The Pro Kabaddi League is the professional kabaddi league of India and is arguably one of the biggest kabaddi events all over the world. The league was conceptualized and founded by Mashal Sports Pvt Ltd. in 2014 with eight teams. The franchise-based league owes its structure to the highly popular cricket competition Indian Premier League. The Pro Kabaddi League became an immediate success owing to the lively grassroots community, that was able to attract a wide variety of viewers ranging from rural to metropolitan all over India. The inaugural season was watched by a whopping 435 million viewers on television, second only to the Indian Premier League itself.
The 2017 Pro Kabaddi League was the 5th edition of the Pro Kabaddi League. The competition underwent a lot of changes as four new teams were added to the league and was divided into two divisions called the “Zones”. The four new teams were - UP Yoddha, Tamil Thalaivas, Telugu Titans and Gujarat Fortune Giants.
The Pro Kabaddi League 2017 commenced on 28th July 2018 and got over by 28th October 2017.
2017 PKL Auction
The auction for the new season of the Pro Kabaddi League was held in May, two months before the commencement of the league. Each team was allowed the opportunity to retain one of their players before the auction. With over 400 players going under the hammer, the auctions were quite a busy affair.
Nitin Tomar was the most expensive player of the auction at a price tag of Rs. 93 Lakh bought by the league newcomers UP Yoddha. He was followed by Rohit Kumar who went Bengaluru Bulls for Rs. 81 Lakh. Other notable buys were Manjeet Chillar (Rs. 75.5 Lakhs) to Jaipur Pink Panthers, Selvamani K (Rs. 73 Lakhs) to Jaipur Pink Panthers and Surjeet Singh (Rs. 73 Lakhs) to Bengal Warriors. The costliest foreign player was Jang Kun Lee who was retained by Bengal Warriors for Rs. 80.3 Lakhs.
Venues and Legs
With the new teams coming in, the format of the competition was changed as more matches were to be played. The teams were divided into two zones and matches were played on the basis of the venues, classified as phase or legs. The legs with their respective dates and venues are given below:-
Hyderabad Leg: 28 July-3 Aug/ Gachibowli Indoor Stadium
Nagpur Leg: 4-10 Aug/ Divisional Sports Complex
Ahmedabad Leg: 11-17 Aug/ The Arena Indoor Stadium
Lucknow Leg: 18-24 Aug/ Babu Banarasi Das Indoor Stadium
Mumbai Leg: 25-31 Aug/ SVP Indoor Stadium
Kolkata Leg: 1-7 Sep/ Netaji Indoor Stadium
Haryana Leg: 8-14 Sep/ Motilal Nehru School of Sports
Ranchi Leg: 15-21 Sep/ Harivansh Tana Bhagat Indoor Stadium
Delhi Leg: 22-28 Sep/ Thyagaraj Sports Complex
Chennai Leg: 29 Sep-5 Oct/ Jawaharlal Nehru Stadium
Jaipur Leg: 6-12 Oct/ Sawai Mansingh Stadium
Pune Leg: 13-20 Oct/ Shree Shiv Chhatrapati Sports Complex
Eliminators (Mumbai): 22-23 Oct/ SVP Indoor Stadium
Finals (Chennai): 26-28 Oct/ Jawaharlal Nehru Stadium
2017 PKL Points Table
Zone A
| Team | Played | Won | Lost | Tied | SD | Points |
| Gujarat Fortune Giants | 22 | 15 | 4 | 3 | 126 | 87 |
| Puneri Paltan | 22 | 15 | 7 | 0 | 91 | 80 |
| Haryana Steelers | 22 | 13 | 5 | 4 | 40 | 79 |
| U Mumba | 22 | 10 | 12 | 0 | -50 | 56 |
| Jaipur Pink Panthers | 22 | 8 | 13 | 1 | -91 | 51 |
| Dabang Delhi | 22 | 5 | 16 | 1 | -134 | 38 |
Zone B
| Team | Played | Won | Lost | Tied | SD | Points |
| Bengal Warriors | 22 | 11 | 5 | 6 | 19 | 77 |
| Patna Pirates | 22 | 10 | 7 | 5 | 60 | 71 |
| UP Yoddha | 22 | 8 | 10 | 4 | 2 | 60 |
| Bengaluru Bulls | 22 | 8 | 11 | 3 | 10 | 57 |
| Telugu Titans | 22 | 7 | 12 | 3 | -2 | 52 |
| Tamil Thalaivas | 22 | 6 | 14 | 2 | -71 | 46 |
PKL 2017 Finals
Patna Pirates ran the show in the knockout rounds and the finals as they went on to win the 2017 PKL. Bengal Warriors got their game horribly wrong as they lost both their matches despite topping the table of their zone. Gujarat Fortune Giants also had a marauding run until they were halted by Patna Pirates in the final.
PKL 2017 Stats
Pardeep Narwal (369 points) of the Pirates had the most raid points in the 2017 PKL season followed by Rohit Kumar (231 points) of Bengaluru and Ajay Thakur (222 points) of Tamil Thailavas.
The most tackle points table was topped by Surender Nada (80 points) of the Steelers. Surjeet Singh (76 points) of Bengal Warriors and Vishal Bhardwaj (71 points) of the Titans also made a name for themselves.
