NEW DELHI: Prime Volleyball League (PVL), the rebadged Pro Volleyball League (for legal reasons), is primed to hold its players’ auction in Kochi on Tuesday.
The auction has over 400 players up for grabs. Each of the seven franchises Calicut Heroes, Kochi Blue Spikers, Ahmedabad Defenders, Hyderabad Black Hawks, Chennai Blitz, Bengaluru Torpedoes and the Kolkata Thunderbolts – can select a total of 14 players for their respective squads, which would include 12 Indian and 2 international players.
The biggest Indian volleyball stars, which include Ashwal Rai, Ajithlal C, Akhin GS, Deepesh Kumar Sinha, Jerome Vinith, Karthik A, Naveen Raja Jacob and Vinit Kumar have been slotted in the Platinum Category, while the Gold, Silver and Bronze Categories will feature 33, 141 and 205 players respectively. A total of 23 players will also go under the hammer in the U-21 Category. A host of international stars, which include David Lee (USA) and Luis Antonio Arias Guzman (Venezuela), will feature in the Prime Volleyball League International Player Draft during the auction on Tuesday.
PVL also announced the names of head coaches of each of the franchises for the upcoming season next year – Ahmedabad Defenders – Sajjad Hussain & S Dakshinamoorthy, Bengaluru Torpedoes – KR Lakshminarayana, Calicut Heroes – Kishor Kumar, Chennai Blitz – Chander Singh, Hyderabad Black Hawks – Ruben Wolochin, Kochi Blue Spikers – Dr. M.H. Kumara and Kolkata Thunderbolts – Sunny Joseph.
PVL will be telecast on the Sony Pictures Network and is exclusively marketed by Baseline Ventures. As was the case with PVL’s earlier avatar Pro Volleyball League, Indian card payment network RuPay is title sponsor, while fantasy games leaders A23 have signed on as “Powered By” sponsors in a multi-year deal.
PVL will consist of 24 games and the League will shortly be announcing the schedule for the coming season of action.
