 "Varun Mathur, VEQTA")
If you are a sports fanatic and want to watch all types of sports, VEQTA, which claims to be India's first over-the-top (OTT) digital broadcast network dedicated to sports, promises to fulfil your needs.
Founded by Varun Mathur and Vikram Tanwar in mid-February , VEQTA aims at becoming the home of sports broadcast for the second screen. Getting sports content not available in India for fans here is its main goal. It will launch its flagship OTT service in the next few weeks to engage fans across India.
Mathur says he wants to address three types of gaps in the sports broadcast industry. Mainly, the width or coverage gap (number of sports covered, especially in broadcast) is low in India. He also says the depth of coverage for non-cricket sports is very less here. More, language limitation makes it difficult for many to enjoy their favourite sports.
On viability of the freemium-model project, he said, "OTT is at a very early stage in India. Once it reaches critical masses, along with subscription video-on-demand (SVOD) and advertising video-on-demand (AVOD) models that we follow, it will be a winning proposition for us."
On the way forward, Mathur said: "We basically want to address some key areas like the rights portfolio, that is, offering fresh and new content to people with valuable packages. Also, expanding the consumer base as the reach of sports is under-penetrated in India and investing in new technologies to evolve the way entertainment is consumed on mobile phones."
Tanwar says VEQTA is a vision and its key differentiating factor will be its ability to offer original content. It hopes to revolutionise the sports viewing space on OTT and become a leader in it.
