Kabaddi: From Clay Courts to Broadcast Studios — The Rise of a Sport and Its Unresolved Challenges

Kabaddi today exists in two different worlds at once. In one, it is the game of Indian villages and small towns, where there is no measured mat of 13 by 10 metres, only a line drawn with lime and earth packed hard after rain, and where seven boys stand linked arm in arm. In the other, it is a professional league sport with high-definition cameras, slow-motion replays, action cams, data analysts, physios, nutritionists, commentary boxes and an entire economy built on clipped mobile videos. This duality is both kabaddi's greatest strength and its greatest problem. A strength because the sport's roots lie in culture — it needs no artificial tradition to manufacture an audience. A problem because when a sport runs on two different economic logics, the gap between its top and its bottom widens every year. The rule system looks simple but its details make the sport fast and technical. A team fields seven players on the court and seven substitutes. On each turn, a raider must enter the opposing half within 30 seconds, touch at least one defender and return to his own half — and throughout the attempt he must chant 'kabaddi, kabaddi' continuously, which is both a test of breath and the source of the sport's name. A touch earns a point, crossing the bonus line earns more, and if all seven opponents are put out, the raider's team earns a two-point 'lona'. For the defensive side, points come through tackles — waist holds, thigh holds, ankle holds, or a sharp dash. This is why attack and defence are studied with equal seriousness in kabaddi, which separates it from cricket or football; here no player is merely a support act. Internationally, kabaddi's identity was built through the Asian Games. Men's kabaddi became an official medal sport at the 2026 Beijing Asian Games, and for a long period one country's name stayed at the top of the medal table. Women's kabaddi took two more decades to find a place — it became a medal event at the 2026 Guangzhou Games. That delay still shows: the women's game does not have as old a competitive tradition as the men's, and its depth in the domestic structure is thinner. Bodies such as the International Kabaddi Federation (IKF) and the Asian Kabaddi Federation do not have the resources of a commercial league, and that gap creates constant tension between the sport's two systems. The commercial turn came in 2026 with the launch of the Pro Kabaddi League. This was not merely a new competition but a deliberate attempt to convert the sport into a television product. Playing on a mat made camera coverage easy, the shape of the court created a studio-like frame inside the stadium, and a 40-minute match was an ideal duration for television. Rules were adjusted — the bonus point concept and categories such as super raid and super tackle — so that risk would be rewarded and the match would turn repeatedly. Over time the number of teams grew to twelve, city-based franchises emerged, the player auction became an event in itself, and the season was split into three phases. The whole exercise lifted kabaddi out of the bracket where it was seen as rural entertainment alone. At the economic level the impact is clear. Before the league, a state-level kabaddi player's main income came from a government job under the sports quota or a local sponsor. After the league, a market of contracts, brand associations and training camps opened up for top players. This change is real and should not be understated — for many families it was the first time kabaddi could run a household. But the change is highly uneven. The distance between the few hundred players who find a place in the league and the thousands outside it is greater than ever. Players who go unpicked at auction have no route but to return to the same semi-professional structure they came from. A second tension emerges from the same economic logic — the calendar. The league season, state competitions, the national championship and international camps all demand space in the same year. Top players play continuously in the league, which raises injury risk and shrinks the time available for national camps. This problem exists in almost every sport, but it becomes sharper in kabaddi because the core of national team preparation is exactly those players who play the most in the league. When the body itself is the main capital — in kabaddi, collision, falling and holding are the sport — then managing fatigue is not merely a performance issue but a safety issue. The geography of international competition has also changed. For a long time kabaddi was seen as one country's game, but Iran broke that assumption systematically. The Iranian team's strength lies in physical build, a wrestling-like grappling tradition and a disciplined defensive strategy. At the 2026 Jakarta Asian Games men's final, Iran beat India to take gold — regarded as the most significant turning point in kabaddi history, because it proved that the podium is not a natural right. In competitions since, India has responded and regained the men's gold at the 2026 Hangzhou Asian Games; in the women's event India also reached the top. But Iran's rise is not the outcome of a single final; it is the presence of a permanent competitor that has put pressure on Indian selection and strategy. Countries such as Bangladesh, South Korea, Thailand, Japan, Chinese Taipei and Kenya have also registered their presence. Some of these teams remain far from the top level, but their existence is essential to the international calendar — a sport with only three or four competitive nations can never be taken seriously on the Olympic agenda. That is why, for the IKF, spreading the game is not a matter of prestige but of survival. Within India, the geography of talent matters just as much. Haryana, Uttar Pradesh, Maharashtra, Karnataka, Tamil Nadu and Delhi-NCR have been the main kabaddi centres. In these regions the game moves forward through a chain of village fairs, school competitions and local clubs, where coaches are often former players themselves and training rests on experience rather than scientific method. That difference is most visible at the door of the Pro Kabaddi League: of two players of the same age, the one picked is the one who reached a franchise trial, not necessarily the one who might have been technically better. This imbalance in scouting limits the depth of the sport. Looking at the skills inside the game, kabaddi has developed its own vocabulary. In attack, the 'dubki' — slipping between a defender's legs, touching him and returning — is a skill that has captured the audience's imagination, and its most famous name has been Pardeep Narwal, known precisely for this skill. Raiders such as Naveen Kumar are identified by their ability to accumulate points consistently, Rohit Kumar for leadership and decision-making under pressure, and Ajay Thakur for experience and the ability to change a game on big occasions. In defence, names such as Fazel Atrachali and Manjeet Chhillar are examples of the fact that in kabaddi defence is not a passive role but an active strategy that decides the course of a match. These names have become references not only in fans' memory but in the sport's coaching curricula. The state of women's kabaddi is the clearest mirror of this whole picture. Internationally the Indian women's team has performed strongly at the Asian Games repeatedly and won gold at the 2026 Hangzhou Games. Domestically, a women's league took time to stabilise, and its share of audience and broadcast remained smaller than the men's game. This gap is not only financial; it is a gap in visibility, which then translates into sponsorship, training facilities and career security. Until women's matches receive the same prime-time slots and the same production quality, the sport will only be half developed. At the level of broadcast and data, kabaddi has learned from cricket. Action cams, cameras inside the court, slow-motion checks of tackles, raid success rate, tackle success rate, average points per raid — all of these are now part of match coverage. Short clips made for social media have carried the sport to audiences who do not watch a full match. One consequence is that the sport's success is now measured not only by spectators in the stadium but by time spent on screens. This shift was necessary, but it has also created a new dependency — the sport's attention has moved towards what looks good on camera. At the administrative level, kabaddi's problems are old and serious. The Amateur Kabaddi Federation of India (AKFI) has faced crises from time to time over election disputes and governance complaints, and on such occasions the sports ministry has intervened and changed the administrative arrangements. Every such intervention affects players directly — selection processes are disturbed, competitions stall, and sponsors see uncertainty. For a sport flying on one commercial wing, this is the weakest link. Internationally too, relations between various bodies have not always been smooth, which keeps raising the question of who holds the sport's global representation and on what basis. On player welfare, work remains. Doping control, rehabilitation after injury, and financial security after a career ends — kabaddi's systems lag behind mature ecosystems such as football or cricket on all three. Some support structures have become available for players who feature in the league, but for the thousands outside it the situation remains uncertain. Injury in kabaddi is not the exception, it is the rule; and when a player's entire income rests on his body, insurance and rehabilitation must be treated as basic infrastructure, not luxury. The shortage of infrastructure and coaches should be seen through the same lens. There are limited mat-based training centres in the country with technical analysis, video review and fitness assessment. Most players are built on mud grounds and play on a mat for the first time when they reach state or national level — even though ankles, knees and shoulders are expected to turn as fast on the mat as the body is not used to. Expanding coach education programmes is therefore as necessary as new stadiums. Looking ahead, three fronts are clearest. First, a stable international calendar — regular world-level competitions beyond the Asian Games, giving countries a basis for long-term planning. Second, entry into the Olympic agenda. With talk of India's ambition to host the 2036 Olympics, the question of whether kabaddi can find a place in the Olympic programme has become more relevant; but that will be decided not by hosting alone, but by expanding global participation, clear governance and a sustainable competition structure. Third, filling the domestic pyramid — bridging the gap between the league and the village game through school, college and district-level competitions. The 2026 Asian Games will be the next test in this direction. In the men's event India will face the challenge of holding its dominance, Iran of recovering it, and the rest of Asia of proving they are not there merely to participate. In the women's event the contest is more open, because the base of experience is thinner and a well-prepared team can change the order. Kabaddi's real story is that in two decades it achieved what many sports took centuries to achieve — a professional league, television audiences, global competition and identity. But its next leap will not come from the league growing larger. It will come from whether the sport can strengthen its lower tier as much as its upper tier — that is, whether a player from a village has a mat, a coach, treatment for injury and career security. Until that question is answered, a large part of kabaddi's success will shine on screen and remain incomplete on the ground.