Inside PVL 2025: Joy Bhattacharjya and Tuhin Mishra on the league’s growth, strategy and the future of Indian volleyball

This weekend, the curtains got here down on the fourth season of the Prime Volleyball League, with Bengaluru Torpedoes clinching its maiden title. In a rustic teeming with stuttering, struggling leagues, PVL has slowly however certainly established itself as one of many extra profitable leagues.

It has not been a clean journey, with the league present process important rebranding, navigating authorized troubles with the nationwide volleyball federation, and overcoming quite a few different points.

In contrast to the Indian Premier League or the Professional Kabaddi League, the place the bandwagon travels throughout the nation, PVL this yr determined to host your complete season in Hyderabad. In a dialog with The Hindu, Pleasure Bhattacharjya, CEO of PVL, and Tuhin Mishra, managing director and co-founder of Baseline Ventures, one in all PVL’s co-promoters, defined the explanations behind it, gave their ideas on PVL’s doable foray into the ladies’s ecosystem, defined why the main focus stays extra on viewership than on-ground attendance, and extra.

Excerpts:

This yr, your complete season was held in Hyderabad. What prompted that transfer?

Pleasure: There are two or three components that we checked out. One is the fee, internet hosting it in a single metropolis versus transferring round loads. Final yr, we did the league in Chennai. Hyderabad is a superb base for us. It so occurs that a number of our groups have roots right here as nicely in Hyderabad.

Quite than transferring round loads, we determined to deal with giving Hyderabad an amazing expertise and utilizing the cash saved from transferring round to essentially bolster the presence, each on tv on Sony and on OTT, which is YouTube, with whom we cast a world partnership.

It was a aware resolution; the concept was to utilise our sources finest.

How did Hyderabad get picked? Was it a unanimous alternative, or had been different cities within the fray?

Pleasure: Our franchises are very robust stakeholders in our decision-making course of. We allowed them to place ahead their selections, and so they sat in a committee with us and selected the venue.

That was a implausible course of. Kolkata had some benefits, and Kochi had some too. However because it turned out, all of them agreed that Hyderabad was one of the best metropolis.

Tuhin: We have now seen a number of assist coming from the state governments. Final yr, once we had the league in Chennai, the Tamil Nadu state authorities got here ahead and supported us loads. This yr, once we selected Hyderabad, the Telangana authorities got here ahead to assist us with organising this league.

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That is the third time the league has taken place in Hyderabad. Did the familiarity with town play any half in your last resolution?

Tuhin: For positive. Additionally, the Gachibowli indoor stadium might be the most effective indoor stadiums within the nation. Once we had been deciding on varied components, one was additionally the services that the stadium gives us.

What are the professionals and cons of getting a league throughout totally different cities versus in a single metropolis? And is the one-city format the best way to go any longer?

Tuhin: Undoubtedly [it is], when a league is simply rising. Loads additionally boils right down to economics. To provide you a working example, each time you add a metropolis to the league, you might be virtually including anyplace between three to 4 crores to the fee. You’d moderately save that cash and possibly use it in advertising or for different functions within the improvement of the game, moderately than making an attempt to extend the variety of cities for the heck of it.

We try to achieve folks on a TV and OTT foundation. On the bottom stage, we’re reaching out to say 3,000 to 4,000 folks daily. However on a tv stage, cumulative viewership [in season 3] was near 200 million in India. Our purpose is extra at a tv and OTT ranges, and that’s why one of many partnerships we did this yr was with YouTube. We need to democratise the best way individuals are watching the game.

Do you ever get suggestions, good or dangerous, from the bigger volleyball neighborhood about PVL?

Pleasure: We do what is actually the T20 of volleyball. We do 15-point units and we do tremendous factors. As an alternative of wanting down on this, FIVB (Worldwide Volleyball Federation) is definitely very concerned with what we’re doing. They are saying, ‘Look, you could have a brand new market, you possibly can attempt these new issues, and we are able to develop out of your expertise of what works and what doesn’t work.’

The truth is, final yr, we acquired messages from the US that they’d began utilizing the tremendous level system of their varsity video games, as a result of it provides to the thrill of the game. It completely provides us increasingly perception in what we’re doing.

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Do you could have any plans to broaden PVL into the ladies’s ecosystem?

Pleasure: In our very first season, when it was known as the Professional Volleyball League in 2019, we had an exhibition ladies’s match, and we acquired combined outcomes.

We’re actually eager to do it as a result of ladies’s volleyball may be very large in Thailand, Japan and different elements of Asia. Ladies’s volleyball is without doubt one of the fastest-growing sports activities in America. A few years in the past, the College of Nebraska had a ladies’s volleyball sport the place 90,000 folks got here to see it.

Our drawback is that it’s a little bit of a chicken-and-egg situation. We’d like a base of a minimum of 45-50 actually respectable gamers on the similar stage to have the ability to make a league. If we begin one thing and we don’t get good and even high quality, we’ll simply ship the game again one other 10 years. We need to be very cautious and cognisant of once we need to go after ladies’s volleyball.

PVL and its groups have been placing in some effort on the grassroots stage to develop the game. However, on the whole, do you assume the nation is bursting with leagues whereas there may be little improvement on the grassroots stage, which, ultimately, hinders their progress?

Pleasure: That could be a drawback, to a sure extent. We don’t have too many leagues, truly. Our drawback in India is that Indian sport has no center class. Proper on the prime, there may be an apex league. There may be Khelo India occurring on the backside, and within the center, there may be nothing.

That isn’t the case in different international locations. Take America and the NBA. There may be the G-League under it and so forth. There are 15-level strata of sport the place you possibly can preserve taking part in and nonetheless be part of the system. India doesn’t have that. We don’t even have correct school sports activities.

The massive situation is definitely constructing the center class of Indian sport. As a result of in the event you don’t, this pipeline goes to get choked. Extra has to come back out of the pipeline for you to have the ability to carry out.

PVL has grown since its inaugural season. If you look again, what are among the issues, large or small, that you’ve overcome?

Pleasure: The largest drawback has been solved by Tuhin, and I can not take credit score for it, which is the entire thing with the nationwide federation being there or not being there.

One of many nice points is the best way to stay a authentic physique. We take nice delight within the relationship that we now have constructed with the worldwide federation, as a result of that’s the single greatest situation at any time when you might be doing issues. What provides you the suitable to do it?

The worldwide federation recognises what we now have accomplished and has are available in partnership with us. And that has been primarily Tuhin’s doing.

Tuhin: One large issue for us has been the energy, unity, and religion that the gamers have proven in us. Once we did the Professional Volleyball League after which had been planning on doing the Prime Volleyball League, virtually 95% of the gamers got here ahead and mentioned, ‘To hell with anybody who’s going to attempt to cease us.’ Virtually 95% of the gamers got here ahead, regardless of being threatened that in the event that they performed in our league, they might not be allowed to play for India and so forth.

That turned the spine of our league. Slowly, even the remaining 5% who didn’t be a part of us as a result of they had been fearful of what was going to occur to them additionally joined us.

Pleasure: There’s a nice story. In yr one, we used to say that we’re the one league that, when it pronounces its dates, pronounces two dates collectively. As a result of once we introduced the dates of our league, the nationwide federation at that time limit would announce the nationals precisely on the similar time. We used to joke that as quickly as we introduced our dates, each different date would comply with.

Whereas a number of leagues handle to get good viewership on TV and on-line, it stays a battle to fill stadiums with followers. The place do you stand on this situation?

Tuhin: For us, the stakes on the bottom, by way of folks coming to look at the matches, will not be that prime, as a result of we aren’t dealing in cricket. If I had been managing a capability of say 40,000 to 50,000 seats and I’m solely having 5,000 people who find themselves filling the stadium, that could be a big loss.

Right here, the stadiums are 3,000 to 4,000 capability. Sure, we’d like to have a jam-packed stadium each single match. That’s a really idealistic view. When you find yourself making an attempt to maintain a league over three or 4 weeks, you may not have 100% attendance daily. In our present progress part, the aim is extra viewership than on-ground attendance.

Pleasure: We’d like sufficient on-ground followers for the gamers to really feel enthusiastic. Apart from that, the larger problem is the bigger image. We wish to fill it sufficient so the gamers really feel they’re taking part in for one thing. And that we managed to do.

We additionally designed the stadium fastidiously. One of many issues in India, say with soccer, is that you’re very distant from the motion. Right here in volleyball, you might be sitting proper there. You’re feeling the motion in entrance of you.

Tuhin: Season one, we began with seven groups. And each season since then, we now have added one crew. We acquired in two house owners during the last three years who got here on board solely as a result of they’d come and seen the matches in individual.

They realised the form of power and ambiance within the stadium. After that, they determined that they had been keen to take a position and are available on board. That’s in all probability the most important validation that may occur for us.

The possession construction that PVL has, the place franchise house owners are additionally stakeholders within the league’s holding firm, is that the blueprint for leagues going ahead?

Tuhin: 200% it’s, for any league on this nation that could be a non-cricket league. I feel that is the blueprint. Until you don’t carry everybody together with you, you’ll simply have an proprietor who will come for one season and can run away after getting his two minutes of fame on TV or OTT.

When you find yourself truly sitting on the desk, you might be like an individual who’s on the board. You’re invested, you need to guarantee that you’re not simply bothered about your crew’s success but in addition concerning the league’s.