Volleyball World: How CVC Capital Partners woke sport’s sleeping giant
Volleyball World CEO Finn Taylor on how CVC Capital Partners has commercialised the sport, its successful D2C platform and ambitions to woo British fans.
Private equity in sport can provoke suspicion that it will be funds rather than fans who benefit most from the transaction, yet in volleyball there can be little doubt that it has delivered for the whole gamut of stakeholders.
CVC Capital Partners invested in the sport in 2021, spun off a new entity to manage its media and sponsorship rights – Volleyball World – and set about trying to commercialise a game that was mired in an amateur mentality.
The result has been booming TV deals, a new direct-to-consumer streaming service that has 1.5m members, award-winning digital engagement and a customer experience reimagined by one of the masterminds of Cirque du Soleil.
“For the first two or three years we spent a lot of time investing in the product, because the sport is immensely popular around the world, but it has largely been under capitalised,” Volleyball World CEO Finn Taylor tells City PM.
“We spent a lot of time trying to professionalise the product both from a live event perspective, which is my background, versus the broadcast perspective. We brought a lot of expertise in house, from TV production to sponsorship and broadcast sales.
“We invested in new floors. We invested in new technology to be able to improve the umpiring. We insourced the broadcast completely. We now broadcast about 3,500 matches a year on VBTV, which is our online digital platform.”
Why volleyball’s VBTV could shape Premflix
VBTV may be of particular interest at the headquarters of the Premier League, which is said to be considering experimenting with its own D2C platform – dubbed Premflix – in some countries.
Taylor says its value has been two-fold. It allows the sport to reach fans in any territory whether a broadcast deal is in place or not, and also gives Volleyball World greater leverage when selling its rights to media companies.
“The best example is Thailand. For many years we were getting $2m-3m a year for the rights, and overnight it went to $400,000 and there was no reason other than they were the only ones that bid for that year,” he says.
“We had zero leverage. So in the meantime, we grew volleyball in Thailand immensely. It turned out Thailand was our No1 country on VBTV. And it gave us leverage to say no. We went from $400,000 to $4m in one cycle, and now they’re getting 7-8m viewers in a country of 30m.”
Showcase targeted at Wembley and Copper Box
Volleyball World has “pretty much ticked all the boxes” it set out to when CVC invested, but there are itches still to be scratched in the North American and British markets as Taylor prepares to leave his post later this month.
The sport is popular at college level in the US, where staging high-profile showcase matches is helping to grow appetite at elite level. Similar moves are planned for the UK, with talks ongoing about games at top London venues.
“We’re looking to do it. We’ve been in discussions for a couple of years now, trying to bring events to Wembley or the Copper Box,” he says, citing the game’s popularity with sizeable migrant populations such as the Polish.
“We see it as fortunate that volleyball generates huge ethnic popularity around the world, no matter where you are. We can tap into that nationalism. It’s something that we’re having active discussions about, but right now we haven’t been able to get a deal done for sure.”