Ultimate Kho Kho

Ultimate Kho Kho

Most recent season or competition: 2023–24 Ultimate Kho Kho
Sport	Kho Kho
Founded	2022
First season	2022
CEO	Tenzing Niyogi
No. of teams	6
Country	India
Most recent champion(s)	Gujarat Giants (2023–24)
Most titles	Odisha Juggernauts Gujarat Giants (1 each)
Official website	Website
2023–24 Ultimate Kho Kho

Ultimate Kho Kho (UKK or UKKL) ^[1] is an Indian franchise-based kho-kho league. ^[2] Hosted by the Kho Kho Federation of India, it was founded in 2022. ^[3] The first season had a viewership of 64 million, 41 million of which came from India, making UKK the third-most viewed non-cricket sports tournament in India after the Pro Kabaddi League and the Indian Super League. ^[3]

History

Several changes were made to the standard rules of kho-kho in UKK in order to make the game more exciting and presentable on television. ^[4] Sony Pictures Network India signed a 5-year deal to broadcast UKK, and will invest ₹200 crore (US$23 million) into the league over the 5 years. ^[5]

There are plans to launch a women's version of UKK in a few years' time. ^{[6] [7]} Future editions of UKK will expand to have eight to ten teams (potentially including a team from Northeast India), ^{[8] [9]} with venues in multiple cities to be used, and some foreign players to be allowed to participate. ^[10]

Before the start of the second season, UKK became the first Indian sports league to secure private equity-based funding, receiving it from a UK-based group. ^[11]

Rules

UKK uses a modified set of rules referred to by the International Kho Kho Federation as the "fast format", as opposed to the standard "test format". ^[12] The following modifications apply: ^{[13] [14] [15]}

• Only 7 players from the attacking (chasing) team are on the field. ^{[16] [17] [18]}
• The playing field is only 22 meters long and 16 meters wide. ^{[a] [16] [17] [18]}
• 2 points are scored per tag. ^[19]
• A 30-second break is taken between the dismissal of one batch and the entry of the next batch. ^{[b] [20]}
• If a batch of defenders can avoid being completely dismissed for at least 3 minutes (known as a "Dream Run"), they earn 1 point, and then an extra point for every 30 seconds survived afterwards. ^{[21] [22]}
• One attacking player (known as the wazir) may run in any direction when acting as the active attacker. ^{[13] [14] [15]}
• The attacking team can take a powerplay in each of their attacking turns during which they have two wazirs. Each powerplay lasts until all 3 defenders of the current batch are out. ^{[16] [17] [18]}
• Each team's turn to score/defend lasts 7 minutes, with the break time between turns also shortened. ^{[13] [14] [15]}
• Tiebreaker (named "Minimum Chase"): Each team gets one additional turn to score (with the powerplay being active), and the team that scores its first point the fastest wins. ^[20]

Terminology

The game is split into two innings, each of which is split into two turns of seven minutes each. An interval of 3 minutes is taken after the end of the first inning, while a break of 2 minutes is taken after the end of the first and third turns respectively. ^[20]

Teams

Mumbai Khiladis

Rajasthan Warriors

Telugu Yoddhas

Gujarat Giants

Odisha Juggernauts

Chennai Quick Guns

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Locations of the UKK teams

The six teams are named Chennai Quick Guns, Gujarat Giants, Mumbai Khiladis, Odisha Juggernauts, Rajasthan Warriors, and Telugu Yoddhas. ^[23]

Editions and results

Season	Final				Teams	Player of the season	Ref
	Winner	Scoreline	Runner-up	Venue
2022	Odisha Juggernauts	46–45	Telugu Yoddhas	Shree Shiv Chhatrapati Sports Complex, Pune	6	Ramji Kashyap	[24]
2023–24	Gujarat Giants	31–26	Chennai Quick Guns	Jawaharlal Nehru Indoor Stadium, Cuttack		Ramji Kashyap	[25]

Team performance

Team	Titles	Runner-up	Playoffs	Seasons won	Seasons runner-up	Seasons played
Odisha Juggernauts	1	-	2	2022	-	2
Telugu Yoddhas	-	1		-	2022
Chennai Quick Guns					2023-24
Gujarat Giants	1	-		2023-24	-
Mumbai Khiladis	-		-	-
Rajasthan Warriors

League stage positions

Team	Season
	2022	2023-24
Gujarat Giants	1st	3rd
Odisha Juggernauts	2nd	2nd
Telugu Yoddhas	3rd	4th
Chennai Quick Guns	4th	1st
Mumbai Khiladis	5th	5th
Rajasthan Warriors	6th	6th

Awards

Season	Player of the Tournament	Rising Star of the Tournament [c]	Attacker of the Tournament	Defender of the Tournament	Ref
2022	Ramji Kashyap of Chennai Quick Guns	Madan of Chennai Quick Guns	Abhinandan Patil of Gujarat Giants	Deepak Madhav of Telugu Yoddhas	[24]
2023–24		Shubham Thorat of Gujarat Giants	Pratik Waikar of Telugu Yoddhas	Aditya Ganpule of Telugu Yoddhas	[25]

See also

• Kho Kho World Cup
• Sport in India
• Pro Kabaddi League
• World Chase Tag

References

1. "India To Host First-Ever Kho Kho World Cup: MS Tyagi Highlights The Sport's Growth". 14 November 2024. Retrieved 14 November 2024.
2. Laghate, Gaurav. "Ultimate Kho Kho franchises pick up 143 players from draft". The Economic Times. Retrieved 15 July 2022.
3. Khosla, Varuni (17 January 2023). "Ultimate Kho Kho S1 claims total reach of 41 million viewers from India". mint. Retrieved 18 January 2023.
4. "Ultimate Kho Kho — Welcome revival or departure from roots?". sportstar.thehindu.com. 17 September 2022. Retrieved 15 August 2023.
5. "Entering the big league, Amit Burman's Ultimate Kho Kho all set to launch this year". Moneycontrol. 15 March 2021. Retrieved 17 July 2022.
6. "Indigenous sport gets modern treatment as Kho Kho is the latest to try league format". The Indian Express. 15 August 2022. Retrieved 15 August 2022.
7. R, Gopalakrishnan (29 August 2022). ""Women's League in Pipeline": Ultimate Kho Kho CEO Tenzing Niyogi". sportskeeda.com. Retrieved 5 September 2022.
8. "'Kho Kho has affection of masses, needs no promotion'". The Indian Express. 17 December 2023. Retrieved 17 December 2023.
9. Baparnash, Tridib (16 March 2023). "Making efforts to have a NE team in Ultimate Kho Kho: Mittal". EastMojo. Retrieved 29 August 2023.
10. Bhardwaj, Rohit (8 September 2022). "After success of Ultimate Kho Kho Season 1, India's 'maati ka khel' on the trail of global recognition". NEWS9LIVE. Retrieved 21 October 2022.
11. "Ultimate Kho Kho becomes first Indian sports league to secure PE investment". Business Standard.
12. "General 4". International Kho Kho Federation. Archived from the original on 7 October 2024. Retrieved 2 October 2024.
13. "Ultimate Kho Kho: Shorter duration, more points for acrobatic tags among new rules for the league". Scroll.in. 17 May 2019. Retrieved 17 July 2022.
14. Understanding The Game Play - KHO-KHO , retrieved 15 July 2022
15. "Ultimate Kho Kho Rules | Update New rules of Kho Kho". KHO KHO. Retrieved 16 July 2022.
16. Chhabria, Vinay. "Scoring, fouls & more - All the rules of Kho Kho you need to know before Ultimate Kho Kho 2022". sportskeeda.com. Retrieved 14 August 2022.
17. "Ultimate Kho Kho: Squads, format, fixtures – all you need to know about latest Indian sports league". Scroll.in. 14 August 2022. Retrieved 14 August 2022.
18. Sharma, Avinash (14 August 2022). "Ultimate Kho Kho 2022: Revamped format, changed mat dimensions, tickets; all you need to know". MyKhel. Retrieved 14 August 2022.
19. Upadhyay, Maanas (24 January 2024). ""If I'm worried about whether he got two or three points, then I'll miss out on that"- UKK CEO Tenzing Niyogi divulges reason for scoring rule changes". www.sportskeeda.com. Retrieved 7 February 2024.
20. "rules-season1.pdf". Google Docs. Retrieved 14 August 2022.
21. "Ultimate Kho Kho revolutionises traditional sport: Expanding, innovating and inspiring". Sakshi Post. 24 December 2023. Retrieved 24 December 2023.
22. "Ultimate Kho Kho Season 2: All your FAQs answered". Ultimate Kho Kho. 2023. Retrieved 24 December 2023.
23. "Ultimate Kho Kho League: 143 Players Picked In Season One Draft | Other Sports News". NDTVSports.com. Retrieved 15 July 2022.
24. "A Glance at the Season Award Winners of Ultimate Kho Kho Season 1". Ultimate Kho Kho. Retrieved 7 October 2022.
25. "Meet the Kings of Ultimate Kho Kho Season 2". Ultimate Kho Kho. 19 January 2024. Retrieved 21 January 2024.

1. Certain other dimensions of the playing field are changed as well. For example, the boxes which the sitting chasers squat in have been turned into 40cm squares.
2. The attacking team can select any of its on-court players to be the active attacker at the start of the new batch. A kho does not need to be given by the attacker after the break.
3. Known in Season 1 as the Young Player of the Tournament