Recently appointed CEO Ugo Valensi previously headed Grand Slam Tennis
New Volleyball World CEO Ugo Valensi wants to promote its athletes more in content, he told Broadcast Sport.
Valensi previously headed Grand Slam Tennis, the organisation that represents tennis’ four major tournaments: Wimbledon, the US Open, Roland-Garros and the Australian Open. While there, he led initiatives such as the Box To Box-produced Netflix series Break Point, which went behind-the-scenes with a number of players through the season.
Asked whether a similar docuseries could work for World Volleyball, Valensi said, “We would like to make a push to market our athletes. One of the biggest elements of a sport’s success is its athletes being seen as super heroes but as well human beings fans can relate to.
“Docuseries are a great tool to do this, but there are other options to complement this approach”
Indeed, he warned, “You can’t expect one docuseries to affect behaviours alone, it has to be part of a non-live strategy,” but did note that, “It’s an easier conversation to have with volleyball [creating/distributing a series], compared to tennis,” thanks to World Volleyball and the sport’s federation, the FIVB, having fewer stakeholders to deal with.
Volleyball World’s current content strategy includes both traditional broadcast deals and its D2C platform, VBTV. VBTV hit over 1.5 million members last year, and has continued to grow, with 60% year-on-year growth in watch time for the first quarter of 2025.
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