PRO KABADDI LEAGUE (PKL) chairman and Mashal Sports business head Anupam Goswami underscored the pivotal role of professional leagues in reshaping Indian sport during a panel discussion at PlayCom 2025: Business of Sports Summit. The session, titled ‘India in a League of its Own: How India Shapes Global Sport’, was held on Friday at Bharat Mandapam, New Delhi.
The two-day summit, organised by The Hindu Group’s Sportstar in association with consulting firm KPMG India, brought together leaders from across the sporting ecosystem.
Goswami outlined four pillars essential for the sustained growth of any professional league: fans, quality of competition, talent pipeline, and governance.
Goswami said, “There is a need to constantly update your platform as per fans’ demand. At the same time, the competition must represent the very best level of the sport. A strong pipeline must be created for future talent, and it must come together within a governance structure that provides sustainability and drives future growth. The opportunity and talent in kabaddi will always be compared to the biggest league in India, the IPL. While PKL is a strong setup today, there is still a stratospheric level above us to aim for. The biggest marker of success for any league globally is the depth of its competition. For Kabaddi, the challenge is to constantly grow at scale, to reach the widest threshold at which the sport can be played.”
Speaking on the globalisation of kabaddi, Goswami shared, “One of the goals for the league was to grow kabaddi beyond India. The very premise of a successful sports league is that it offers its fans the best level of competition in the world. For that, you must enable the best talent – Indian and international – to perform before fans. That is why watching Iran challenge and even beat India is not a weakness, but a sign that the league has elevated kabaddi’s global base.”
On player development, he remarked, “I can guarantee that the entire Indian senior men’s team for next year’s Asian Games will be drawn from the PKL system. That is proof of the transformative impact the league has had on player quality. Many of these athletes are astounding talents, and they have now been exposed to modern sport science systems and are driven by the exposure PKL has created.”
Closing his address, Goswami said the PKL carries a responsibility to shape the sport’s future, “The journey for kabaddi has just begun. The sport must continue to embrace modern practices, create opportunities, and strengthen athlete recognition in their communities. With sustained focus on governance, competition, talent, and fans, PKL can emerge as one of the finest sporting leagues not just in India, but in the world.”
