Dabang Delhi aiming to encourage women to follow kabaddi
Kabaddi has always been seen as a popular pastime in our country, especially in the rural areas. Add to that our domination of the sport at the world stage and it should come as no surprise that the franchisee based league of the sport took the masses by storm last year.
Interestingly, the inaugural edition of Pro Kabaddi League has thrown in some unique data. The League which is broadcasted on Star Sports had a viewership rating of 435 million, second only to the numbers crunched by IPL7 (550 million); which was in its seventh year of running. Another interesting inference from the numbers was the league’s popularity amongst women.
The female viewership of IPL is 31% where as PKL Season 1 had 34% of female viewership, a clear indication that this rustic sport has been successful in gathering a niche fan following for itself.
Seeing this upward trend of women getting hooked to kabaddi and determined to contribute in the development of kabaddi and nurture new sporting talents, the team from the capital-Dabang Delhi has been organizing camps and conducting talent scouting in rural belts of Haryana and UP to unearth young prospects for the sport.
15 girls attended Dabang Delhi’s first women’s training camp
The franchisee is also driven to encourage women’s sports development programs across the sports demographic dividend of India and in that direction held its first women/girls training camp here at the Thyagraj Stadium on 15th June, 2015. 15 girls had attended the 2 hours camp under the guidance of Dabang Delhi’s Head Coach, Honnappa Gowda and Assistant Coach, Arjun Singh. The girls were excited at the given opportunity as was Coach Neelam, the coach of the famous kabaddi pathshala in NCR Palam Kabaddi Sports Club.
The women national team has won Gold for India in 5th consecutive Asian Games and has a confident success story to share. However their success has not trickled to inspire more girls to get involved take up the sport and this is where Dabang Delhi and Ms Radha Kapoor who also has played kabaddi in her younger days wants to contribute, are trying to bring about a change. They are trying to identify and scout girls in and around Delhi-NCR and train them.
There is this ambition to create and promote a women league for future as well. The intent is inspiring and if the levels of interest are anything to go by, kabaddi as a sport shall continue to flourish amongst women in India.