MUMBAI: The first leg of RuPay Pro Volleyball League (PVL) which happened in Kochi witnessed 14.3 million viewers sample the league on Sony Pictures Network (SPN) India.   

The league, which is an initiative of Baseline Ventures and the Volleyball Federation of India, began on 2 February in Kochi and will move to Chennai for the second leg starting on 16 February.

In its first week itself, SPN India’s digital platform SonyLIV got close to 1 million viewers watching the matches. “The impressive viewership numbers are validation of our efforts for a sport like volleyball which is so spectator-friendly. The on-ground response we got in Kochi was also very heartening. The early signs are encouraging and will push us to work harder,” RuPay PVL CEO Joy Bhattacharjya said.

The first seven matches clocked an average reach of 2.9 million. The game that garnered the highest rating was when Calicut Heroes played U Mumba Volley on 5 February with 328,000 impressions (number of viewers at any given point of time during the match). On the other hand, per match impressions were at 237,000 and average time spent per viewer per match stood at 11 minutes.

SPN India chief revenue officer distribution and head - sports business Rajesh Kaul said, “The response from the inaugural PVL is in line with our expectations. Audience engagement has been very high both on-screen and on-ground as well, with over 14 million viewers across India tuning into Sony SIX and Sony TEN 3 channels to watch RuPay PVL so far. While the sport has always had a strong following in the South, it is exciting to see markets like Assam. West Bengal, Gujarat and Haryana also showing great interest. This is a clear indication of the widening interest amongst audiences for multi-sports, which has been a key focus area for us to build the sporting environment in the country.”

Even the volleyball fantasy game built by MyTeam11 has seen a consistent rise in daily users leading the company to double to prize pool from Rs 50 thousand to Rs 1 lakh. From the initial days of the league with 15 thousand gaming participants, the platform has now touched over 49,000 fans.

The second leg of the RuPay PVL starts from February 16 2019 in Chennai at the Jawaharlal Nehru Indoor Stadium where Chennai Spartans will take on U Mumba Volley.