Mumbai: July 21st, 2019: Street Ball League is a first of its kind 3on3 basketball tournament where streets meet basketball. The idea behind the league comes from the legendary brothers and youth icons Rannvijay Singha and Harman Singha who are keen to make basketball the next big thing.
The owners of the teams in this league are celebrities from different walks of life like actor Esha Gupta, dancer and choreographer Melvin Louis, Sana Khan, comedian Gursimran Khamba, former Miss India Universe Simran Kaur Mundi, MTV VJs Varun Sood and Divya Aggarwal and few entrepreneurs. With team names like Hot Steppers, Dunk Vipers, Flying Panther, Hoop Heads, Old School Ballers etc.
"Basketball runs in my veins, both my parents were players of high caliber, learning a sport young was an integral part of growing up and I was lucky enough to always enjoy and play the game, Streetball is our way of spreading the love and joy of this game to all the youngsters out there," says Harman Singha.
"The basketball movement in India has got new wings through the street ball league, at leap pro sports we are proud to structure new innovative platforms in various sports and take them across India," says Pranav Premnarayen, Director, Street Ball league.
"I dreamt of playing in the NBA since I was a child, I captained my college team to multiple championships and represented Delhi in the Nationals, due to the lack of infrastructure I couldn't pursue my love for the game further, Street ball is my way of making sure the new generation has the right platform to blossom from a player to a champion" - Rannvijay Singha
The league has 12 men's teams and 4 women's team. The format of the game is new and exciting where the matches are of 24 minutes each divided in two halves with a new entry called "the clutch time" where the score gets doubled in the last two minutes in both quarters.
Each men's team has seven players with one All-star player that the owner gets to choose. Each women's team has six players with no All-star.
Players from the trials are distributed in three levels based on their game and skill in: Marquee 1, 2, 3 level. The players for men's and women's team are drafted in an auction through point’s distribution where every team gets 100 points.
On 21st July, the auctions were held in WeWorks, BKC in which the owners finalized on their teams through bidding.
The highest bidders in the women's auction was done by Melvin Louis's team Hot Steppers for Carina Menefiz of Marquee 3 for 63 points followed by Sana Khan's team Face Spartans for Sanjana of Marquee 1 for 43 points.
The highest bidders in the men's auction was done by four teams at 70 points of Marquee 2: Melvin Louis's team Hot Steppers for Pradeep Singh, Simran Mundi's Flying panthers for Kshaunish Kapoor, Sana Khan's Face Spartans for Paras Patil and Rohit Lokareddy's South side warriors for Sayyed Yousuf.
The night saw a lot of good competition between the owners for getting a few players and the bidding went intense seeing one of them win on each player.
The league starts in September end and will go on for 2 months where the matches will be played on the weekends.
This is the first season of Street Ball league and with a huge response on our social media platforms, we plan to take it forward to more seasons in cities like Delhi, Bangalore, Kolkata, Chennai and Chandigarh, hopefully! #Ballbabyball