Circle kabaddi is played in a 22-metre mud circle, four stoppers to a raid, about twelve to a side. Nearly all of Punjab's 12,500-plus villages host a tournament, drawing crowds between 5,000 and 50,000.
Annual spending on tournaments across the state runs to about ₹250 crore. Individual tournament budgets go from ₹10 to ₹50 lakh. Prizes are tractors, combine harvesters, Mahindra Thars and Harley-Davidsons.
There are overseas circuits. England runs May to August, and a newcomer can earn about ₹10 lakh where a star earns ₹40 to ₹50 lakh. Canada runs June to September and takes around a hundred Punjabi players a year. New Zealand starts in March, Australia in April.
Named players, and their villages: Soni Singh of Bhadra in Mansa, a Dalit player who has won 18 to 20 motorbikes including a Harley; Manpreet Money of Dayalpur; Mangat Singh Mangi of Bagga in Jalandhar, who captained India's first Kabaddi World Cup side in 2010; Jagga Galib of Galib Kalan in Ludhiana, now a scout. Commentators Satpal Mahi Khadil of Sangrur and Aman Lopon of Moga, who owns an acre and a half and calls matches worldwide.
Sandeep Nangal Ambia of Nangal Ambian in Shahkot, an anti-drug campaigner, was murdered in 2022 in a killing suspected to be linked to kabaddi rivalry.
A quarter of a billion rupees a year moving through village sport, and no mainstream outlet covers it.
The circle form played in Punjab is not the standard form played internationally. It has a different ground, a different scoring system and a different set of skills.
The village tournament circuit runs through the winter with prize money, and the diaspora circuit in Britain, Canada and Italy runs in the summer with more of it.
The doping problem is serious and has been documented repeatedly, with players failing tests and with deaths reported. The circuit has no governing body with the authority to do anything about it.