PKL's Crisis and Haryana's 'Champions League': A Rs 5 Crore Budget, Rs 17.4 Lakh Bid, and an Untold Story

In November 2026, when news broke of a new kabaddi league across ten Haryana districts, the first thing I did was open the spreadsheet I had built after the 2026 Jakarta Asian Games. It had 61 of India's raids coded. One column was labeled 'financial parameter.' That day I wrote: kabaddi's real game is played not on the mat but in the auction room. Seven years later, this Haryana league has proven that line true — but in reverse. It has a Rs 5 crore 'auction purse,' its most expensive player went for Rs 17.4 lakh, and 'India's Asian Games captain' was bought for Rs 10 lakh. If those numbers look big to you, you have not seen a Pro Kabaddi League auction.

Let me be clear: this is not a scandal. This is the story of a spreadsheet, one in which some numbers are not very clear at all.

First, context. The 'Kabaddi Champions League' — do not think UEFA's Champions League when you hear the name. There are ten franchises: Bhiwani, Rohtak, Karnal, Gurugram, Sonipat, Panipat, Faridabad, Hisar, Jhajjar and Kurukshetra. All in Haryana. This is a regional, semi-professional league wearing a national name. It has expanded from 8 to 10 teams, and each franchise has been given a Rs 5 crore budget to build its squad. Now place that against PKL. A single PKL team's auction outlay has historically run several multiples higher, and star raiders there draw bids above Rs 1 crore. Here the top price is Rs 17.4 lakh — roughly one-sixth the cost of a single PKL star.

From my own experience: before the 2026 PKL auction I built a valuation sheet weighting do-or-die raid conversion, super-tackle rate and raid frequency. It flagged a raider who had converted 44% of his do-or-die attempts, but the room bought a headline name instead. The same logic applies to this Haryana league — except here the problem is inverted. We are not even given performance data.

Five players from this league have surfaced — Ayan Lochab at Rs 17.4 lakh as the most expensive, Sunil Malik at Rs 10 lakh, and three others. But no raid points, tackle points or success rates were reported for any of them. This is the same mistake Indian sports coverage makes repeatedly — mistaking price for performance. A Rs 17.4 lakh bid does not tell you how many raid points Ayan Lochab scored last season. It only tells you someone believed in him.

Now the most important part, buried in the fourth paragraph of this story and ignored by most coverage. PKL's 13th season has reportedly been pushed to June-July 2027 because the league's broadcast partner has gone and no replacement has arrived. This is not merely a scheduling note. Kabaddi is a broadcast-dependent sport. The entire ecosystem built since 2026 — grassroots trials, franchises, sponsorship, player earnings — rests on TV ratings. If PKL sits out a season, the whole professional layer loses its media exposure and sponsorship anchor. This Haryana league cannot fill that void.

Here is my contrarian point. This league's expansion is being sold as 'momentum' — 8 to 10 teams, a bigger purse. But it is in fact an opportunistic move. With PKL dormant, a regional league gains access to idle talent. That is not bad — for Haryana's 6,400-plus trialists it is a genuine opportunity. But calling it 'league strength' is wrong. It is a stopgap, not a substitute. And naming it a 'Champions League' does not make it a national competition. It has no presence in Maharashtra, Punjab or South India.

I know there is a big risk buried in this article — governance. No report states whether this league is sanctioned by AKFI or IKF. If it is unsanctioned, players' national-team eligibility could be questioned. Sunil Malik is described as 'India's Asian Games captain' — if true, a Rs 10 lakh price is startling. That label is either stale, from a different Circle Style cohort, or a reporting error. I cannot verify it, and I will not claim without verification. But that is the real story — in a sport where an 'Asian Games captain' sells for Rs 10 lakh, where is the real money?

My sheet says: Rs 5 crore per team, and if squads run 15-20 players, the average salary works out to Rs 25-33 lakh. But the top price is only Rs 17.4 lakh. So either squads are very large, or the budget is not being fully spent. Neither scenario spells 'boom.'

So the real question is not whether the Haryana league reached 10 teams. The real question is: when the sport's anchor has no broadcaster, can any regional league bridge the gap? I do not have the answer. But I know this much — in 2026 in Jakarta, when I coded those 61 raids, I thought data would explain everything. Today I have learned that some things lie beyond even data — like the broadcast deal that has still not arrived.

If PKL returns in 2027, this Haryana league will revert to its true place — the feeder system. And if it does not, this 'Champions League' may become the beginning of something else. Either way, my spreadsheet stays open.