VMPL
New Delhi [India], May 11: The Asian Kabaddi League (AKL) at this time introduced its official launch because the world’s first absolutely structured, commercially funded, and broadcast-backed skilled ladies’s kabaddi league, at a landmark press occasion held in New Delhi. The announcement marks a historic turning level for Indian sport — putting ladies’s kabaddi on knowledgeable stage for the primary time, with Sony Sports Network confirmed because the league’s unique nationwide broadcast companion.
Season 1 of the Asian Kabaddi League is scheduled to begin in August 2026, with eight city-based franchises competing throughout a structured season format. Approximately 120 contracted skilled athletes — ladies who’ve represented India on the highest ranges of worldwide kabaddi — will compete as professionals for the primary time, with salaries, contracts, teaching infrastructure, and nationwide broadcast visibility.
Sony Sports Network Confirmed as Exclusive Broadcast Partner
AKL’s partnership with Sony Sports Network will see league matches broadcast in prime time on Sony Sports, bringing ladies’s kabaddi into thousands and thousands of Indian households for the primary time on a devoted nationwide sports activities platform. The partnership alerts to the broader sports activities and media business that ladies’s kabaddi instructions the identical broadcast credibility and industrial potential as any established skilled league in India.
‘The partnership with Sony Sports Network isn’t just a broadcast deal. It is a declaration — that ladies’s kabaddi belongs in prime time, that these athletes belong on the largest stage Indian sport has to supply, and that the viewers for this sport is actual, passionate, and has been ready for precisely this second.’
Shauryaveer Chandwani, Director, Asian Kabaddi League
A League Built From the Ground Up
The Asian Kabaddi League was not constructed from a boardroom. Before a single franchise was signed or a broadcast settlement was finalised, the AKL crew took to the highway — actually. Through its nationwide initiative, On The Road with AKL, the league travelled throughout cities, cities, and grassroots sporting communities, connecting instantly with athletes, coaches, academies, and native kabaddi golf equipment throughout India.
The crew rode Royal Enfield bikes from Delhi to Fazilka — the Indo-Pakistan border — stopping at kabaddi grounds, dhabas, and village communities alongside the path to unfold consciousness concerning the league and take heed to the tales of the ladies who play the game. The response was unequivocal: the starvation for knowledgeable ladies’s kabaddi league was not simply current — it had been ready for years.
‘We didn’t wish to launch this league from a stage. We needed to go to the individuals this league is constructed for — earlier than that they had ever heard of us — and inform them it was coming. Every kilometre of that experience advised us one thing no market analysis may: the starvation for this league doesn’t stay in boardrooms. It lives in Punjab, in Haryana, in each village the place a girl wakes up at four-thirty within the morning and trains as a result of she loves this sport.’
Shauryaveer Chandwani, Director, Asian Kabaddi League
More Than a League — A Movement for Women’s Empowerment
India’s ladies have competed in kabaddi on the highest worldwide ranges for many years — successful Asian Games gold medals, dominating Asian Championships, and producing elite athletes who’re, by each technical measure, world-class. Yet till at this time, no skilled league existed to provide them the stage, the wage, or the nationwide visibility their expertise warranted.
AKL adjustments that completely. Every participant contracted to an AKL franchise will obtain knowledgeable wage, a proper contract, entry to teaching and sports activities science help, and the prime-time broadcast visibility that their careers have at all times deserved. The league can be dedicated to constructing a long-term grassroots pipeline that connects village-level expertise to skilled franchises — making certain that the subsequent technology of girls kabaddi gamers has a visual, viable profession pathway from the outset.
‘As MD and CFO, individuals count on me to speak about numbers. I’m not going to try this. I’m going to inform you a few twenty-six-year-old nationwide champion we met on a coaching floor in Sonipat. She had received three nationwide championships, taken unpaid depart from her job to coach, and after we requested what she needed from this league, she mentioned: I simply need somebody to observe. Tonight — she has an viewers of 2 hundred and fifty individuals on this room, and thousands and thousands extra on Sony Sports in August. We are watching. We won’t look away once more.’
Dushyant Singh, Managing Director & CFO, Asian Kabaddi League
‘The Asian Kabaddi League represents one of the vital compelling income and media alternatives in Indian sport at this time. We usually are not constructing a distinct segment property — we’re constructing the definitive skilled platform for a sport with 400 million viewers already on document, a grassroots base not like the rest in India, and a ladies’s viewers that manufacturers and broadcasters have been attempting to succeed in for years. The industrial basis of AKL is as sturdy as its sporting imaginative and prescient.’
Vikram Vijay Chandan, President — Revenue Growth & Media, Asian Kabaddi League
AKL AT A GLANCE — SEASON 1
* World’s First Professional Women’s Kabaddi League
* 8 City-Based Franchises throughout India
* Approximately 120 Contracted Professional Athletes
* Season 1 Launch: August 2026
* Exclusive Broadcast Partner: Sony Sports Network (Prime Time)
* Format: Franchise league with playoffs and Grand Final
* Pre-launch marketing campaign: On The Road with AKL — Delhi to Fazilka
(ADVERTORIAL DISCLAIMER: The above press launch has been offered by VMPL. ANI won’t be accountable in any approach for the content material of the identical.)