Can the Ancient Indian Sport of Kabaddi Someday Rival Cricket? | Next in Sports

This is kabaddi. This is kabaddi And this is kabaddi? There are many variations of the sport known as kabaddi, a relatively unknown game outside of South Asia, which is... Somewhat like tag and a bit of wrestling when you come to the tackling part of it. As legend has it, it began thousands of years ago in India, and was even played by Siddhartha Gautama himself, the Buddha. It originated in Tamil Nadu about 4,000 years ago. It's basically derived from two words called kai pidi, which means hold

ing hands. Known mainly as a rural playground sport throughout its history, billionaire businessman Anand Mahindra spearheaded the Pro Kabaddi League in 2014, and it's risen to become the second most popular televised professional sport in India, behind only the massively popular and massively lucrative cricket. Well, that was the challenge that how do you come in and even occupy some leg room with cricket in India? I think the timing was a sweet spot for us that people were just about right to

say, "My God, if you take this sport, which we just remember from our school days or from some dusty village backyard, and you can make it look like this, and make it so exciting." I think that got us a wave of support. Kabaddi! Now, there are star players earning big salaries, teams owned by Bollywood royalty, and Star Sports, a Disney Star owned sports network televising every game in five languages across the country. Pro kabaddi has made kabaddi a sport which Indians are proud to be Indian.

This infusion of money has created a change in attitude towards this sport in younger athletes. While Pro Kabaddi is still seeing high viewership numbers after its ninth season, other pro sports in India have seen their popularity wane. Can kabaddi live up to the hype and expand outside of South Asia, or will it slowly decline in popularity like other pro Indian sports ventures? To get to the heart of the sport, we traveled outside the city and into the countryside where pro kabaddi players and

young hopefuls train side by side during the off season. This is one of the hundreds of academies that's popped up across the country, where students live on campus and train specifically to improve their kabaddi skills, and hopefully I can too. Most of the players are do the distance learning. They are here for, be a professional players. They are not here for the fun. They want to be in Pro Kabaddi League. They want to participate in the national games or the state team. In football you need a

gility, speed, for rugby you need speed and agility, for wrestling you need strength. So I just took some exercises from those sports and created some unique strength and conditioning factor for the kabaddi. But what are the standard rules of kabaddi as played in the Pro Kabaddi League? It's played in a rectangular court, 13 meters by 10 meters, roughly half the size of a tennis court. There are end lines, the lobby area, midline, baulk lines, and the bonus line. Two teams of seven players enter

the court. After a coin toss decides who goes first, the attacker called the raider crosses the midline. Their first goal is to cross the baulk line, otherwise they cannot attempt to score points. Next, the raider wants to tag members of the other team and run back to their side within 30 seconds. Each touch player equals one point for the team if they make it back safely. Now here's where it gets interesting. The raider must repeatedly chant kabaddi before crossing the midline and cannot stop

chanting until returning to their own side. If they stop chanting or take a breath on the opponent's side of the court, they are out. The lobby area is only in play once a player has been tagged. If your team doesn't raid first, you defend. The defender's goal is to keep the raider from tagging you and crossing back over the midline. You can do this either by running away from them until they run out of breath, or physically restraining them by tackling or grabbing them. The two teams alternate

between raiding and defending for two halves of 20 minutes each. The team with the most points at the end of the game wins. The game is dynamic in that every time a player is tagged, captured, or breaks a rule, they're out. If you score a point, a player is revived, so the number of players is constantly changing. After 8,000 miles traveled, a quick warmup, and a few tips, it was time for me to actually play a match. kabaddi, kabaddi, kabaddi, kabaddi, kabaddi, kabaddi. You picked up some skills

. I'm clearly out of breath. It's tough when you- How hard was it saying kabaddi, kabaddi, kabaddi, kabaddi over? It's, I mean, it's definitely hard. Yeah. And I feel like 'cause you're wanting to think about what you're supposed to do, but then you're thinking about that. Right. That was tough. And it's using your breath. And it's using your breath, clearly which I have none of left. Yeah. It was tough. In the circle style played mainly in the North Indian heartland, it's played in a circular d

irt pit where the raider faces only one defender at a time, battling it out to make it back to the center. So how do we get from this and this to this? Live from NSCI Stadium Mumbai. India right now has no shortage of money as we know. There are so many millionaires and billionaires and it's always growing. And right now people are at that stage where they've started understanding that you can invest in sports and it can be profitable. So you have major sponsors like Adidas sponsoring kabaddi te

ams. So it's a model. Now India is at that level where they are investing a lot in sports, and definitely kabaddi is a reflection of that where they have shown that it can be made into a sustainable business. As India's economy has grown, so has its sports industry. It's expected to hit 100 billion by 2027, up from 27 billion in 2020. Just in the past 10 years, the total spending in brand sponsorship, celebrity endorsement, and sports media has gone from $743 million to $1.8 billion. Cricket, of

course, accounted for a major share of this value, but it's becoming less and less a one sport country thanks to one man who set out to change it. All right, so tell me about this sport that I've come across the world to understand because you're like the godfather of it here in many ways. When the IPL got done and it became the flavor of the day, at that time I was being asked why don't you buy a cricket team? And to be honest I just don't find it very exciting to simply make a vanity move, sp

end a lot of money, buy a team, then spend the rest of your season chewing your fingernails. I said it's much more fun to create a league, and then take maybe an Indian sport, and give it a kind of professional sheen and potential. The 19 billion revenue Mahindra and Mahindra Conglomerate, which Anand chairs, is best known for its tractors and sport utility vehicles. But the group's operations span more than 20 industries from aerospace, to information technology, to real estate. And Mr. Mahindr

a's personal ambitions have always looked to improve and promote India on the world stage. So that's when my mind went back to kabaddi because it's a rural sport, and I just thought we would emulate the IPL, and involve the rural population. So I went to my brother-in-law, Charu Sharma who was a sports anchor, and I said, "Look, I don't have the time to do this, but I will bankroll it, and will you come in and just execute this model?" Interesting man called Uday Shankar was in charge of Star Sp

orts at that time. He met me in New York. And he told me this could be the next biggest sport after cricket in India. So I looked at him there and I said, "You've been smoking something illegal, you know." But he said, you're not spending enough because we have to get it right from opening night. If we get it right from opening night and we change the perception of kabaddi, and make it a sport that even urban Indians will watch and make it cool, that's when we can really make it much bigger than

what you're imagining. And that's exactly what they did. Lights, cameras, a red carpet entry, and a star studded list of attendees, including Bollywood icon Amitabh Bachchan, his son Abhishek, who owns the Jaipur Pink Panthers, along with his wife, star actress, Aishwarya Rai. They set the league off with a bang. Kabaddi. They had already seen the spectacular success of IPL in a sport that was already in everyone's hearts. And then to see some of those show elements transferred here was, I gues

s, just a smart business move to be honest. But while making a spectacle out of it might get your foot in the door, longevity would mean making lifelong fans out of the sport itself. And that meant adapting the roles to best fit television, the audience, and the attention spans of a generation who nowadays have access to anything they want. Your main engagement has to be what is going on in the field of play. You don't want to disturb the spirit of the sport, but is there something which helps i

t to engage consumers and fans more readily? You try to draw upon elements which can be built into high points, particularly in the narrative, and instant gratification for the young consumer. Some of those elements, the do or die raid, the super raid, the super tackle, rules have been tweaked here and there by the league in the nine seasons based on consumers, and so far it's worked. We have shown a consumption of 222 million unique viewers for season nine. It is 17% higher than what it was for

season eight. It is very firmly the second most viewed sports league in the country. Of course, we are aware of the distance between the top most sports league and ourselves. With those viewing numbers, stars have emerged. And since season one, a rise in salaries. The number is 52, Pardeep Narwal. 30 lakhs opening bids. So when we did the first auction I remember the highest player got something like 12 lakh rupees, which is, you know, a pittance. It was about less than $10,000 or something lik

e that was the bid. I think we're all done. And in the last auction, players got $250,000. Now that puts him into the ranks of the rich in India. That moment of seeing kids asking for their autograph sums up what kabaddi has done for them. Players like Aslam Inamdar, a villager with very humble beginnings is now a star raider for the Puneri Paltan, and is among the first generation of players to make enough money from professional kabaddi not to need another job. He lives with other professional

kabaddi players in a modest flat provided by his team. So Aslam, can you tell me where we are right now and who all lives here? There's a lot of people in this room right now. All right, let me try this. It's good. But for most, including Aslam, the initial aim isn't to be a professional kabaddi player, only to secure a government job for being good at kabaddi. These highly sought after jobs are well paid, receive benefits, and it's all part of the government's plan to encourage sports. The pre

stige and job benefits are now seen as a way out for many lower earning Indian people, and there's a massive draw over cricket, no equipment necessary. These underprivileged children from Mumbai are being taught kabaddi skills by someone who has benefited from the 5% quota in hopes that they too can improve their lives. What has Kabaddi done for you, and how did you get introduced to it, and what has it done for your career? Women, who don't yet have a pro kabaddi league, also get these benefits

. And there is already talk of adding a woman's pro kabaddi league to increase the sports popularity. India, whether we like it or not, is still a patriarchal society, and to see women play this combat sport it's a very empowering thing for youngsters especially. So if they can kind of get a formula on board and start a kabaddi league it'll be great for the players as well as the audience. We've just announced that we are seriously looking at a women's league. So I think what is happening is kab

addi is being rediscovered as a world class sport from India. There is some way to go, there's always room for growth. While kabaddi has risen to India's number two, fast growth doesn't always equate to long-term success. Whether it's adding a women's league, increasing salaries, or tweaking the game rules, growth is something that the Pro Kabaddi League will have to consider if it's to keep on this trajectory. India's once popular sport field hockey, started a pro league with much enthusiasm in

2013, but is now defunct due to financing. This is coincided with India no longer being a powerhouse in the sport during international competitions. So if you look at the other sports, they have not gained the popularity of Pro Kabaddi because in those sports we are not yet the best in the world. And we can't really compete. Sports like football, another popular sport in India also have to compete with major competitions like the English Premier League and World Cup, and that goes for other pro

league that have popped up in the last 10 years like tennis and basketball. But another big draw towards kabaddi and away from these sports, including cricket, is that it's the only one made in India. You know, cricket, it is a sport of our colonial masters, which we now have the dominant position in. But what we played on when we came in was this is our sport. That was our tagline. This is our game, it goes back to ancient times. And it's sort of aligned with the rising sense of confidence wit

h India. People are beginning to see finally that India is no longer pregnant with potential, which it has been for years, but that potential is coming out. The population is translating now into not a liability, but into an advantage. Along with that, you see people having new pride in their country, pride in what we can do, pride in all kinds of things, and I think sport is one of those. That doesn't mean kabaddi doesn't have its challenges. While trying to keep up with fans, the Pro Kabaddi L

eague has been tweaking rules here and there over the years with some successes and some failures. Right now, they've changed the game too much. They've made it more very speed oriented. Secondly, because it's played on a mat, players are picking up injuries very often. That is a major, major concern for them because no player is lasting for more than two or three years in Pro Kabaddi League. They probably might hit a stage where there won't be a lot of great talent. So these are the challenges

they have to look out for sure. Another problem that fans complain about is the player auction, which has become a spectacle in itself, attracting viewers from far and wide. Each year top players fetch higher and higher salaries, but due to the nature of the auction, players play for different teams every year, making it difficult for fans to stay behind one team. 100 lakhs. Every year they're left with a new setup and they have to go back to scratch, and plan the whole thing all over again. Sec

ondly, teams invest into making a superstar and then he has maybe two or three years in his prime left to give either to the team or league. I think a lot of teams are kind of forced into the auction because as I said, they made it into a spectacle. A lot of teams are forced and they end up overpaying for the player. But according to the Pro Kabaddi League, the benefits outweigh the drawbacks, and they have been increasingly allowing teams to retain certain players for a certain amount of time.

The outcome is that of the 12 teams, I think six have been winners of the Pro Kabaddi trophy. Seven have made it to the finals and I think 10 have made it to playoffs. That spread of competitive capacity is very important. We have an increasingly over the seasons, we have been giving teams the option of longer term association, not full-time, but longer term association over multiple seasons through our retention policy for elite players, as well as for emerging new young players. So what's next

for kabaddi? Will this be the first Indian sport that becomes a global phenomenon? It's already popular in other South Asian countries, including Bangladesh where it's the national sport, and countries like South Korea and Iran have seen their teams become competitive in recent international kabaddi matches. But truly taking the game to an international stage means one goal, the Olympics. I mean they are trying to spread it around. I've heard that Poland has a big kabaddi set up. Other European

teams, expat population, et cetera, are trying to. But Olympics, I think you need like men playing in 75 countries across four continents for it to qualify as Olympic sport, and it doesn't have that reach as yet. The 2018 Asian games in Jakarta saw the gold medal for both the men and women's disciplines going to Iran. Korea took the silver in the men's event. It shows that kabaddi has got all the potential to grow beyond boundaries and it'll be the best thing for the sport. I think the fact tha

t there will be more sports coming in as affluence grows and competence grows in them, you'll be fighting for a lot more market share, if you will. So we have to keep relevant. We have to find a way of getting much more involvement at a grassroots level. And finally, coming back to what I said, the real overarching goal is how do we make this a truly global sport? How do we get it into the Olympics? No matter where you're from, the lights, camera angles, high speed play, dynamic teams, acrobatic

s, it's just plain fun to watch. It's a very compact electric atmosphere compared to tennis. And cricket of course is massive. But it's a very different kind of experience. I would definitely recommend people to watch kabaddi, especially live because that's where the real thrill is. The sport is so exciting on its own, it's short, it's fast, it's furious. So it's very interesting to watch and it's Indian.