BENGALURU: Ankit Nagori, founder of Curefoods and first time investor in a sports franchise – Bengaluru Torpedoes of Prime Volleyball League – explains the reasons behind the acquisition and his plans for the future.
“The interest is two-fold. A larger interest is, obviously, from a sports point of view. Apart from IPL, the leagues in other sports, such as kabaddi, are also doing well. What is missing, though, is an idea to create a sustainable league,” Nagori opines.
“A lot of these leagues start and then they stop after a few years. We have seen it across various sports,” he noted.
PVL has come up with a unique concept of giving a share in the league to all the team owners, which Nagori describes as a ‘beautiful model’.
“What it does is that it keeps the interests of the team owners for a very long time. All the incentives are aligned. Hence, it becomes very sustainable, and that is our aim,” he explained.
But why volleyball? “The quality of volleyball in this league is promised to be one of the best across the world. It will be the top quality content on TV. Along with top-class players and top-class coaches, the owners’ group is also top-tier across the board. The format in which it has been envisioned has made it very compelling,” Nagori argues.
With a long-term vision in mind, Bengaluru Torpedoes have also started working on developing a grassroots system in the city to nurture and grow fresh talent.
Vishal Jaison, co-owner, gave a detailed explanation as to how the grassroots system in place will function and also revealed future plans.
“Volleyball is a deeply entrenched sport, not just in Karnataka, but all across India. It is a very popular sport. The best feature of the sport is that it is a low inventory sport. All you need is a ball and a net, you are good to go,” he said.
“So, keeping these things in mind, Bengaluru Torpedoes have partnered with Simply Sports Foundation, and to start off our grassroots program, we are partnering with an academy in Bengaluru. We held selections at the grassroots level for both men and women U-16 players and selected 25 boys and 10 girls for this program. We will be supporting them with training, nutrition, technical aspects, and everything around the volleyball ecosystem for the next year. And this is just the start in Bengaluru. The idea is to spread these grassroots systems across various parts of the state,” Jaison added.
Yashwanth Biyyala, co-owner, further explained how the grassroots system will help the franchise in creating a pyramid-like structure and help in developing a sustainable league.
“A league takes off only when you have the right set of players and you look at the players for the next few years. When players are nurtured, you bring in the new set of players, and the league sustains for a longer period of time. With our partnership with Simply Sports Foundation, which truly believes in the power of the grassroots system, we are able to establish an academy even before the league takes off,” he explained.
“We have selected a bunch of good kids who really need the required training and have the capability under the guidance of our coach Mr. Lakshminarayana. He is driving this initiative from a technical point of view to foresee what guidance can be given to the players to go to the next level,” he signs off.
