Premier Handball

About Us

Premier Handball League

Fast Paced and Adrenaline Filled, Handball originated in Scandinavia and Germany at the end of the 19th Century.

Across the globe, Handball is recognized as a game of spirit, speed, fitness and skill. It is called the fastest Olympic sport. The Indian Handball Team is ranked amongst top 50 on the global rankings and India has been ear marked as the next big destination for Handball by The International Handball Federation.

With 14 players per team The Premier Handball League in line with the governance of the International Authorities are set to introduce their Flagship Season in the first quarter of 2023 with 6 teams representing 6 states.

At The Premier Handball League we are committed to not just delivering a top of the line sports Entertainment League but also working alongside the Handball Association India and The Sports Authority Of India in ensuring the development of Handball in India at a grass-root level.

Licensed exclusively by the International Handball Federation, the Asian Handball Federation and the Handball Association India, it remains the common goal for all to ensure the success of Indian Handball and Handball Athletes at a global level and seeing our National Team’s participation in the next Olympics.

Bluesport Entertainment Private limited

Bluesport Entertainment Private Limited is a company which has been created to focus on investing and developing the sport of Handball in the Indian Market. Our objectives are:

To popularize the sport of Handball and make it a household sport by curating and enabling players to reach international standards and represent India in the Olympics.
To create a grass root infrastructure by way of club structures in association with the Sports Authority of India to create a module to find, nourish, enable and give exposure to the athletes of tomorrow.
To create tie up’s with International Handball Clubs to ensure cross playing of athletes, bringing more exposure and infrastructure to the players and creating an opportunity to make India’s name shine on a global platform.
To ensure a viable business model to grow with the sport.

Key People

Dr. Ajay Data

Chairman

Dr. Ajay Data is a young techno commercial Founder & CEO of multiple technology companies. His hard work, visionary approach, belief in teamwork and techno-business thinking made Data Infosys Limited most successful IT company and achieved him most liked and looked upon entrepreneur. His innovation and execution of software products like Bharat Sync, Xgen Plus, Spamjaoo, DATAMAIL has got users world over and won multiple patents. Making a modest start on April 18th 1999 as Rajasthan’s first private ISP the company rapidly expanded its line of businesses in the areas of e-Governance, Software Products, Turnkey ITSolutions and Mobile Technologies. Recently DataXgen Technologies got global recognition for bringing in first of its kind IDNe mail supporting email addresses in Hindi, Gujrati, Tamil, Telgu, Marathi plus 15 more languages. Dr. Data is Managing Director of Data Group of Industries with an annual business turnover of US$ 200 Million and sought-after leader by young entrepreneurs for mentoring and guidance. Dr Data is credited to be the first Indian to represent the Asia Pacific regions in the Country Code Names Supporting Organization ccNSO council of the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) as Member. He is also advisor at FICCI-India Internet Language Alliance.

Manu Agrawal

Co-founder & CEO

Manu Agrawal has spent the better part of the last two decades designing and setting up various properties traversing through the vast arena of Finance, Sports and Entertainment. With a sharp eye for business potential and a sharp acumen for numbers Manu Agrawal has successfully created and executed various business modules with the most recent one being The Premier Handball League. However, sports are no new territory for Manu who was instrumental in creating and developing the home grown Mixed Martial Arts League the Kumite 1 League. In step with his growing exposure to the world of Sports Manu singularly stitched together the base for Handball in India and secured the rights while developing the property not just from a Sports Entertainment League perspective but by also creating the way forward for the grass-root development of the sport hand in glove with the governing authorities. Experienced and understands the Finance, Sports & Entertainment sector and their broader opportunities. As a Promoter for the League, he has created a strong positioning for the League and thereby bringing more exposure and confidence into the Sports and Players as well as for the stakeholders associated with the League.

Aseem Merchant

Co-founder

The winner of the GladRags Supermodel Title in 1996 who acted in block busters like Wanted, The Train etc. A multi-faceted celebrity with over three decades of experience in the entertainment world. His dynamism, creativity and deep inroads into the celeb / business world has ensured numerous global IPs/ product launches/ productions globally. He is the founder of AM Group, a name synonymous with entertainment. It is a professionally structured, creatively inclined and cost effective one stop entertainment conglomerate which has successfully diversified into various spectrum of entertainment and beyond. Established in 1996, its caters to Event Management, Weddings, Corporate Image Makeovers, Advert and Film Production, Digital Content, Film Trading, Night Club Consultancy, Celebrity Management and Multimedia.

Abhinav Banthia

President

After completing his engineering in 2003, Abhinav Banthia joined his family-owned company Manu Yantralaya Pvt. Ltd. as a Director. The company primarily supplies bearing and automotive components to customers in India & around the globe including in countries like Germany, Portugal, Italy, Slovakia, Bulgaria, China, Argentina, Indonesia, Vietnam, USA, UK, South Korea, Japan etc. In 2012, Abhinav Banthia formed a Japanese joint venture company and diversified into plastic components for the automotive industry. He also has taken up the onus of being a start-up investor with five main start-ups where he has invested individually and others in which he has invested along with a consortium of angel investors. Abhinav Banthia chairs the Jaipur Chapter of Young Indians which is a youth organization for social causes. Additionally, he is currently also part of the Council of Confederation of Indian industry for the State of Rajasthan and is leading the panel for start-ups and innovations for the CII through the year 2020-2021.

Vivek Lodha

Director- Finance

Vivek Lodha is an entrepreneur dedicated to building and boosting meaningful business ideas and turning them into success stories. An Alumni of IIT Bombay, he did his Majors in Finance and International Management from Thunderbird School of Global Management. His primary business deals in food processing at JVS Foods Pvt Ltd, one of India's leading institutional food producers. Vivek is always on a quest to work on ventures that are not just innovative, but also help this world to become a better place to live in. As the Director of JVS Foods, he has closely worked on such projects with TATA Trusts, Bill Gates Foundation and the University of Toronto. JVS Foods is also one of the suppliers for nutritious food to UNICEF, World Food Programme, and various other state Governments in India. Driven by a passion to see new ideas emerge, and the foresight to judge the sustainability of that idea is what has led him to invest in and mentor a lot of start-ups. Sustainability is the most important and deciding factor for him to invest in a business. He has been a part of multiple Angel Investor Networks, through which he has invested in more than 25 startups. Vivek firmly believes in giving back to the society as an expression of gratitude for his achievements in life. In the amazon of business possibilities, knowing what will click, is what makes him stand out in his dual role of an entrepreneur and an investor.