Sports in India

What sports are played in India?

The Indian Olympic Association's own membership list names 35 national sports federations and 28 state Olympic associations.^[2] The federations cover athletics, field hockey, badminton, shooting, wrestling, boxing, weightlifting, archery, table tennis, football, kabaddi, golf, squash, rowing, rugby and swimming, with winter bodies for ice hockey, ice skating, skiing and snowboarding and luge. No cricket body appears on it: the Board of Control for Cricket in India sits outside the Olympic federation structure.

The government's own competition calendar gives a second count. The Khelo India Youth Games held from 4 to 15 May 2025 across Patna, Rajgir, Bhagalpur, Gaya, Begusarai and New Delhi carried 27 medal sports plus esports as a demonstration event, with more than 6,000 athletes among over 10,000 participants.^[7] The Khelo India University Games staged in seven Rajasthan cities from 24 November to 5 December 2025 carried 23 medal sports plus kho-kho as a demonstration event and more than 5,000 athletes, adding beach volleyball, canoeing and kayaking and cycling to the programme.^[8]

Three sports carry salaried national league competition: cricket, football and kabaddi.

What is the most popular spectator sport in India?

Of the Indian competitions whose organisers publish audience figures, cricket's Indian Premier League reports the largest. JioStar, which holds the broadcast and streaming rights, reported on 15 June 2026 that the 2026 TATA IPL season reached more than 1.2 billion viewers across television and digital, a rise of 7 per cent year on year, with 870 billion minutes of watch time, 25 billion digital video views and more than 400 million viewers for the final.^[10] Those are the rights-holder's own figures; no independent measurement body is named as their source, and no audited alternative could be retrieved.

Two other leagues publish figures on a different order of magnitude. Mashal Sports, which runs the Pro Kabaddi League, reported with its analytics partner on 1 June 2026 that season 12 generated 936 million video views across platforms, a 56 per cent rise on season 11, including 695 million on Instagram.^[13] These are social-video counts, not broadcast reach. The Indian Super League's 2025-26 football season, which began on 14 February 2026, ran 91 matches among 14 clubs at 11 stadiums across ten states.^[11]

How is sport organised in India?

The framework is now statutory. The National Sports Governance Act, 2025 (Act No. 25 of 2025) received assent on 18 August 2025, and the Ministry of Youth Affairs and Sports notified on 31 December 2025 that the provisions on national sports bodies, the National Sports Board and the constitution of the National Sports Tribunal would commence on 1 January 2026.^[3][4] The Board grants recognition to sports organisations as national sports bodies; the Tribunal has a chairperson and two members, the chairperson being a current or former judge of the Supreme Court or a High Court; and a National Sports Election Panel of retired election officials oversees federation elections.^[3]

The Act's treatment of the courts is the unusual part and is worth quoting. It provides that “No civil court shall have jurisdiction to entertain any suit or proceeding in respect of any matter on which the Tribunal is empowered under this Act to determine.” It also requires each designated sport's national federation to “have an international recognition and affiliation of the concerned international sports governing body”, unless no such body exists.^[3] Before that regime took effect, disputes ran through the ordinary courts: the Supreme Court of India directed the All India Football Federation not to negotiate new master-rights terms with the Indian Super League's commercial partner pending its ruling on the federation's draft constitution, reported on 11 July 2025 as the reason the 2025-26 season was put on hold.^[12]

The Sports Authority of India was set up on 25 January 1984 under Resolution No. 1-1/83/SAI as a society registered under the Societies Registration Act, 1860, reporting to the Department of Sports, with what it describes as the “twin objectives of promoting sports and achieving sporting excellence”.^[5] The Ministry issues recognition orders federation by federation; its 2026 list, dated 30 April 2026, records the Volleyball Federation of India's interim body as suspended, the Bowling Federation of India recognised for lawn bowls, and government recognition restored to the Amateur Baseball Federation of India.^[6] The Indian Olympic Association is the national Olympic committee recognised by the IOC.^[2]

What are the main domestic leagues and competitions?

Cricket's domestic programme is the largest by volume. The Board of Control for Cricket in India's ready reckoner for the 2026-27 season lists 38 tournaments across men's, women's and age-group cricket. The Ranji Trophy, the first-class championship, runs from 11 October 2026 to 4 March 2027 with a 32-team Elite group and a six-team Plate group; the Duleep Trophy, Irani Cup, Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy (Twenty20) and Vijay Hazare Trophy (one-day) sit alongside it, with 31-team Senior Women's Twenty20 and One Day Trophies and age-group competitions for both men and women.^[14] The Indian Premier League is the franchise Twenty20 competition; JioStar reported that Royal Challengers Bengaluru won a second consecutive title in 2026.^[10]

Football's top division was restructured across 2025 and 2026. Football Sports Development Limited told clubs on 11 July 2025 that the 2025-26 Indian Super League season was on hold because its master rights agreement with the All India Football Federation expired on 8 December 2025 and renewal was unresolved.^[12] The season eventually opened on 14 February 2026 in Kolkata and Goa: 14 clubs, 91 matches in a single-leg round robin, the league operated by the federation itself for the first time, and relegation introduced for the first time, the bottom club dropping to the Indian Football League.^[11]

Kabaddi's professional competition is the Pro Kabaddi League, run by Mashal Sports.^[13] India also competes in the Kabaddi World Cup, the Asian Games, the Commonwealth Games and the South Asian Games.

How has India performed at the Olympic Games?

The figures here follow Olympedia. Its medals-by-Games table for India, restricted to the rows it types as Olympic Games, sums to 41 medals: 10 gold, 10 silver and 21 bronze. Its medals-by-sport table sums to the same 41 and the same 10-10-21 split, so the two agree and the breakdown can be published. Olympedia's narrative header on the same page states that “Twelve of India's 35 medals in the Olympics have been won by its hockey (field) team, with eight of its ten golds coming in the sport” — which reconciles with neither table, both giving 13 hockey medals out of 41. The tables are what is used here.^[1]

Field hockey is the largest single component: 8 gold, 1 silver and 4 bronze, the golds falling at the 1928, 1932, 1936, 1948, 1952, 1956, 1964 and 1980 Games. Wrestling accounts for 8 medals (2 silver, 6 bronze) and shooting for 7 (1 gold, 2 silver, 4 bronze), the two largest individual-sport totals; athletics for 4 (1 gold, 3 silver), badminton for 3, boxing for 3 bronze, weightlifting for 2 and tennis for 1. The richest single Games on the table is Tokyo 2020 with seven medals, then London 2012 and Paris 2024 with six each.^[1]

Two filing points matter. Olympedia carries pre-independence entries under the same IND page without separating them: the two athletics silvers it credits to India at the 1900 Games, and the hockey titles of 1928, 1932 and 1936, were all won before independence in 1947. Olympedia also lists Youth Olympic Games rows in the same tables — 13 medals in 2018, 8 in 2010, 2 in 2014 — which it types separately and which are excluded above. Its medal tables for India record medals at the Summer Games only.^[1]

Which athletes and teams are internationally recognised?

In field hockey, the India men's team won the Olympic tournament eight times, the last at the 1980 Games.^[1] India won the men's FIH Hockey World Cup in 1975, its only title in that competition.^[20] In athletics, Neeraj Chopra won the javelin throw at the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games, the first Indian athletics gold on Olympedia's table,^[1] and the javelin at the 2023 World Athletics Championships on 27 August 2023 with 88.17 metres.^[24] In shooting, Abhinav Bindra won gold at the 2008 Games.^[1]

In cricket, India won the men's ICC Men's T20 World Cup in 2007, 2024 and 2026; the 2026 final, played at Ahmedabad on 8 March 2026, was won by 96 runs against New Zealand, India scoring 255 for 5 with Sanju Samson making 89.^[15][16] India's women's team won the ICC Women's Cricket World Cup for the first time on 2 November 2025 at the Dr DY Patil Sports Academy in Navi Mumbai, beating South Africa by 52 runs after Deepti Sharma took 5 for 39.^[17]

In chess, Gukesh Dommaraju won the 2024 FIDE World Chess Championship match against Ding Liren at Resorts World Sentosa in Singapore, the match concluding on 13 December 2024.^[25] Three months earlier India had won both the open and the women's sections of the 45th Chess Olympiad, the open team finishing on 21 points and the women's team on 19, each clinching its title with a 3½-½ final-round win.^[26]

What major international competitions has India hosted?

New Delhi staged the first Asian Games in 1951, with six sports and eleven nations taking part,^[23] and hosted them again in 1982, the facilities built for that edition passing to the Sports Authority of India.^[5] The XIX Commonwealth Games were held in New Delhi from 3 to 14 October 2010, with 71 Commonwealth Games Associations, 6,572 athletes and team officials, and 17 sports plus four para sports.^[22]

India staged the FIH Hockey World Cup at Bhubaneswar in 2018 and again in 2023 at Bhubaneswar and Rourkela, the 2023 edition won by Germany; those are the editions for which the International Hockey Federation's own archive records the host.^[20] In cricket, India hosted the 2025 ICC Women's Cricket World Cup, whose final was played at Navi Mumbai on 2 November 2025,^[17] and co-hosted the 2026 ICC Men's T20 World Cup with Sri Lanka, a 20-team tournament beginning on 7 February 2026 and ending with the final at Ahmedabad on 8 March 2026.^[19][15]

Two future assignments are on record. Commonwealth Sport's General Assembly, meeting in Glasgow on 26 November 2025 with delegates from 74 member nations and territories, confirmed Amdavad in India as host of the 2030 Centenary Commonwealth Games.^[21] India has not hosted an Olympic Games; the government's Khelo Bharat Niti 2025 policy states an aim of strategic positioning towards the 2036 Olympic Games.^[9]

What are India's main sporting rivalries?

The India–Pakistan cricket fixture is now played only in multilateral competition. The International Cricket Council confirmed on 19 December 2024 that India–Pakistan matches in ICC events through 2027 would be staged at neutral venues, an arrangement applied to the 2025 Champions Trophy, the 2025 ICC Women's Cricket World Cup and the 2026 Men's T20 World Cup.^[18] Under it the two sides met in Group A of the 2026 tournament on 15 February 2026 at the R. Premadasa Stadium in Colombo rather than in India.^[19] No head-to-head total published by either board or by the ICC could be retrieved, and none is asserted here.

Domestic football's oldest named fixture is the Kolkata Derby between Mohun Bagan and East Bengal, first played on 28 May 1925 in the Calcutta Football League. A record current to 30 October 2025 gives 406 meetings, with 144 won by East Bengal, 134 by Mohun Bagan and 128 drawn; that count rests on a single secondary compilation rather than on a federation's own register, and is reported here on that basis.^[31]

The fixture recurs in other sports. Pakistan won the 1982 FIH Hockey World Cup and India won the 1975 edition.^[20] In athletics, Neeraj Chopra of India and Arshad Nadeem of Pakistan finished first and second in the javelin at the 2023 World Athletics Championships.^[24]

What is the role of school and university sport?

The national policy links the two systems explicitly. Khelo Bharat Niti 2025, the government's sports policy, is framed around talent development, infrastructure, economic growth, inclusion, international performance and sporting careers, and states an aim of aligning with the National Education Policy 2020 by integrating sport into school curricula and physical education.^[9]

Two competition tiers carry that aim. The Khelo India Youth Games is the school-age national multi-sport meeting: the 2025 edition, from 4 to 15 May 2025 in five Bihar cities and New Delhi, carried 27 medal sports and a demonstration esports event, with more than 6,000 athletes among over 10,000 participants.^[7] The Khelo India University Games is the tertiary tier: the fifth edition, across seven Rajasthan cities from 24 November to 5 December 2025, carried 23 medal sports with kho-kho as a demonstration event and more than 5,000 athletes, the Association of Indian Universities being among the organising stakeholders alongside the national federations.^[8]

Individual sports run their own pathways inside that structure. The Board of Control for Cricket in India's 2026-27 calendar includes Under-16, Under-19 and Under-23 national tournaments for men and women and the four-team inter-university Vizzy Trophy, scheduled for 22 to 28 February 2027.^[14] The Sports Authority of India runs talent identification through regional centres and academic programmes in physical education.^[5]

Were any sports invented in India?

Kabaddi is the strongest claim, and it is a claim about codification with a date attached. The Amateur Kabaddi Federation of India states that “the origin of the game dates back to pre-historic times played in different forms”, and that “the first known framework of the rules of Kabaddi as an indigenous sport of India was prepared in Maharashtra in the year 1921”, revised in 1923 and applied at the All India Kabaddi Tournament that year. It dates the All India Kabaddi Federation to 1950, the senior national championship to 1952, and its own constitution as the Amateur Kabaddi Federation of India to 1972.^[27] Those are the federation's own statements, reported as such; 1921 is a date of codification, not of invention.

Chess is a case of ancestry rather than invention. The standard reference identifies chaturanga, whose name is a Sanskrit term for a battle formation mentioned in the Mahabharata, as flourishing in north-western India by the 7th century and as the earliest precursor of modern chess.^[30] The modern game's moves and rules were settled in Europe centuries later.

Two further sports have documented Indian stages in their development. Badminton was taken from India to England, where it was first played at the Badminton country estate of Henry Somerset, 9th Duke of Beaufort, about 1873; the codification and the name are English, the antecedent game Indian.^[28] Of polo, one of the oldest equestrian sports, the same reference states that the modern version was first played in the Indian state of Assam in the 19th century.^[29]