PKL Goes Dark in 2026 as KCL Expands to 10 Teams

Kabaddi delivered two very different headlines on the same day this week, and together they tell the story of a sport at a crossroads. Its biggest league is going dark for a year. Its newest league is growing fast. For fans in Pakistan and across South Asia, where kabaddi is woven into the sporting culture, the next few months will decide what professional kabaddi looks like for years to come.

Here is what happened, what it means, and what to watch next.

No PKL in 2026: Season 13 pushed to mid-2027

The Pro Kabaddi League will not be played in 2026. That is the headline from an exclusive Khel Now report published on November 1, which says Season 13 is now likely to be held in a June-July 2027 window because the league still has no broadcast partner.

Two important caveats come with that report. First, it rests on an unnamed source close to the development, and no official statement from the league has been quoted. Second, earlier reporting had pointed to earlier windows, including December 2026 and January 2027. The November 1 report is the latest word, but until Mashal Sports, which runs the league, confirms a date, the June-July 2027 window should be read as reported rather than official.

If that window holds, the gap will be striking. The last PKL match played was the Season 12 final on October 31, 2025, when Dabang Delhi beat Puneri Paltan 31-28. A first raid in June 2027 would mean a wait of at least 19 months between seasons. Only the pandemic break, between Season 7 in 2019 and Season 8 in December 2021, was longer.

The TV deal is the problem

The root cause is television money. Star India, now JioStar, paid about Rs 905 crore for a five-year deal covering Seasons 8 to 12. That deal ran out when Season 12 finished in October 2025, and nothing has replaced it.

According to the Khel Now report, the current broadcaster has offered roughly half of what it paid last time, and there has not been much interest from anyone else in the open market. That is an awkward position for a league that set a floor of Rs 900 crore when the rights were sold in 2021. Back then, Sony, Dream11 and Reliance took tender documents, but Star was the only bidder. Some team owners complained at the time that a company owning 74 per cent of Mashal Sports could hardly be a neutral buyer of its rights; Mashal Sports called that baseless. Five years later, the market is being tested for real, and the early answer is not flattering.

The calendar has also run out. Last year's player auction was held on May 31 and June 1, and Season 12 started on August 29. There has been no Season 13 auction at all, and with two months of 2026 left, there is no realistic way to run one, build squads and stage a full league before January.

Khel Now also reports that franchise owners have approached the Sports Ministry for guidance. Football took a similar route this year: Indian Super League clubs pressed their case, the sports minister met them in June, and the ISL 2026-27 season eventually started on October 10. Kabaddi's owners will hope for a similar result, though nobody has said what the ministry can actually do about a media-rights negotiation.

While PKL waits, the KCL grows

The second headline of the week points in the opposite direction. The Kabaddi Champions League (KCL), the Haryana-based franchise league, has expanded to 10 teams for its second season and raised its player purse from Rs 4 crore to Rs 5 crore.

The league has grown from eight to 10 franchises, with Jhajjar Jaguars and Kurukshetra Knights joining. The full lineup is Bhiwani Bulls, Rohtak Royals, Karnal Kings, Gurugram Gurus, Sonipat Stars, Panipat Panthers, Faridabad Fighters, Hisar Heroes, Jhajjar Jaguars and Kurukshetra Knights.

The Season 2 auction, held on October 17, 2026, featured more than 300 players and competitive bidding for established performers. The top signings were:

Player	Price	Team
Ayan Lochab	Rs 17.4 lakh	Jhajjar Jaguars
Bharat Hooda	Rs 16.6 lakh	Karnal Kings
Naveen Goyat	Rs 15.2 lakh	Kurukshetra Knights
Rakesh Singroha	Rs 11 lakh	Faridabad Fighters
Sunil Malik	Rs 10 lakh	Faridabad Fighters

Sunil Malik's signing is notable: he captained India at the Asian Games. The grassroots pipeline behind the auction is busy too. The central trials in Sonipat recorded 6,400 registrations, while 650 players took part in the Rohtak trials, and more than 300 players entered the auction pool.

The organisers say the inaugural season generated 614.3 million global television and OTT viewership, based on BARC and Zee Network data cited by the league, and they have set an ambitious target of crossing 1,000 million for Season 2. Those are organiser figures, not independently verified numbers, but the direction of travel is clear.

Let us be honest about scale, though. Those auction prices are small numbers next to a PKL contract, and the KCL is not a replacement for a national league on national television. Right now, however, it is the franchise league that is growing while the bigger one waits. For a country that has just won Asian Games and Commonwealth titles, that is an awkward place to be, and it will probably take a sharply cheaper TV deal, or a new buyer, to get PKL back on air next summer.

The wider kabaddi boom: titles, juniors and an Olympic dream

The league drama is happening against a busy backdrop for the sport. India won both the men's and women's titles at the first Commonwealth Kabaddi Championship in Ahmedabad on October 31, with the men beating Sri Lanka 54-20 and the women beating Uganda 35-15. Those titles came weeks after India's men's gold at the Asian Games in Japan.

The junior pipeline is active too. The 52nd Junior National Men's Kabaddi Championship is being played from November 1 to 4 in Patna, Bihar, with all matches streaming live on the SportVot platform. And the sport's global ambitions got louder this week: at its Executive Committee meeting in Hyderabad, the International Kabaddi Federation (IKF) said it is actively pursuing inclusion in the 2036 Olympic Games and working to secure a place at the 2030 Commonwealth Games. IKF president Kasani Gnaneshwar also announced plans for a Kabaddi World Cup, with interested nations invited to bid to host it, and a Women's Kabaddi Premier League modelled on the PKL, targeting eight teams for its first edition.

What this means for Pakistan kabaddi

Pakistani fans have had a frustrating kabaddi autumn. Pakistan withdrew from the Commonwealth Kabaddi Championship in Ahmedabad at the last minute, with political tensions with India cited as the main reason, and the men's team came home from the Asian Games in Japan without a medal for the first time, after a run of medals at nine straight Games from 1990 to 2022.

But the domestic game is still moving. The Inter-Departmental National Kabaddi Championship (Asian Style), organised by the Pakistan Kabaddi Federation at Liaquat Gymnasium in Islamabad, has featured the country's departmental sides, with Pakistan Army beating Airport Security Force 55-39, Air Force edging Police 50-49, Pakistan Navy beating ASF 41-25, and WAPDA outclassing Air Force 50-35 on the second day of action.

For Pakistan's players, the PKL pause matters too. The PKL has been the biggest shop window in the sport, and a year without it narrows the opportunities for South Asian players to earn and be seen. The growth of alternative platforms like the KCL, the junior championships and a possible World Cup could soften that blow, but only if Pakistan's teams get chances to play in them. That is the question the Pakistan Kabaddi Federation will be asking as the international calendar takes shape.

What to watch next

• A PKL broadcast announcement: any new deal, or a revised offer from JioStar, is the single biggest signal for Season 13.
• A Season 13 auction date: no auction, no season. The auction window will confirm whether June-July 2027 is real.
• KCL Season 2 dates and broadcast details: the expanded league still has to announce when and where its second season will be played.
• The IKF World Cup hosting race: which countries bid, and whether Pakistan is in the conversation.
• Pakistan's next international outing: after the Commonwealth withdrawal and the Asian Games disappointment, the national side needs a stage.

Kabaddi's paradox this week is simple: the sport has never had more ambition, with Olympic dreams, new leagues and record crowds in its sights, yet its flagship league cannot get on television. How that contradiction is resolved will define kabaddi's next decade.

Sources: Khel Now (PKL Season 13 exclusive, November 1, 2026); SportsAdda (November 3, 2026); myKhel (KCL expansion, November 3, 2026); The Times of Bengal (KCL expansion); OneArabia and Apex Sports News (IKF roadmap, November 2, 2026); Independent News Pakistan (Inter-Departmental Championship); Khel Now (Commonwealth withdrawal, October 2026). Photos are illustrative Wikimedia Commons images, not photos from the leagues or matches discussed.