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Administrator | Mashal Sports |
First tournament | 2014 |
Last tournament | June 2016 |
Next tournament | 2018 |
Tournament format | Double round-robin league and Playoffs |
Number of teams | 12 |
Most successful | Patna Pirates (2 titles) |
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Pro Kabaddi (officially known as the VIVO Pro Kabbadi for sponsorship reasons) is a franchise-based professional kabaddi league in India, consisting of 12 teams.
The Pro Kabaddi League was founded in 2014 with the inaugural 2014 edition of the tournament being played between eight franchises representing eight Indian cities respectively. The league has a "caravan format," with the teams travelling together to all the eight venues to play a total of sixty matches. The organizing company Mashal Sports was co-founded by Mr. Anand Mahindra, Chairman, Mahindra Group and Mr. Charu Sharma, director of Mashal Sports. Star India acquired a 74% stake in Mashal Sports, and now has control over the entire league as a majority owner of Mashal Sports. Mashal Sports has acquired the rights to organize the league for a period of ten years from International Kabaddi Federation (IKF) with an option to renew it further. In 2017, the league expanded from eight teams to twelve, the new teams being Haryana Steelers, Tamil Thalaivas, Gujarat FortuneGiants and UP Yoddha.
Star Sports was named as the official broadcaster in May 2014 with the online rights going to Starsports.com. In 2015, hotstar and starsports.com were the online broadcaster for Prokabaddi.Fox Sports serves as the official United States broadcaster for Prokabaddi. The Commonwealth Broadcasting Network, a service of the Asian Television Network, serves as the official broadcaster for Prokabaddi in Canada. ESPN serves as the official broadcaster for Prokabaddi in Brazil, the Spanish-speaking Latin America and Commonwealth Caribbean countries
The first signing and auction of players for the 8 teams was held on 20 May 2014 in Mumbai. India's national kabaddi captain Rakesh Kumar was the priciest among the players bought for ₹12.80 lakh by the Patna Pirates. Sports Authority of India's Deepak Nivas was bought by Telugu Titans franchise for ₹12.60 lakh. Tae Deok Eom was the highest paid overseas player bought for ₹7 lakh by Patna franchise.