Popularity in UP, catchment for three teams: PKL comes to Noida

The second leg of Pro Kabaddi League (PKL) season 11 is set to begin on Sunday at the Noida Indoor Stadium with UP Yoddhas and U Mumba taking on each other in the first match at the venue.

“Uttar Pradesh (UP) is home to Kabaddi. The sport is very popular in the state. I have seen its following in many rural areas,” said Anupam Goswami, the league commissioner at an event on Saturday to mark the start the start of the Noida leg.

“One of the reasons we picked Noida as the venue is because we have an indoor stadium facility here. While the sport is popular in cities in Maharashtra and has presence in both rural and urban areas of south India, in north India and especially Uttar Pradesh, it is popular mostly in rural areas. We needed a venue that has an indoor sports facility,” said Goswami to the media.

“The other reason is that Noida is a catchment area for a few franchises. We have UP Yoddhas as Noida comes in UP. Then we have the Dabang Delhi (Delhi is next door to Noida). We also have Haryana Steelers (Haryana is close to Noida).”

Expressing his thoughts on the competitive nature of season 11, Goswami said, “We can expect this leg to be very competitive, as we saw in the Hyderabad leg, where 25 of the 42 matches were decided by less than seven points. This sets an impressive benchmark for Noida. With such competition on display, we're confident that the Noida leg will be well received by the fans.”

UP Yoddhas' captain Surender Gill said playing in front of home crowd will be helpful.

“Home advantage provides a significant boost to any team's performance. The extra motivation we get from our supporters helps, especially as we are dealing with multiple matches in a short span of time.”

Tags : Kabaddi, PKL, Noida, Uttar Pradesh, Season 11, UP Yoddhas, U Mumba, Haryana Steelers