Vikram Venkatraman
Jersey City, NJ (USA)
Role(s):
Founder/Owner/Principal
World Breakdancing League
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Startup
Location:
Jersey City
Industry:
Entertainment
Year Founded:
2006
Number Employees:
1-10 people
Description:
Introduction
A competitive, high-energy, music-driven fusion of dance, gymnastics, and martial arts has been developing for the last 3 decades in a subculture known as breakdancing. Since then, communities of devoted competitive dancers or bboys/girls have taken hold in Tokyo, Paris, Berlin, London, Seoul, Hong Kong and other cities worldwide, laying the groundwork for a competitive sport rich in history and natural in entertainment appeal.
Although team “battles” are at the very heart of breakdancing, mainstream competition has been slow to develop due to the lack of professional organization. The WBL will establish itself as a professional league with a systematic ranking and scoring system, elegant marketing and advertising strategies, a structured competition schedule, and a playoff-style championship tournament.
The WBL has had a predominantly positive response from both the dancing community as well as the populace at large. The time is now for professional breakdancing to become reality.
Why WBL?
The founders of the WBL possess over 10 years of combined experience planning and executing successful breakdancing events. The core team is well respected by, and has a great network with both the domestic and international dancing community. The team’s collective experience in management, branding, and corporate strategy will enable it to execute on all aspects of business operations going forward.
The WBL Approach
The WBL seeks to expand the reach and breadth of the competitive breakdancing scene, and has the potential to reach a $3.7B entertainment market.
Costs are mainly venue rental and personnel, while revenues are driven by ticket sales and royalties. A large venue like Madison Square Garden costs $80K, and with a schedule of 10 events, staff and athlete payment should not exceed $2M. Production should not exceed $1M, and marketing for less than $200K. If all 10 events can be broadcast on national, prime time TV, in a one hour block with 15min of commercials, even a rate as low as $1M per minute of advertising will generate revenues of $150MM for a total of $4MM investment. As of yet, the core team has invested almost all their discretionary funding, and is yet to take any compensation – all profits are reinvested.
The team has the attention of several major, active corporate sponsors, and is in the process of constructing a TV broadcast and coverage deal. This is in line with a short-term strategy that includes online advertisement, merchandising and DVD sales, all of which are in progress.
With capital investment, the WBL would expand its team and hire creative and marketing staff. The company would leverage capital to spearhead production of a TV quality broadcast, and build depth into the website and the database that manages WBL competition data. Partners and investors would have the opportunity to reevaluate and exit upon the establishment of a long-term corporate sponsor partnership, or the profitable sale of a WBL team franchise, the first of which is planned for the beginning of the third year.