Why Abhishek Bachchan chose Jaipur Pink Panthers team: 'Aishwarya and I started dating there'
Abhishek shared Aishwarya, Aaradhya and a film role shaped Jaipur Pink Panthers
Back in 2014, going for Kabaddi, as a sports franchise owner was a pretty unconventional move. But for Abhishek Bachchan, buying into the Pro Kabaddi League was never purely about the business math — every detail carried a personal thread. He opened up about the whole story while chatting with PwC India chairperson Sanjeev Krishnan on the podcast Future Unplugged.
Why Jaipur, specifically?
Turns out, Jaipur is practically a chapter of his own love story. It's where he filmed portions of his very first movie, Refugee, and it's where his romance with Aishwarya Rai Bachchan first began. Naturally, when the moment came to pick a team, Jaipur felt like fate. In his own words: "I picked up the Jaipur team. Jaipur is where I shot a part of my first film. It was an auspicious thing to start something new. It was also a city where Aishwarya and I started dating, it has an emotional part."
Even the name has heart woven into it. "Pink" honoured his daughter's favorite colour at the time, while "Panther" nodded to Aishwarya's role in The Pink Panther 2 (2009). And the personal touches don't stop there — the team's actual panther mascot even sports blue-green eyes, matching his wife's. As he put it: "Pink because it was my daughter's favourite colour at that point of time and 'Pink Panther' was a film which Aishwarya made. If you see, our Pink Panther has blue-green eyes which are the same as my wife's. So there is a personal connect to everything about Jaipur Pink Panthers."
A sports portfolio
Jaipur Pink Panthers launched in 2014 as one of the eight founding franchises of the Pro Kabaddi League, with Abhishek at the helm as owner from day one.
And kabaddi was just the beginning. His sporting interests have since branched out — he's also linked to Chennaiyin FC in the Indian Super League, and he co-founded the European T20 Premier League, set to kick off in August 2026.
What's next on screen
Off the sports field, Abhishek's got a big-screen date coming up: he'll appear alongside Shah Rukh Khan in King, slated for a Christmas 2026 release, reportedly stepping into the role of the film's antagonist. The ensemble cast is stacked too, featuring Deepika Padukone, Jackie Shroff, Suhana Khan, Anil Kapoor, Arshad Warsi, and Raghav Juyal, among others.
