The second edition of RuPay Prime Volleyball League Powered by A23 will feature a new team, Mumbai Meteors. The team is owned by Sameer Nigam & Rahul Chari, co-founders of PhonePe, one of India’s leading digital payments and financial technology companies.

The addition of the Mumbai Meteors franchise takes the number of participating teams to eight for the 2023 season.

Abhijit Bhattacharya, former captain of the Indian men’s national volleyball team, has been announced as the general manager of the Mumbai Meteors ahead of RuPay Prime Volleyball League Powered by A23 Season 2.

Sameer Nigam, Co-founder and CEO of PhonePe, spoke of his excitement to be a part of the RuPay Prime Volleyball League Powered by A23 with Mumbai Meteors. "As a regular volleyball player myself, I have a great sense of how enthralling the sport can be,” Sameer said.

“And this league gives us a perfect opportunity to build this sport in a professional way to a world-beating level. I am excited about the opportunity,” he added.

“The Indian sports ecosystem is an exciting place with a lot of room for development, especially in the non-cricket space,” said Rahul Chari, Co-founder and CTO of PhonePe. “The RuPay Prime Volleyball League Powered by A23 seems a great opportunity to work and contribute in this space,” he added.

In the Season 2 Player Auction held in October 2022, the Meteors acquired Brandon Greenway (attacker) from the USA and Cuba’s Hiroshi Centelles (attacker) in the International Player Draft.

Among the Indian recruits, the top buys for Mumbai Meteors were Karthik A (middle blocker), Amit Gulia (attacker) and Hardeep Singh (attacker).

The much-awaited second edition of RuPay Prime Volleyball League Powered by A23 will commence on February 4, 2023 and it will be interesting how the Meteors fare in their debut season.


Mumbai Meteors squad for PVL Season 2:

Brandon Greenway (I), Hiroshi Centelles (I), Anu James, Shameem, Aravindhan S, Karthik A, Hardeep Singh, Amit Gulia, Rohith P, Ratheesh C K, Jithin N, Abdul Raheem, Shibin TS

I = International