Reports: Pro Kabaddi League encounters a huge drop in viewership

The Vivo Pro Kabaddi League which is the second most commercial sports league in the country saw a sharp fall in its viewership ratings for its sixth season, according to Broadcast Audience Research Council (BARC), India.

The Vivo Pro Kabaddi League is a professional-level kabaddi league in India launched in 2014. The format of the league was inspired by the Indian Premier League (IPL) and uses a franchise-based model. The tournament followed the double round-robin and playoffs format.

There were speculations doing rounds discussing whether PKL can be successful or not as there were very less known players in Kabaddi, unlike other sports in the country. But Kabaddi, as a game, was widely popular in rural and urban areas and there was a chance that PKL can get viewership from both these parts of the country.

The first season of PKL back in 2014 was a blockbuster and saw the second highest viewership, just lagging behind the 2014 Indian Premier League. The inaugural season was seen by 435 million viewers, also the championship match was seen by over 86 million viewers.

In 2015, Star Sports took over 75% stake in the Marshal sports which is the administrator of the league. The league changed its format to split the teams into two groups also known as zones and PKL also added 4 new teams in the tournament.

According to reports of the Economic Times, the viewership rating has fallen 31% from the previous season for the first 12 matches. The viewership from Urban areas has almost dropped by 25% while in rural areas, the drop in viewership was accounted to fall by 33%.

The largest league of the country in terms of the impression with 11 franchises is telecast on 9 channels across the country. Over 237 million viewers saw the first 24 matches compared to 345 million viewers last year. Out of the 9 channels, only one channel saw a higher number of viewers compared to the last season. The numbers are down from 344.7 minutes to 237.1 minutes viewership across the nation in the first 24 matches.

The lack of marketing and tiredness of viewers can be a reason for the fall of Vivo Pro Kabaddi League. It is difficult for Star Sports to commit to the league as Star has put a lot of money on cricket. The drop was sharp for Star sports 2 to 45% with a small drop of 18% for star sports 1 Hindi. On the other way, the Tamil channel of star sports saw an 89% soaring increase of viewership.

Another reason for the drop of viewers of Pro Kabaddi League can be the clash of timings with the Indian Super league and entertainment shows like Kaun Banega Crorepati. Also, last year PKL started earlier in July and this year it started late in October in between the peak festival season in India which can also be an inducement for the plummet of the viewers of PKL.

Now, it's up to the administrator of the league and Star Sports to strategize a plan to increase the TRP and increase the viewers of the game again by executing splendid marketing of the league and make some new changes in the format of the league to increase its popularity.