Most viewership for any sport outside of cricket.
By Akanksha Warrier
MUMBAI: Minutes after Abhishek Bachchan’s team Jaipur Pink Panthers won the first edition of the Pro Kabaddi League (PKL), congratulatory messages started pouring in on Twitter. Not only his fans but several B-town biggies also took to the social networking platform to wish Jr. Bachchan on his team’s victory. The actor was courtside as always, joined this time by his wife Aishwarya Rai Bachchan.
The Indian Premier League may have created the blueprint for sports leagues in India by marrying cricket and Bollywood, but Bollywood may have found its sporting soul mate in kabaddi.
Bollywoood helps attract everyone’s attention. Once upon a time, India had to fight hard to keep kabbadi as an Asian Games sport and today all of a sudden Bollywood celebrities see it as a sport tailor-made for prime time TV. Even amazing is that many think kabaddi can challenge the shortest format of cricket, T20.
Actor Ranbir Kapoor, who has stakes in the Mumbai City Football Club (FC) franchise ISL football tournament, believes Bollywood celebrities’ involvement in sports in the country is beneficial in many ways.
According to Uday Shankar, the CEO of Star India, the PKL has “has set a new benchmark in terms of viewership for any non-cricketing sport, evident from the fact in the first 15 days, the league received a cumulative viewership of 288 million. Based on these viewership numbers, Pro Kabaddi has attracted more eyeballs than any other sport in the country apart from Cricket, making Kabaddi the number 2 sport in India.”
The Abhishek Bachchan-owned team, Jaipur Pink Panthers, registered an enthralling 35-25 victory against Ronnie Screwvala’s franchise U Mumba in an exciting final on Sunday. Abhishek, is also part-owner of the Chennai franchise of the Indian Super League(ISL).
Apart from Ranbir, the ISL has star team co-owners such as John Abraham, the co-owner of NorthEast United FC and Varun Dhawan, who endorses the Goa team.
The Indian Super League (ISL), the first of its kind glamorous football league in India, was launched on Thursday by star team owners Sachin Tendulkar, John Abraham, Abhishek Bachchan, Ranbir Kapoor and brand ambassador Varun Dhawan who promised to popularize the game and invest in the grass-root development of the sport in the country.