Pro Kabaddi League 2017

The Pro Kabaddi League 2017 was started yesterday. It is the fifth season of Pro Kabaddi League. The first season was started in 2014.Since the commencement of the League the matches grabbed the attention of sport lovers.

Here are some interesting facts about the Pro Kabaddi League 2017:

• The present season of the Pro Kabaddi League continues for 3 months and will end by October 28, 2017.
• Pro Kabaddi League matches are the second-most viewed sports on Indian TV the first being IPL matches.
• The Pro Kabaddi League matches were organized by Mashal Sports and Star India.
• The current season has 12 teams. Four fresh teams were included from Gujarat, Haryana, Tamil Nadu and Uttar Pradesh.

• ₹46.99 crores was spent for the auction of players by the 12 franchises.
• Nitin Tomar was the most expensive Indian player. The UP franchise spent the amount of ₹93 lakh. Rohit Kumar was the second most expensive player. He was retained for ₹81 lakh by Bengaluru Bulls.
• Jang Kun Lee was the most expensive foreign player. He is a South Korean. Bengal Warriors spent ₹80.3 lakhs for him.
• Nissan and Hero Motor Corporation Pvt. Ltd. are the sponsors.
• Matches are held in 12 places all over the country.

Do you know when did Kabaddi originate?  Who invented the game?

Here are some interesting points about Kabaddi:

• Kabaddi was played in India 4,000 years back.
• Many Indians believe that the origin of the game was from Mahabharata. Abhimanyu, the son of Arjuna was the inventor of the game.
• The word ‘Kabaddi’ was derived from a Tamil word ‘Kai-pidi’ that means holding hands.
• Kabaddi caught the attention of the global audience when it was demonstrated in the Berlin Olympics by India in 1936.

• Kabaddi is the national game of Bangladesh.
• India held the first Women’s Kabaddi event in 1995 in Kolkata. Women’s Kabaddi was included in the Asian Games in 2010 in Guangzhou.
• It is the only game in which both men and women have all world cups from the beginning of the sport.
• Counties like Argentina, Belgium, Denmark, Italy, Spain and the USA also play the game.

Reference: Wikipedia and Indiatimes

Image Credit: Kabaddi24x7 / CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Image Reference: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Pro-kabaddi-finals.jpg