resume sports. Let us not forget that the 2022 Asian Games have been postponed just a couple of months ago explicitly for ongoing pandemic conditions in China.

In this environment, Mashal Sports (organising company for PKL) applauds all the success stories of other Indian leagues as well as efforts of all the other institutional stakeholders including government-led efforts. For the intensely physical contact sport of kabaddi, the safe conduct of PKL Season 8 a few months back in compliance to pandemic-related guidelines is a source of great pride.

What challenges does a sports league owner face in terms of infrastructure?

All indoor sports, including kabaddi, will benefit greatly from the improvement of event and competition-related infrastructure. We have seen a huge improvement in the infrastructure across the country and are happy to continue our partnership with custodians of kabaddi across the country.