Mumbai: Pro Kabaddi League (PKL), an initiative by Mashal Sports Pvt. Ltd and Jio Star, along with long-term digital partner Sportz Interactive, has announced the celebration of a major digital milestone—the achievement of YouTube’s prestigious Golden Play Button after crossing one million subscribers. The accomplishment follows the successful completion of PKL Season 12 last month.
With this milestone, PKL has become only the second Indian sports league to surpass one million subscribers on YouTube. This achievement reinforces the league’s evolution as a year-round digital property and showcases the rising popularity of indigenous Indian sports. It also highlights the impactful, platform-tailored content strategies crafted and executed by Sportz Interactive.
To drive sustained, off-season engagement, Sportz Interactive adopted a multi-pronged content strategy—repurposing match footage into story-rich highlights, producing exclusive original content, and strengthening PKL’s creator-driven presence across platforms including YouTube. The agency leveraged deep performance analytics to optimize content based on viewer behaviour, while consistent improvements in thumbnails, metadata, and scheduling further boosted organic discovery.
Over the course of their seven-year partnership, Sportz Interactive and Mashal Sports have transformed PKL’s YouTube channel into a vibrant digital destination—one that mirrors the thrill, strategy, and emotion of the sport. Today, the channel stands as the core of PKL’s always-on content ecosystem, offering fans year-round narratives, rivalries, behind-the-scenes access, and analysis.
Growing from 326K subscribers in 2020 to more than one million in 2025, PKL’s YouTube journey reflects the power of cohesive storytelling, community building, and data-backed creativity. It also underscores Sportz Interactive’s role in enabling leagues to deepen fan engagement and unlock commercial value through scalable digital solutions.
Reflecting on the milestone, Chintan Shah, Senior Vice President at Sportz Interactive, said, “The YouTube Golden Play Button is more than just a numerical milestone. It exemplifies how strategic digital storytelling, supported by strong data analytics can create a vibrant fan community that generates year-round engagement across various platforms, deepening fan loyalty and fueling commercial growth for a sports league.”
