People of Vizag have not witnessed major sports events in the recent years, except the cricket ODI, and they should be thrilled to watch the Pro Kabaddi League matches set to take place at the Port Indoor Stadium from Saturday to August 19.
More importantly, it is the home town for the Telugu Titans, and this should make more people turn up at the venue on all the four nights. The event has attracted a lot of attention, thanks to Star Sports adding glitz to the venues and providing live telecast of matches being played in different cities.
First Dronacharya award winner in kabaddi and one of the key figures of the event E. Prasada Rao has pointed out that PKL is ranked number two after cricket as far as viewership rating is concerned. “In villages, particularly in North India, people are keeping aside television serials and watching only KPL live telecast,” he said at a press conference here on Thursday.
MLA and president of District Volleyball Association P.V.G.R. Naidu (Ganababu) found kabaddi fever sweeping the place.
“This event should be the starting point for the city to add more infrastructure and attract major events. The Port Indoor Stadium was built during the tenure of P.V.R.K. Prasad as VPT Chairman. Later, GVMC’s Swarna Bharati stadium was constructed. Both the venues hosted world junior men’s volleyball championship. But bigger stadia are needed,” Mr. Ganababu said.
“If National Games-2017 are shifted from Goa, Andhra Pradesh has already expressed its willingness to host the event. In such a scenario, most of the events of the National Games would be organised in Visakhapatnam as the city hosted some events of the Hyderabad National Games,” the MLA said.
This will help improve sports infrastructure in the city.
Telugu Titans’ franchisees — Srinivas Sriramineni, Nedurumalli Gautam Reddy (son of former Chief Minister N. Janardhana Reddy), and Mahesh — were successful in getting the matches shifted from Hyderabad to Visakhapatnam, and the VPT Chairman promised to extend support to the event.
VPT Sports Officer and former Olympian M.V. Manikyalu, GVMC Sports Director Y. Srinivasa Rao, ACP (traffic) L. Arjun, and Prasad Rao representing the franchisees were present.
Mr. Arjun said that spectators would have to park their vehicles on the road behind the Port Indoor Stadium (road leading to Kailaspuram) and enter the stadium through its back gate. Vehicles of players would enter the stadium through Gate No. 3 and entry for vehicles of VIPs would be through Gate No. 1.
