Mumbai's Street Ball League for 3-on-3 basketball set for first season with players' auction

The growing trend of 3-on-3 basketball in India finds a snazzy new face in Mumbai with the launch of the Street Ball League. Steered by several local celebrities in the city, the league held an auction for their 12 men's and 4 women's teams on Sunday, July 21st at the WeWork BKC in Mumbai. The basketball action is set to take off in September and will be held for two months in the league's first season.

The Street Ball League is a brainchild of actors and social-media celebrity brothers Rannvijay Singha and Harman Singha. The two have long been involved with the promotion of the NBA in India, and this league brings together many of their celebrity connections as team owners for the first season, including 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 more.

"Basketball runs in my veins," said Harman Singh. "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. Street Ball is our way of spreading the love and joy of this game to all the youngsters out there."

"The basketball movement in India has got new wings through the Street Ball League..." said the league's director, Pranav Premnarayen. "We are proud to structure new innovative platforms in various sports and take them across India."

The format of the games in this league will be slightly different from the FIBA 3x3 rules. The matches will be of 24 minutes each, divided in two halves. A a new entry called "the clutch time" will be included in the last two minutes of each half where all the scoring will get doubled.

On the day of the auction, the highest bidders in the women's section was Team Hot Steppers, picking up Carina Menefiz, and Team Face Spartans, who picked up Sanjana. In the men's action, the highest bid was made by Hot Steppers again for Pradeep Singh.

Street Ball League - Teams

• Men: Bay City Bombers, Buzzer Beaters, Dunk Vipers, Face Spartans, Flying Panthers, Hoop Heads, Hot Steppers, Old School Ballers, Samurais, South Side Warriors, Three Pointers, Titans.
• Women: Face Spartans, Hoop Heads, Hot Steppers, Playmakers.

According to its media spokesperson, the Street Ball League has ambitions to grow to other cities in India in the future, including New Delhi, Bengaluru, Chandigarh, Kolkata, and Chennai.