Volleyball season and sports economy

On March 18, the Hoa Lu Volleyball Cup will commence, and in mid-June, the first stage of the national volleyball championship begins, followed by the Hung Vuong Cup for the top four teams from stage one. Initially, the competitive atmosphere is very positive, but in reality, volleyball life still heavily leans on professional factors while other aspects have not yet increased in value.

The number of tournaments and matches in top-level volleyball is not small compared to other sports besides football. Around 20-30 matches per year is an ideal figure. Female athletes even play more in club and national team uniforms due to additional international tournaments like VTV Cup (domestic), AVC Cup, AVC Champions League, SEA V-League… But as mentioned, those numbers remain purely professional, while sports economic activities still lag behind performance advancements.

For example, both Cup tournaments (Hoa Lu and Hung Vuong) have been held at two fixed locations for the past 20 years (Ninh Binh and Phu Tho). The national championship also competes in a centralized format, so despite many events, the level of promotion has not increased much compared to before. The national championship itself often chooses familiar venues to meet technical requirements (e.g., Dong Anh Gymnasium, Hanoi, organized for many consecutive years).

In other words, one of the crucial details to launch a marketing plan—the coverage of volleyball—has encountered a "technical" issue. Fans may "know" about tournaments but lack opportunities for direct access. Even international tournaments featuring the national team also typically select familiar competition venues as mentioned above.

Next is the story about television. The current Chairman of the Volleyball Federation is a leader of VTVcab, the unit that almost "monopolizes" broadcasting volleyball tournaments. Of course, being favored by a VTVcab unit is also good, especially in the past period, when nationwide live sports broadcasting coverage was not achievable for every sport. But now everything has changed, audience approaches are very different, and being "favored" on VTVcab channels may not necessarily be a better promotional or commercial exploitation method compared to other forms.

Thus, in the first two technical factors of volleyball's "sports economy" plan, there have encountered entirely subjective obstacles. From tournaments to rights exploitation, it's all internal affairs. Therefore, no one is surprised that the names of volleyball's long-term sponsors are quite familiar, with fertilizer brands and… banks, though from a marketing perspective, there is a "discrepancy" regarding volleyball's customer segment. Simply because those sponsors have also been "family members" of volleyball for two decades.

Remember nearly 30 years ago, volleyball was the first sport in Vietnam to form "commercial" Cup tournaments, meaning creating events to attract sponsors. Volleyball was also the first sport to actively participate and host international tournaments. The national championship then almost rotated competitions across the country, creating a truly enthusiastic atmosphere. And as known, at that time, each volleyball team was an enterprise (though mostly state-owned companies).

According to sharing from the General Secretary of the Vietnam Volleyball Federation, Le Tri Truong, the Federation is very determined to make breakthroughs in exploiting economy from competition activities. Reducing to 8 men's teams, 8 women's teams in the national championship is one way to enhance competition quality, attract public attention, and create competitive highlights for the championship.

Hope is that spirit will be continued so volleyball can create more tournaments with greater flexibility in timing, competition venues, as well as promotional methods and audience access.

Expected in the second quarter this year, the Volleyball Federation will organize a new term Congress, which should have been done by the end of 2025 but delayed due to personnel procedures. Hopefully volleyball will have more experts in finance and marketing fields participating to exploit the advantages this sport currently possesses.