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Paper short abstract

Kabaddi’s rise from rural pastime to media spectacle fuels heroic narratives among East Asian players. Drawing on interviews and participant observation, this study reveals how mediated myth‑making obscures structural advantages and shapes desire within global sporting capitalism.

Paper long abstract

Kabaddi’s transformation from a rural South Asian pastime into a professional, media-oriented sport – most visibly through the Pro Kabaddi League (PKL) – demonstrates how global sport is increasingly shaped by spectacle, commercialization, and the production of desire. PKL’s television friendly format, accelerated pace, and dramatized presentation have recast kabaddi as an entertainment product capable of attracting corporate sponsors, mass audiences, and overseas athletes seeking visibility within an emergent professional arena. For players in East Asia, kabaddi remains a minority sport with limited support. Yet the global visibility of PKL fuels aspirations to participate, often articulated through a “hero’s journey” in which athletes narrate their struggles to cross sporting boundaries.

However, these narratives often embellish the actual conditions behind international participation. The threshold for reaching global competition is not always as high as portrayed; many athletes benefit from institutional support, early exposure, or access to less competitive pathways rather than extraordinary feats of perseverance. Despite this, media accounts frequently elevate these trajectories into heroic tales, aligning neatly with capitalist myth-making that celebrates individual grit while obscuring structural advantages.

This study draws on interviews with kabaddi players in Japan, Taiwan, and Hong Kong, alongside participant observation in regular training sessions and major international tournaments, to examine how these heroic narratives are constructed, circulated, and consumed. By interrogating the gap between mediated heroism and lived experience, the paper reveals how kabaddi’s neoliberal transformation manufactures selective myths of meritocracy while shaping athletes’ desires and self-understandings within global sporting capitalism.