Sports leagues affected by Covid-19 disruptions are making a comeback and one such sporting tournament is Ultimate Table Tennis (UTT) that had first launched in 2017 and the last season was in 2019 before the pandemic hit the league's operations.
After a three-year hiatus, the franchise-based league is set to begin in July this year. The league also conducted its first player draft on June 2.
Team owners, management and coaches secured their franchises, which include Puneri Paltan Table Tennis, Goa Challengers, U Mumba TT, Bengaluru Smashers, Chennai Lions and Dabang Delhi Table Tennis.
When it comes to players, the league has witnessed the emergence of star Indian talent such as Sathiyan Gnanasekaran, Manav Thakkar, Sutirtha Mukherjee and Manika Batra.
Brand interest
UTT has signed up sponsors, including DafaNews, Bisleri and Nivea among others. "For the first time, we have powered by title sponsors for the league. We are seeing a lot more interest for UTT this time because brands DafaNews and Bisleri were not in the picture at all. There are some more (sponsor deals) in the pipeline," Vita Dani, co-owner of UTT, told Moneycontrol.
She is expecting a 50 percent increase in the number of sponsors as well as sponsorship revenue during season 4 versus the last season.
She also said that non-cricket sports like table tennis are seeing more interest among sports viewing audiences.
"We had an average viewership of 20 million on TV for the initial three seasons and social media reach was close to 39 million. There is growing interest in the country for table tennis. Also, digital will give a further boost to UTT," she said.
On what will set season 4 apart from the league's previous seasons, Dani said that this time they are venturing into the metaverse.
UTT has partnered with Viacom18 and the matches will be broadcast on Sports18 and streamed on JioCinema and is scheduled to be played between July 13-30.