PKL Season History: Every Champion From Season 1 to 13
Somebody at a party asks you which team has won the most PKL titles. You freeze. You know Patna Pirates were good once. You know Dabang Delhi just won again in PKL Season History.
Beyond that, it is a blur of seasons that all start blending together after a while.
PKL has crowned 12 champions across 12 completed seasons since it launched in 2014, and Patna Pirates hold the record for the most titles with three championships in a row during the league’s early years. Every other season has been won by a different mix of teams, with a couple of franchises picking up multiple titles along the way.
This guide walks through every single PKL season, who won it, and how the league itself has changed shape over more than a decade. No need to memorize all twelve seasons before your next kabaddi conversation. This page will do that job for you, complete with real scorelines, real venues, and a few storylines worth knowing before Season 13 adds its own chapter to the list.
How Many Seasons of PKL Have Been Played? PKL Season History
PKL has completed 12 full seasons since its very first edition in the summer of 2014. Season 13 is the next one on the calendar, expected to begin around mid-December 2026, though Mashal Sports has not confirmed an official date yet. That gives fans a decade-plus of history to draw on while waiting for the new season to arrive.
Twelve seasons in just over a decade might not sound like much compared to leagues that run every single year without fail, but PKL’s calendar has shifted around quite a bit over the years. A couple of seasons happened close together, while others had longer gaps between them, especially around the disruption caused by the pandemic in the early 2020s. Season 3 and Season 4 both landed in 2016 alone, which is part of why the season count and the calendar year count do not line up perfectly if you try to match them one to one.
What matters more than the exact count is how much the league has grown across those 12 seasons. Purses have jumped from 60 lakh rupees per team to 5 crore, broadcast deals have expanded from regional coverage to full national television and streaming, and the playoff format itself has been redesigned more than once to keep things fresh for fans.
Attendance and viewership numbers tell a similar story of growth. Early seasons drew respectable crowds, but recent seasons regularly fill major indoor arenas to capacity, with broadcast viewership numbers that now rival some of the country’s most-watched cricket tournaments during peak PKL windows.
PKL Season-by-Season Champions Table
Here is the full list, straight through from Season 1 to the most recent completed season. Bookmark this table if you only need one thing from this entire page.
| Season | Year | Champion | Runner-Up |
|---|---|---|---|
| Season 1 | 2014 | Jaipur Pink Panthers | U Mumba |
| Season 2 | 2015 | U Mumba | Bengaluru Bulls |
| Season 3 | 2016 | Patna Pirates | U Mumba |
| Season 4 | 2016 | Patna Pirates | Jaipur Pink Panthers |
| Season 5 | 2017 | Patna Pirates | Gujarat Fortunegiants |
| Season 6 | 2018 | Bengaluru Bulls | Gujarat Fortunegiants |
| Season 7 | 2019 | Bengal Warriorz | Dabang Delhi K.C. |
| Season 8 | 2021-22 | Dabang Delhi K.C. | Patna Pirates |
| Season 9 | 2022 | Jaipur Pink Panthers | Puneri Paltan |
| Season 10 | 2023-24 | Puneri Paltan | Haryana Steelers |
| Season 11 | 2024 | Haryana Steelers | Patna Pirates |
| Season 12 | 2025 | Dabang Delhi K.C. | Puneri Paltan |
A few things jump out immediately from this list. Patna Pirates won three seasons in a row from Season 3 through Season 5, a run nobody else has come close to matching since. Dabang Delhi K.C. and Jaipur Pink Panthers are the only other teams to win the title more than once, with two championships each.
The Early Years, Season 1 to 4
PKL launched in the summer of 2014, and Jaipur Pink Panthers became the league’s very first champion. Nobody quite knew what to expect from a professional kabaddi league at the time, and the tournament exceeded almost everyone’s expectations for how much of an audience the sport could actually draw on television.
Season 2 followed quickly, with U Mumba flipping the script and claiming the title themselves in 2015. U Mumba’s win mattered for more than bragging rights too, since it proved Season 1 was not a fluke and that the league had real staying power beyond its debut year.
Then came Patna Pirates, and honestly, the rest of the league did not stand much of a chance for a while. They won Season 3 in 2016, then turned around and won Season 4 later that same year, since both seasons were played within 2016 due to the league’s early scheduling.
Patna’s dominance during this stretch came down to a genuinely stacked raiding lineup, anchored by players who could rack up points seemingly at will against defenses that had not yet caught up to how fast the sport was changing tactically. Other franchises spent years trying to figure out how to counter what Patna had built.
The Growth Years, Season 5 to 8
Patna Pirates capped off their three-peat with a Season 5 win in 2017, beating Gujarat Fortunegiants, a franchise that no longer exists under that name today. Three straight titles from one franchise remains the longest championship streak in PKL history, and it does not look like it will get matched anytime soon.
Season 6 finally broke Patna’s grip on the trophy, with Bengaluru Bulls claiming their first title in 2018. It was a well-earned breakthrough for a franchise that had been knocking on the door for a few seasons without quite getting over the line.
Bengal Warriorz picked up their first and, so far, only PKL title in Season 7, played in 2019. That win remains a genuine high point for the franchise, and fans still bring it up whenever the team goes through a rougher patch in a more recent season.
Season 8 is where things get complicated because of timing. Played across 2021 and into early 2022, this season happened during the pandemic, forcing PKL into a bio-secure bubble format in Bengaluru instead of the usual multi-city caravan setup. Dabang Delhi K.C. won their first title that season, beating Patna Pirates in the final.
The Modern Era, Season 9 to 12
PKL returned to something closer to its normal caravan format for Season 9, played across late 2022, with matches spread across Mumbai, Hyderabad, Pune, and Bengaluru. Jaipur Pink Panthers claimed their second title that season, beating Puneri Paltan 33-29 in a tight final at the Dome, NSCI SVP Stadium in Mumbai.
Season 10 stretched from December 2023 into March 2024, making it one of the longer seasons on record. Puneri Paltan finally broke through for their first-ever title, beating Haryana Steelers 28-25 in a tense, low-scoring final at the Gachibowli Indoor Stadium in Hyderabad.
Season 11, played from October to December 2024, saw Haryana Steelers flip the script and claim their own first title, beating Patna Pirates 32-23 in the final at Pune’s Balewadi Sports Complex. The playoffs that season used the older six-team format, with the top two teams getting a direct pass into the semifinals.
Season 12 brought the biggest format shake-up in years, expanding the playoff field to eight teams and adding a new tie-breaker shootout system for every match, not just the playoffs. Dabang Delhi K.C. edged out Puneri Paltan 31-28 in the final on October 31, 2025, at the Thyagaraj Indoor Stadium in Delhi, earning their second title overall.
The Most Memorable PKL Finals So Far
Not every final gets remembered the same way, but a few stand out even to fans who only follow the league casually. Season 8’s final between Dabang Delhi K.C. and Patna Pirates produced the tightest scoreline in PKL history, with Delhi edging Patna 37-36 after Naveen Kumar crossed the baulk line on the very final raid of the match to seal the win.
Season 5’s final sits at the opposite end of the drama scale. Patna Pirates demolished Gujarat Fortunegiants 55-38, completing their historic three-peat with a performance so dominant it barely felt like a contest by the second half. Pardeep Narwal alone scored 19 points that night, cementing his status as the best raider of that entire era.
Season 12’s final brought its own kind of tension, not from a lopsided score but from how Dabang Delhi K.C. even got there. Their tie-breaker win over Puneri Paltan in Qualifier 1 meant they walked into the final with less playing time than their opponents, yet still found a way to win 31-28 in front of their own home crowd in Delhi.
Season 7’s final deserves a mention too, since Bengal Warriorz won their maiden title without their own captain and star raider, Maninder Singh, who missed the match through injury. Mohammad Nabibakhsh stepped up in his place and delivered a match-winning performance that fans still talk about years later.
How Some PKL Team Names Have Changed
If you have noticed a franchise name in this article that does not match what you see on television today, you are not misremembering anything. A few PKL teams have rebranded over the years, sometimes due to ownership changes and sometimes simply as a fresh marketing push.
Gujarat Fortunegiants, the franchise that reached three straight finals between Season 5 and Season 7 without ever winning, eventually became known as Gujarat Giants under new ownership. The on-court identity carried over in some ways, but the branding, sponsors, and roster all shifted significantly during that transition.
U.P. Yoddha is another team whose name has appeared slightly differently across different seasons and sources, sometimes written as U.P. Yoddhas depending on the official branding at the time. These small naming shifts can make historical research a little confusing if you are not aware of them going in.
Keeping track of these changes matters more than it might seem at first. Searching for old match results under a team’s current name sometimes turns up nothing, simply because the franchise competed under a different name during that particular season.
Which Team Has Won the Most Titles?
Patna Pirates sit at the top with three championships, all won consecutively between 2016 and 2017. No other franchise has managed to win three titles at all, let alone three in a row, which makes that stretch one of the most impressive runs in PKL history.
| Team | Titles Won | Seasons |
|---|---|---|
| Patna Pirates | 3 | Season 3, 4, 5 |
| Dabang Delhi K.C. | 2 | Season 8, 12 |
| Jaipur Pink Panthers | 2 | Season 1, 9 |
| U Mumba | 1 | Season 2 |
| Bengaluru Bulls | 1 | Season 6 |
| Bengal Warriorz | 1 | Season 7 |
| Puneri Paltan | 1 | Season 10 |
| Haryana Steelers | 1 | Season 11 |
Notice how spread out the championships actually are once you look past Patna Pirates’ early run. Eight different franchises have lifted the trophy across 12 seasons, which says a lot about how competitive PKL has stayed compared to leagues where two or three teams dominate the record books year after year. That kind of spread is rare in professional sport and is a big part of why almost every fan base still believes their team’s title run could be just one good season away.
Puneri Paltan deserve a mention here too, even without a title win streak to match Patna’s. They have reached the final more times than almost any other team in recent seasons, including Season 9, Season 10, and Season 12, which makes their single championship in Season 10 feel like it should have company by now.
Teams That Have Never Won a Title
Winning is not the only way a franchise leaves its mark on PKL history. A handful of teams have played every single season since the league launched without ever lifting the trophy, and their stories are just as worth knowing as the champions themselves.
Telugu Titans and Patna Pirates’ fellow original franchise Bengaluru Bulls actually did break through eventually, so they no longer belong on this list. Teams like Tamil Thalaivas, Gujarat Giants under their various names, and U Mumba since their lone Season 2 win have gone long stretches, sometimes their entire history, without adding a second title.
U Mumba’s case stands out the most. They reached the final in each of the league’s first three seasons, winning only once, in Season 2. Since then, more than a decade has passed without a return trip to a PKL final, which is a striking drought for a franchise with that much early success.
These long droughts are part of what makes PKL’s history so interesting to follow. A league where the same two or three teams always win loses its edge fast, and PKL’s spread of eight different champions across 12 seasons keeps almost every fan base with a real reason to believe their team’s turn could come next.
Biggest Format Changes Over the Years
PKL has never been shy about changing its own rules, and looking back across 12 seasons shows a league constantly tweaking itself to stay exciting for fans. The playoff format alone has gone through at least two major overhauls, moving from a straightforward knockout bracket in the earliest seasons to the six-team system used through Season 11, and finally to the expanded eight-team format introduced in Season 12.
Scoring rules have shifted too. Tied matches used to be a normal, if slightly unsatisfying, part of the league, with both teams walking away with a single point each. Season 12 scrapped that entirely, moving to a clean two-points-for-a-win system backed by a mandatory shootout whenever scores are level after regulation time.
The auction system has grown just as dramatically as everything else. Team purses climbed from 60 lakh rupees per franchise in Season 1 to 5 crore rupees by Season 12, and individual player prices have followed a similar trajectory, with the most expensive Season 12 signing costing more than three times an entire Season 1 team budget.
Even the venues have changed how they work. Early seasons often used a single fixed host city for large stretches of the league stage, while more recent seasons lean heavily into a caravan format, moving between multiple cities so fans across the country get a real chance to see their team play in person, not just on a screen.
What Season 13 Could Add to the History Books
Every new PKL season adds another chapter to a history that already spans a decade, and Season 13 has a few storylines worth watching once it actually gets underway. Dabang Delhi K.C. will enter as defending champions, and a third title would put them level with Jaipur Pink Panthers for second place on the all-time list.
Puneri Paltan’s continued near-misses are another thread worth tracking. Three final appearances in four recent seasons with only one win to show for it is the kind of record that either turns into a legendary breakthrough story or a frustrating footnote, depending entirely on how Season 13 plays out for them.
There is also the small matter of Patna Pirates’ three-peat record from Season 3 through 5. No team has come within one title of matching that run since it happened, and unless a dominant new dynasty emerges soon, that record could stand for a long time yet.
Whatever happens, one thing is certain based on the last twelve seasons alone. PKL history rarely goes the way anyone expects, and that unpredictability is exactly what keeps millions of fans tuning in season after season, waiting to see which team writes the next chapter.
| Storyline to Watch | Why It Matters |
|---|---|
| Can Dabang Delhi win a third title? | Would tie them with Jaipur Pink Panthers for second on the all-time list |
| Can Puneri Paltan finally win again? | Three recent finals with only one win is a streak fans want resolved |
| Will the eight-team playoff format continue? | Only used once so far, in Season 12, its future is still unconfirmed |
| Can Patna Pirates return to championship form? | Their three-peat remains unmatched more than eight years later |
Frequently Asked Questions
Which team has won the most PKL titles?
Patna Pirates have won the most PKL titles with three championships, all won consecutively across Season 3, Season 4, and Season 5 between 2016 and 2017.
Who won the very first PKL season?
Jaipur Pink Panthers won PKL Season 1 in 2014, becoming the league’s first-ever champion in its debut year.
How many total PKL seasons have been completed?
12 full seasons of PKL have been completed since the league launched in 2014. Season 13 is the next one on the calendar, expected to begin around mid-December 2026.
Which team won the most recent PKL season?
Dabang Delhi K.C. won PKL Season 12, beating Puneri Paltan 31-28 in the final on October 31, 2025, at the Thyagaraj Indoor Stadium in Delhi. It was their second PKL title.
Has any team won back-to-back PKL titles?
No team has won two consecutive seasons since Patna Pirates’ three-peat between Season 3 and Season 5. Every champion since then has been a different franchise from the season before it.
How many different teams have won a PKL title?
Eight different franchises have won at least one PKL title across the 12 completed seasons: Jaipur Pink Panthers, U Mumba, Patna Pirates, Bengaluru Bulls, Bengal Warriorz, Dabang Delhi K.C., Puneri Paltan, and Haryana Steelers.
Which team has reached the most PKL finals without winning the most titles?
Puneri Paltan have reached several recent finals, including Season 9, Season 10, and Season 12, but only converted one of those appearances into a title, in Season 10. Gujarat Fortunegiants, now known as Gujarat Giants, also reached three finals in a row between Season 5 and Season 7 without winning any of them.
Related Guides
Want to see exactly how a modern PKL champion gets crowned? Our PKL playoffs schedule guide breaks down the current knockout format step by step.
Curious how Dabang Delhi K.C. built their two title-winning squads? Check the Dabang Delhi K.C. team page. And for the full picture of where every team stands during a season, the PKL points table tracks it all in real time.
