The new league, Prime Volleyball, will have a similar operating structure to NBA (National Basketball Association), Major League Soccer (MLS) and other US sporting leagues, where team owners are also stakeholders in the respective leagues.
“All the franchise owners will come on board as founding partners, we are looking at launching the league by end of this year,” Tuhin Mishra, co-founder and MD, Baseline Ventures, told ET.
The new structure will ensure more stable financial support and a smoother organisation, offering more value to franchises – both as team owners and investors – as well as incentivising long term associations.
As of now, three original franchise owners of Pro Volleyball — Thomas Muthoot of the Kochi Blue Spikers, Pravin Chaudhuri of the Ahmedabad Defenders and Safeer PT of the Calicut Heroes — have agreed to return as founder-franchises of the new league.
“We were happy with the quality of volleyball and the production values of the original event,” said Chaudhuri. “This new structure gives us the comfort to make long term investments in the sport as we also have a say in the successful running of the league.”
Muthoot added, ‘Kerala has always had a great volleyball culture and we are delighted to continue our association with the sport.”
Safeer PT said he was happy about the opportunities that would be available to volleyball players.
Pro Volleyball had a successful debut season in February 2019 with six franchises.
However, soon after the Volleyball Federation of India (VFI) and Baseline got embroiled in a dispute and the federation terminated the 10-year contract with Baseline, alleging breach of trust.
In November last year, a Madras high court-appointed arbitrator found the termination wrongful and awarded Rs 4.5 crore to Baseline as compensation for terminating its contract.
VFI, which is seeing in-fighting with two different factions filing court cases against each other, is yet to pay the damages.
Joy Bhattacharjya, CEO of the new league, said, “We’ve already seen the quality of Indian and international talent available. What owners and potential sponsors needed was a stable organisation, free of interference, which could function optimally and attract investments from franchises and sponsors. With franchises now being equal partners, we are now in a position to offer that stability and efficiency of operation.”
Baseline will be working with the other co-founders to firm up the remaining franchises, sponsors and media partners over the next few months.
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