Volleyball: Japan’s rebranded SV.League aims to be top of world

TOKYO (Kyodo) — Japanese volleyball’s rebranded SV.League wants to be the best of the best, drawing national team players from around the world.

“We will try to be a league that players worldwide want to join,” SV.League’s chairman Masaaki Okawa said in a recent interview before the season begins Friday for men and Saturday for women. “We want to be the largest volleyball market and draw more spectators than any other league.”

“We want a team from SV.League to win the club world championship by 2030. If not, we need some SV.League team to be always in the final four. Those are my definitions of the world’s top league.”

Okawa, previously chairman of Japan’s top men’s basketball competition, the B-League, says the process of reforming the volleyball league is around halfway to completion.

The V of SV stands for volleyball, while the S derives from the words strong, spread, and social, according to the league.

The 66-year-old said he saw a bright future for volleyball while serving in his role with the basketball league, which has developed strongly in tandem with growing interest in the national team.

“Matches played by the Japan national volleyball teams were televised. Many international tournaments were staged in Japan. I could see great potential, both in terms of the players and viewers,” Okawa said.

“I didn’t think basketball back then would be able to outperform volleyball. When I talked to TV stations, they said they would air volleyball, but not basketball.”

Japan’s men’s and women’s volleyball teams were both runners-up in their respective Nations League tournaments this year before falling short of expectations at the Paris Olympics.

Okawa says volleyball has the potential to expand in Japan and around the world and should learn from other sports.

“Volleyball is popular all over the world, but its business has spread a bit slowly, with the growth mainly in Eastern Europe,” he said. “I believe we can be one of the world’s biggest sports leagues if we take the good parts of baseball, basketball and football.”