When was the Pro Kabaddi League launched?

Concept

A professional franchise league is dated by the season it first played under its own name and franchise structure. That founding year is separate from two other kinds of milestone in the same sport: the year the sport appeared on a multi-sport games programme, and the year a national-team world championship for it was first held. Only the first of these three describes when a league itself began.

Application

The Pro Kabaddi League is India's franchise-based professional kabaddi competition, promoted by Mashal Sports with Star Sports as its broadcast partner. It was launched in 2014, and its inaugural season was played from 26 July to 31 August 2014 with eight city franchises; the Jaipur Pink Panthers won that first title.

Cross-check

• 2002 marks an Asian Games appearance for kabaddi at Busan, which is a multi-sport games entry for the sport rather than the start of any league.

• 2004 marks the first standard-style Kabaddi World Cup in Mumbai, which is a national-team championship rather than a league season.

• 2008 is the year India's city-franchise, broadcast-anchored league model appeared in cricket with the Indian Premier League; that model reached kabaddi only later, which makes 2008 the most common wrong pick here.

Applying the concept, only one of these years is a league's own first season, so the Pro Kabaddi League was launched in 2014.