How Punjabi kabaddi’s league crashed

Rachna Khaira

Tribune News Service

Jalandhar, March 5

In 2014, the World Kabaddi League (WKL), the dream project of Deputy Chief Minister Sukhbir Singh Badal to take Circle Style kabaddi to the Olympics, was launched. The event wasn’t organised in 2015 and now it’s clear that it has fallen flat due to huge financial losses.

Due to the heavy losses the organisers have suffered, they could not release even the prize money of Rs 136.8 crores for the honour winners of the first (and till date only) edition of the tournament.

United Singhs won the event in 2014, ahead of Khalsa Warriors and California Eagles. The three teams were to be awarded Rs 1 crore, Rs 90 lakh and Rs 45 lakh, respectively. The three teams are waiting for the rewards to come to them, but their hopes of getting the money are fading quickly.

The first and only edition of the league was held from August to November in 2014 at various places in India (Punjab and Bhopal) and the UK (London and Birmingham). Eight teams were in the fray. They were ‘based’ in four countries outside India — US, Canada, UK and Pakistan.

The last three rounds of the league were planned to be held in the US and Canada, but the organisers had to wrap up the league early owing to lack of support from viewers and sponsors.

Gurdip Singh Mundi, general secretary and treasurer of the league, claimed that people lost interest in the league because it was spread over four months and more.

“Though we expected to generate adequate sponsorship to make the league financially independent in its first edition itself, the plan fell flat as the TRP ratings came down drastically. This made most of our potential sponsors back out at the last minute,” said Mundi. He also said that as a majority of the top players (around 25) “were found positive in dope tests” and could not participate in the tournament, the popularity of the WKL came down.

“The organisers were reported to have collected around Rs 50 lakhs from three primary sponsors, and Rs 1 crore each from the franchise owners as participating fee,” claimed Mundi. “But the entire fund was spent haphazardly due to poor planning by the technical experts of the event.”

“Though we generated Rs 5 crore from the telecast rights, we had to give the private TV channel Rs 10 crore as production cost,” said Mundi. He listed several other factors that led to the collapse of the WKL — changes in venues at the last minute, arrangement of logistics and transportation of around 300 players. The costs spiralled out of control.

Huge losses

Sources say that the organisers have suffered a loss to the tune of Rs 20 crores, and the franchise-owners have lost up to Rs 5 crore each. One franchise-owner claimed that not only did they have to pay the Rs 1 crore participation fee, the franchise owners had to also bear the cost of organising the matches played in their respective countries. “We were assured around 80 per cent of the total sponsorship revenue that would be generated during the event. However, most of us refused to bear the brunt further after the organisers failed to find any sponsors for the event,” said a team owner.

Pargat Singh said that the format and matches were finalised only after a detailed consultation among the members of the governing council. When asked about the future of the WKL, he said that the next edition can be organised only after a detailed review of the tournament format. He also said that detailed guidelines must be finalised beforehand for the owners and players.

End of the dream

Some sources have claimed that the organisers had to cancel the second edition in 2015  as a majority of the eight franchise owners simply backed out, because of the losses they had incurred in the first year. The failure of the WKL could spell the end of the dream to promote Circle Style kabaddi across the world.