By Admin 
This weekend, the curtains came down on the fourth season of the Prime Volleyball League, with Bengaluru Torpedoes clinching its maiden title. In a country teeming with stuttering, struggling leagues, PVL has slowly but surely established itself as one of the more successful leagues.
It has not been a smooth ride, with the league undergoing significant rebranding, navigating legal troubles with the national volleyball federation, and overcoming numerous other issues.
Unlike the Indian Premier League or the Pro Kabaddi League, where the bandwagon travels across the country, PVL this year decided to host the entire season in Hyderabad. In a conversation with The Hindu, Joy Bhattacharjya, CEO of PVL, and Tuhin Mishra, managing director and co-founder of Baseline Ventures, one of PVL’s co-promoters, explained the reasons behind it, gave their thoughts on PVL’s possible foray into the women’s ecosystem, explained why the focus remains more on viewership than on-ground attendance, and more.
Excerpts:
This year, the entire season was held in Hyderabad. What prompted that move?
Joy: There are two or three factors that we looked at. One is the cost, hosting it in one city versus moving around a lot. Last year, we did the league in Chennai. Hyderabad is a great base for us. It so happens that a lot of our teams have roots here as well in Hyderabad.
Rather than moving around a lot, we decided to focus on giving Hyderabad a great experience and using the money saved from moving around to really bolster the presence, both on television on Sony and on OTT, which is YouTube, with whom we forged a global partnership.
It was a conscious decision; the idea was to utilise our resources best.
How did Hyderabad get picked? Was it a unanimous choice, or were other cities in the fray?
Joy: Our franchises are very strong stakeholders in our decision-making process. We allowed them to put forward their choices, and they sat in a committee with us and decided on the venue.
That was a fantastic process. Kolkata had some advantages, and Kochi had some too. But as it turned out, they all agreed that Hyderabad was the best city.
Tuhin: We have seen a lot of support coming from the state governments. Last year, when we had the league in Chennai, the Tamil Nadu state government came forward and supported us a lot. This year, when we decided on Hyderabad, the Telangana government came forward to help us with organising this league.
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This is the third time the league has taken place in Hyderabad. Did the familiarity with the city play any part in your final decision?
Tuhin: For sure. Also, the Gachibowli indoor stadium is probably one of the best indoor stadiums in the country. When we were deciding on various factors, one was also the facilities that the stadium provides us.
What are the pros and cons of having a league across different cities versus in one city? And is the one-city format the way to go from now on?
Tuhin: Definitely [it is], when a league is just growing. A lot also boils down to economics. To give you a case in point, every time you add a city to the league, you are almost adding anywhere between three to four crores to the cost. You would rather save that money and probably use it in marketing or for other purposes in the development of the sport, rather than trying to increase the number of cities for the heck of it.
We are trying to reach people on a TV and OTT basis. On the ground level, we are reaching out to say 3,000 to 4,000 people every day. But on a television level, cumulative viewership [in season 3] was close to 200 million in India. Our aim is more at a television and OTT levels, and that’s why one of the partnerships we did this year was with YouTube. We want to democratise the way people are watching the sport.
Do you ever get feedback, good or bad, from the larger volleyball community about PVL?
Joy: We do what is essentially the T20 of volleyball. We do 15-point sets and we do super points. Instead of looking down on this, FIVB (International Volleyball Federation) is actually very interested in what we are doing. They say, ‘Look, you have a new market, you can try these new things, and we can grow from your experience of what works and what doesn’t work.’
In fact, last year, we got messages from the United States that they had started using the super point system in their varsity games, because it adds to the excitement of the sport. It absolutely gives us more and more belief in what we are doing.
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Do you have any plans to expand PVL into the women’s ecosystem?
Joy: In our very first season, when it was called the Pro Volleyball League in 2019, we had an exhibition women’s match, and we got mixed results.
We are really keen to do it because women’s volleyball is very big in Thailand, Japan and other parts of Asia. Women’s volleyball is one of the fastest-growing sports in America. A couple of years ago, the University of Nebraska had a women’s volleyball game where 90,000 people came to see it.
Our problem is that it is a bit of a chicken-and-egg issue. We need a base of at least 45-50 really decent players at the same level to be able to make a league. If we start something and we don’t get good and even quality, we will just send the sport back another 10 years. We want to be very careful and cognisant of when we want to go after women’s volleyball.
PVL and its teams have been putting in some effort at the grassroots level to develop the sport. But, in general, do you think the country is bursting with leagues while there is little development at the grassroots level, which, in the end, hinders their growth?
Joy: That is a problem, to a certain extent. We don’t have too many leagues, actually. Our problem in India is that Indian sport has no middle class. Right at the top, there is an apex league. There is Khelo India happening at the bottom, and in the middle, there is nothing.
That is not the case in other countries. Take America and the NBA. There is the G-League below it and so on. There are 15-level strata of sport where you can keep playing and still be a part of the system. India doesn’t have that. We don’t even have proper college sports.
The big issue is actually building the middle class of Indian sport. Because if you don’t, this pipeline is going to get choked. More has to come out of the pipeline for you to be able to perform.
PVL has grown since its inaugural season. When you look back, what are some of the problems, big or small, that you have overcome?
Joy: The biggest problem has been solved by Tuhin, and I cannot take credit for it, which is the whole thing with the national federation being there or not being there.
One of the great issues is how to remain a legitimate body. We take great pride in the relationship that we have built with the international federation, because that is the single biggest issue whenever you are doing things. What gives you the right to do it?
The international federation recognises what we have done and has come in partnership with us. And that has been primarily Tuhin’s doing.
Tuhin: One big factor for us has been the strength, unity, and faith that the players have shown in us. When we did the Pro Volleyball League and then were planning to do the Prime Volleyball League, almost 95% of the players came forward and said, ‘To hell with anyone who is going to try and stop us.’ Almost 95% of the players came forward, despite being threatened that if they played in our league, they would not be allowed to play for India and so on.
That became the backbone of our league. Slowly, even the remaining 5% who did not join us because they were scared of what was going to happen to them also joined us.
Joy: There is a great story. In year one, we used to say that we are the only league that, when it announces its dates, announces two dates together. Because when we announced the dates of our league, the national federation at that point in time would announce the nationals exactly at the same time. We used to joke that as soon as we announced our dates, every other date would follow.
While several leagues manage to get good viewership on TV and online, it remains a struggle to fill stadiums with fans. Where do you stand on this issue?
Tuhin: For us, the stakes on the ground, in terms of people coming to watch the matches, are not that high, because we are not dealing in cricket. If I were managing a capacity of say 40,000 to 50,000 seats and I am only having 5,000 people who are filling the stadium, that is a huge loss.
Here, the stadiums are 3,000 to 4,000 capacity. Yes, we would love to have a jam-packed stadium every single match. That’s a very idealistic view. When you are trying to sustain a league over three or four weeks, you might not have 100% attendance every day. In our current growth phase, the goal is more viewership than on-ground attendance.
Joy: We need enough on-ground fans for the players to feel enthusiastic. Other than that, the bigger challenge is the larger picture. We would like to fill it enough so the players feel they are playing for something. And that we managed to do.
We also designed the stadium carefully. One of the problems in India, say with football, is that you are very far away from the action. Here in volleyball, you are sitting right there. You feel the action in front of you.
Tuhin: Season one, we started with seven teams. And every season since then, we have added one team. We got in two owners over the last three years who came on board only because they had come and seen the matches in person.
They realised the kind of energy and atmosphere in the stadium. After that, they decided that they were willing to invest and come on board. That’s probably the biggest validation that can happen for us.
The ownership structure that PVL has, where franchise owners are also stakeholders in the league’s holding company, is that the blueprint for leagues going forward?
Tuhin: 200% it is, for any league in this country that is a non-cricket league. I think this is the blueprint. Unless you don’t carry everyone along with you, you will just have an owner who will come for one season and will run away after getting his two minutes of fame on TV or OTT.
When you are actually sitting at the table, you are like a person who is on the board. You are invested, you want to ensure that you are not just bothered about your team’s success but also about the league’s.