Pro Volleyball League (PVL) was a professional men's

indoor volleyball Volleyball is a team sport in which two teams of six players are separated by a net. Each team tries to score points by grounding a ball on the other team's court under organized rules. It has been a part of the official program of the Summ ...

league in India. The inaugural season took place in February 2019. The league was an initiative between the Volleyball Federation of India, Head Digital Works Pvt. Ltd. an
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The inaugural season of the league was won by Chennai Spartans. Later in the year 2022 the league was rebranded as Prime Volleyball League.

Structure

The Pro Volleyball League encompassed six franchises, representing cities across

India India, officially the Republic of India, is a country in South Asia. It is the List of countries and dependencies by area, seventh-largest country by area; the List of countries by population (United Nations), most populous country since ...

. All teams filed tenders with

Baseline Ventures Baseline Ventures is a venture capital investment firm that focuses on seed money, seed and growth-stage investments in technology companies. The company was the first seed investor in Instagram, an early investor of Twitter and has been called " ...

, listing the two cities they would be interested in bidding for. The teams were officially announced at a press conference in

Mumbai Mumbai ( ; ), also known as Bombay ( ; its official name until 1995), is the capital city of the Indian state of Maharashtra. Mumbai is the financial capital and the most populous city proper of India with an estimated population of 12 ...

Teams

Format

Each team will have 12 players with a maximum of two reserve players. All teams have a salary purse of

lakh A lakh (; abbreviated L; sometimes written lac) is a unit in the Indian numbering system equal to one hundred thousand (100,000; scientific notation: 105). In the Indian 2, 2, 3 convention of digit grouping, it is written as 1,00,000. F ...

s from which they pick their team via an auction and player draft. Players are divided into five categories – International Icons, Indian Icons, Sr. Indian Internationals, Nationals, and U-21 players. The International Icon players are picked through a draft process while the Indian players are chosen via an auction.

Ranjit Singh Ranjit Singh (13 November 1780 – 27 June 1839) was the founder and first maharaja of the Sikh Empire, in the northwest Indian subcontinent, ruling from 1801 until his death in 1839. Born to Maha Singh, the leader of the Sukerchakia M ...

of Punjab emerged as the top pick in Season 1. Ahmedabad Defenders shelled out lakhs for him at the auction. There were a total of 18 matches in Season 1. Each team plays against each other in a round-robin format with the top 4 teams moving into the Semi-Finals. In Season 1, matches were held in

Kochi Kochi ( , ), List of renamed Indian cities and states#Kerala, formerly known as Cochin ( ), is a major port city along the Malabar Coast of India bordering the Laccadive Sea. It is part of the Ernakulam district, district of Ernakulam in the ...

at the Rajiv Gandhi Indoor Stadium and in

Chennai Chennai, also known as Madras (List of renamed places in India#Tamil Nadu, its official name until 1996), is the capital city, capital and List of cities in Tamil Nadu by population, largest city of Tamil Nadu, the southernmost states and ...

at the Jawaharlal Nehru Stadium.

Season 1

The first season started on 2 February 2019 and concluded on 22 February 2019.

Fixtures

References