Mumbai : Despite neglecting TN and Punjab, the impressive opening of “Pro Kabbadi League” had given a new hope for the game Kabbadi to grow on par with the Stardom Game Cricket. Ofcourse they need to thank the litter master Sachin and other celebs for stirring a wave with their participation in the League.
In a historic development in the game of Kabbadi, the new league managed to create a buzz which was an unusual and unforeseen in the past as many Big Brands were cautiously staying away from the Star’s Pro Kabbadi League. The buzz and impact of Kabaddi league’s opening night showcases the bond the sport shares with the people of the land where it has its roots.
The STAR Sports Pro Kabaddi League – an eight city franchise based league that portrays action packed ‘Live’ Kabaddi content in an uber-cool format receives an incredible start with over 22 million television viewers tuned in on the opening night. This data, when calculated on prorate for All India Universe, as per standard industry conversions, indicate that over 66 million Indians have watched the opening night games, which is 10 times higher than that of the India’s viewership of opening match between Brazil and Croatia of the recently concluded FIFA World Cup which reached 2.1mn viewers.
In an exploration to tap new opportunities Star Sports Pro-Kabaddi league, since inaugural, has become one of the most talked-about events on social media. Pro-Kabaddi generated tremendous on-line conversations and was trending through the event and into the next day as well. In fact within 12 hours into the league, Star Sports Pro-Kabaddi and related conversations had received approximately 140 million impressions on Twitter and equally significant numbers in the form of Facebook activity.
The conversation was sparked off by the influencers and celebrities associated with the League like Big B, King Khan, Aamir Khan, Little Master Sachin and others tweeting their experiences and the activation of the Twitter mirror “signature selfies” at the game. The excitement and online conversation soon spread to excited fans across the country resulting in the revival of the classic Game of India. The sentiment was overwhelmingly positive with over 90% highly positive comments and reactions. Even the Amul girl could not resist the charms of Kabaddi with the iconic, mirror of our times campaign headline “Kha-buddy…”.
The Top execitives are very excited about Kabaddi but were cautious in getting over excited as these are in early days. However they expressed their strong belief in the potential of Kabaddi and wanted to build it hard by putting their best of efforts.”
The first 4 days of the games league matches were played at the NSCI, Mumbai and witnessed numerous celebrities in the stadium including Amitabh Bachchan, Aishwariya Rai, Aamir Khan and Shahrukh Khan. Not only the celebrities, but also the masses were excited about the league as the stadium was packed with kabaddi fans supporting the city of their choice. Being played in a caravan style, the matches will be played for 4 days each across 8 host cities culminating with a finale in end August.
However, the Pro Kabbadi hurt the Kabbadi Fans of Tamil Nadu and Punjab by neglecting both states with no teams being floated on their states, which are prominently producing the Players for Indian Kabbadi team. They hope atleast they will be considered for upcoming season.
