MUMBAI: The Volleyball Federation of India (VFI) Wednesday announced a ten-year partnership with sports marketing and branding firm Baseline Ventures to promote and build Indian volleyball.
The agreement was concluded on the sidelines of the 66th Senior National Volleyball Nationals at Calicut with the core committee of the VFI in attendance.
The first project on the anvil for the partnership is the Professional Indian Volleyball League with franchises in major cities to be held in October. The league for the first time in India will have franchises owning both Men & Women teams.
The bid documents for the franchises for the new League is expected to be released by the middle of April
Speaking on the occasion, VFI general secretary Ramavtar Singh Jakhar said: “Volleyball is an extremely popular sport around the country, and India has always been competitive at the Asian level. We feel it is the right time to partner with professionals to take the game to the next level in India and continue to grow its appeal, specially with the new generation.”
Baseline Ventures managing director Tuhin Mishra added: “We have been working with the top sporting brands including FIFA and the ATP for sponsorship and marketing and have been evaluating all Indian sports for opportunities. As the sixth largest sport in the world, with around 900 million people playing globally, volleyball has huge potential in India. We see this as an opportunity to really grow volleyball and help realize its value.”
All well and good except that there is a rival claimant for commercial rights for volleyball in India. Atul Pande, MD of rival sports marketing firm Sportzlive and Entertainment Pvt Ltd, asserts that his organisation has a contract signed with the VFI on 2nd January 2016 that is still valid.
Pande told SportzPower that Sportzlive had even issued a bank guarantee of Rs 105.7 million for the rights to launch a volleyball league having men and women teams. For the record, Sportzlive recovered Rs 90 million of the amount in the interim as the league failed to take off.
It is well documented that the reason for the league’s no show was the power struggle in the VFI at the time. Wednesday’s announcement appears to indicate that at least as far as the VFI is concerned, the factions have come to some agreement.
How Sportzlive reacts to the latest development remains to be seen, but there is no denying that a franchise based volleyball league has massive potential in the Indian market and the sooner it gets off the ground the better it is for the game’s stakeholders, primarily its professional players.
