PKL 2018 | Is Bengaluru Bulls losing out on home support by adopting Pune as home venue
PKL
The home leg of Bengaluru Bulls is in progress in the ongoing season of the Pro Kabaddi League but not in the ‘Garden City’. Due to the unavailability of the Sree Kanteerava Stadium in Bengaluru, the franchise opted for Pune as the city got another leg to host in the same season of the league.
Since the inception of the Pro Kabaddi League in 2014, the indigenous sport of
Pretty much like the previous year, the Department of Youth Services and Sports, Government of Karnataka, which owns the Kanteerava Indoor Stadium in the state capital, didn’t respond to the franchise’s request to hold its home games at the venue. The franchise was again forced to move their home matches out of the city and they opted for Pune’s Shree Shiv Chhatrapati Sports Complex at Balewadi this year. Puneri Paltan had already hosted its home leg at the same venue from October 18 to 24. If we take the state of Maharashtra, which is also known for the sport, has another team U Mumba from India’s commercial capital Mumbai and the city also hosted 12 matches at the venue. Bengaluru lost out on home support and holding more matches at the same venue meant that the league losing out an opportunity of spreading the game to other parts as well.
Last year in Nagpur and this year in Pune, Bengaluru’s decision of hosting its home leg in Maharashtra hasn’t done any good to the increase in the fan base of the league. PKL neither has a team from the North East nor from the Central Indian states of Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh. The organisers could have thought about the infrastructure available at these states as an option to spread the game and increase its popularity. They could have thought of hosting the Bulls’ home matches in Kerala as well because of its proximity to Bengaluru and the indoor halls available where various events were organised during the last edition of the national games. Three top cities of MP – Bhopal, Indore and Gwalior have a good sporting legacy behind these while the capital city of Chhattisgarh – Raipur is also an emerging destination. The sport is popular in the central parts of the country and organising its home matches there would have increased the fan base for the Bengaluru-based franchise.
We have seen this with the league before, since its inception, the game has gone to various states where people had no idea about it before. Let’s take the example of West Bengal, a state where football is the primary sport and they take pride in producing one of the finest cricket captains of India, had a PKL franchise – Bengal Warriors from the very first edition. Prior to 2014, people in the state hardly had any idea about the sport but now the Warriors are as popular as East Bengal or Mohun Bagan or Kolkata Knight Riders. The addition of four more teams in 2017 took the sport to different parts of the country. A team from Tamil Nadu and Uttar Pradesh and organising matches there was of great help in spreading the game. It brought the crowd in those parts to the stadiums and they cheered loud not only for their home teams but also their favourite players, something that the Bulls’ management failed two cash in for last two seasons of PKL.
© PKLNot only Bengaluru, the Jaipur Pink Panthers are also not playing at their home venue - Sawai Man Singh Stadium in Jaipur and have adopted Tau Devi Lal Sports Complex, Panchkula in Haryana for their home leg starting from December 16 which is again taking the league to a place where it already had a big fan base. So, the PKL organisers are missing an important thinking of making the league popular by playing at venues inside the same states time and again and not increasing the fan base of the league.
If we take an example of Indian Premier League, which is perhaps the only league having more popularity than PKL in India, many teams didn’t get a chance to host home games for some reason or the other, as it happened for CSK last season and Deccan Chargers in the third edition of the league. The CSK franchise moved its matches to Pune which didn’t have a team in the 2017 season while back in 2010, the Chargers had opted to host its games at VCA Stadium, Nagpur and Barabati Stadium, Cuttack, a place which had only one player to have played the league so far. Other IPL franchises also took the league to smaller centres like Punjab which hosted its matches in Dharamshala, Indore and Cuttack and Jaipur deciding to play a few of their home matches in Ahmedabad. Taking the cue from IPL, ISL tried the same in the previous year where Tata
Many league teams around the world are trying to target a larger audience and create a bigger fan base for them and the league. For example, I League team – Real Kashmir FC which is making its debut in the first division of the football league this year decided to give away free passes to its supporters to attract them in big numbers for their home matches at the TRC Turf Ground in Srinagar. Teams can try attracting more viewership without thinking much about the revenue generation from the tickets as hosting matches in Pune, where the indoor sports hall has a capacity of approximately 4000 and each ticket costs at an average of Rs 500, will give the franchise an estimated revenue of Rs 20 lakh which the franchise owners can generate from the sponsors as well. The teams should start thinking much beyond the revenue collection from the venues and they need to focus on taking it other smaller centres and attracting more people to come in which can make the popular league of PKL more popular by having more teams and a better format in upcoming years.
Once the president of German football club Bayern Munich - Uli Hoeness was asked about the club not having higher ticket prices for its home games like the Premier League clubs, he replied, “We do not think the fans are like cows to be milked. Football has got to be for everybody. That's the biggest difference between us and England."
The franchise owners of these two kabaddi teams can take a cue from this statement by Hoeness about taking the game to various parts of the vast nation and make PKL accessible for everybody. By hosting the matches in Pune and Panchkula, Bengaluru and Jaipur will miss the support as well as both the venues have their own teams and they will get the fans behind them and not Bengaluru and Jaipur. On the other hand, had the Bulls played their home matches at any venue apart from the 11 states those have their home teams, a few people could have turned out for them. So in this manner not only the league, the franchise also lost an opportunity in increasing its fan base as the people in Pune and Panchkula already identify Puneri Paltan and Haryana Steelers respectively as their home teams which
