Pro Kabaddi League 2017 Overtakes India Vs Sri Lanka ODI Series In Terms Of Viewership

It was last year when Kabaddi become the most-viewed non-Cricket sport in the India ever as Indian Kabaddi team lifted their third consecutive World Cup while gathering 114 million impressions spanning across the 33 matches played in the 2016 Kabaddi World Cup between 12 countries for 16 days.

This is the same reason why Kabaddi is said to be the only sport in India, as of now, to have the potential of dethroning Cricket as the most followed sport and according to Broadcast Audience Research Council’s ratings of Pro Kabaddi League 2017, the sport has already done it.

According to the ratings, Pro Kabaddi League 2017 has recorded more impressions as compared to the ongoing India vs Sri Lanka series, which by all means, seemed to be a hard nut to crack in this cricket loving nation.

Interestingly, prior to the start of Pro Kabaddi League 2017, some critics even wondered if a longer league, with the addition of four new teams, which spans across 3 months could even be sustainable or will the viewers still show the same interest as the previous seasons?

However, it has only resulted in an increase in quality of the matches as the fans have enjoyed the thrill of seeing multiple close games, out of which many ended in draws and we are just into the fourth week of Pro Kabaddi League 2017.

Week 32 of BARC’s ratings have revealed that over 316 million impressions were recorded on Star Sports 1 (English) and Star Sports 1 Hindi, both having garnered a massive 206 million and 109 million impressions, respectively.

On the other hand, the ongoing India vs Sri Lanka series managed to register just 79 million impressions, which is way less than that of PKL season 5. Moreover, if one considers the top five ongoing sports events, the IndvsSl series doesn’t even feature on the list.

Here are the Pro Kabaddi League 2017 matches that have recorded the most number of viewership according to BARC’s Week 32 ratings.

With the drastic decrease in quality of Cricket over the years in India and BCCI giving more to the fans than they can digest, this downfall, or we can say the emergence of another sport in terms of viewership was long coming. As for Kabaddi, this is a sport that has been in the roots of Indian culture and the concept of domestic leagues has given it the needed boost, taking the sport to the ranks of the most followed sport in India.