LOVB received SPANX.
Extra on that later, however it’s a very massive deal for the fledgling professional volleyball league that begins play in January.
League One Volleyball has franchises, six of them, in Austin, Atlanta, Houston, Madison, Omaha, and Salt Lake Metropolis, all — not coincidentally — tied in with not less than one in every of its youth volleyball golf equipment.
LOVB has coaches and gamers, together with 9 of the 12 girls on the USA Paris Olympics roster.
It’s full steam forward for a enterprise that may supply America two competing girls’s professional volleyball leagues positioned to go face to face in 2025.
No surprise chief working officer Rosie Spaulding is happy.
Ladies’s sports activities, particularly volleyball, are on an all-time excessive in each potential approach, and LOVB is positioned to capitalize in an enormous approach.
“We really feel that now much more than 4 years in the past once we thought that was the precise time when there was a small handful of us engaged on the concept,” Spaulding mentioned.
“I used to be enthusiastic about it then and much more so now that ladies’s sports activities — and at some point I hope you don’t need to say girls’s sports activities — are doing so properly and that volleyball is the main sport.”
Whereas the Professional Volleyball Federation received underway this previous January, LOVB continued to methodically put together for its launch.
“We’ve constructed this very deliberately, from the start in 2020 once we began, this concept of constructing a grass-roots group league,” Spaulding mentioned. “The membership group is flourishing. We’ve received 54 golf equipment — the quantity is altering — throughout 22 states. As quickly as we received into January 2024 I used to be so excited, as a result of, sure! This yr!”
Certainly. LOVB may have exhibitions in 2024 and begin its 16-match season in January. In between, on the high-level, prestigious Triple Crown women membership event in Kansas Metropolis in February, the groups will convene for an in-season event.
We visited with Spaulding earlier this month in Arlington, Texas, on the Volleyball Nations League cease.
“The purpose is to make this a sustainable league and we need to be round for the lengthy haul,” Spaulding mentioned. “There’s been loads of intentionality round the best way we constructed it.”
Spaulding mentioned the 10-year LOVB plan was “to develop in yr three with one other two groups, and at that time go right into a extra conventional residence and away match schedule.”
So six groups in 2025, the identical six in 2026, after which eight in 2027.
“That would speed up,” Spaulding admitted.
The lately concluded inaugural Professional Volleyball Federation season included seven franchises, together with ones in Omaha and Atlanta.
Whereas PVF, which has a wholly totally different possession/company construction, might need gotten a head begin, LOVB received to look at and be taught.
“It’s very encouraging to see a number of entities leaping into this house,” Spaulding mentioned, noting as properly the autumn Athletes Limitless girls’s volleyball season. “One factor that was good to see for PVF is that folks had been displaying up for matches.
“For positive it was good to see that. It exhibits some degree of proof of idea for professional volleyball that we thought was there that was good to see.”
After all, are there sufficient followers to assist each groups in Omaha and Atlanta?
“We began this a very long time in the past and had been fairly intentional about the place we put our cities,” Spaulding mentioned. “I believe there have been 28 standards that we checked out and we checked out many, many cities and pretty shortly received right down to a brief listing of 13.
“And from that 13 got here the six. We checked out many alternative standards, whether or not it was the industrial viability of different sports activities, different girls’s sports activities, volleyball, that form of factor. Logistics and importantly our golf equipment.”
Spaulding was not ready to say the place the groups will play of their respective cities, however mentioned it will likely be introduced “quickly. It’s not far off. We’ve got venues contracted for the six cities and now we’re nailing down the schedule.”
A few of the matches on that schedule will likely be proven on ESPN shops. That’s one in every of many benefits LOVB has over PVF. The 2 leagues are modeled remarkably in a different way, with PVF franchises managed and run by homeowners, whereas LOVB owns all of the groups. LOVB has buyers — some fairly notable, on each the membership and professional facet — however the league owns the groups.
“We expect it’s an advantageous technique to begin, whenever you have a look at MLS and plenty of different leagues which have began this manner. PWHL (Professional Ladies’s Hockey League) is an efficient current instance. Many trendy leagues begin out as a single entity and department out from there,” Spaulding mentioned.
“That’s the method we’ve taken. Once more, that’s the best way we imagine is finest to begin to be sustainable for the lengthy haul. I don’t say which may not change sooner or later, however we needed to begin out that approach.”
Salaries for the brand new league will fluctuate. Veteran stars, for instance, will make greater than rookies. There may even be a prize pool.
“I can’t converse to what that sum will likely be, however there will likely be positional bonuses and MVP awards,” Spaulding mentioned.
One other LOVB vs. PVF benefit is star energy.
These 9 Olympians — setters Jordyn Poulter and Lauren Carlini, middles Haleigh Washington and Chiaka Ogbogu, outsides Jordan Larson and Kelsey Prepare dinner, and opposites Jordan Thompson and Annie Drews, and libero Justine Wong-Orantes, plus alternates Micha Hancock and Anna Stevenson Corridor — give LOVB prompt worldwide participant identify recognition.
And a few of the different signees are fairly spectacular, together with present and former national-teamers Danielle Cuttino, Zoe Fleck, Kayla Haneline, Madi Kingdon Rishel, Carli Lloyd, and Sarah Wilhite Parsons.
Former NCAA stars embrace Madi Bugg, Dani Drews, Logan Eggleston, Audrianna Fitzmorris, Serena Grey, Alexis Hart, Amber Igiede, Claire Hoffman Tia Jimerson, Roni Jones-Perry, Mary Lake, and Lauren Stivrins. There are worldwide standouts, too.
(Click on right here for the gamers web page on the LOVB web site.)
All six coaches have been named, together with two present USA Olympic assistants in Matt Fuerbringer (LOVB Madison) and Tama Miyashiro (Salt Lake). Former Kansas State coach Susie Frtiz will coach LOVB Omaha, and internationals will information the opposite three, Massimo Barbolini in Houston, Marco Bonitta in Houston and Paulo Coco in Atlanta.
(Click on right here for extra on all six coaches.)
There are, in fact, sponsors and partnerships. LOVB will put on Adidas and play with a Mikasa ball.
After which there’s SPANX, which, as LOVB famous in a information launch, “marks SPANX’s first partnership in skilled sports activities. The partnership will kick off with a sequence of initiatives geared toward supporting LOVB athletes by means of numerous levels of their journeys, from youth to skilled. As a part of this collaboration, LOVB professional athletes will likely be outfitted in SPANX attire for pre-season occasions and public appearances starting this summer time.
“As we got down to change the sport for the women and girls who play volleyball, we’re proud to accomplice with a model like SPANX that has lengthy championed girls to reside their lives confidently,” mentioned Katlyn Gao, CEO and founding father of LOVB. “We share a collective mission to spend money on, elevate, and empower girls, and we look ahead to working collectively to supply our athletes with the assist and visibility they deserve.”
Most vital is that SPANX is a sponsor from exterior volleyball, a sport infamous for staying solely inside itself for advertising and promotion. SPANX describes itself as a “model for ladies, by girls.”
So it’s T-minus six months for LOVB, which seems on observe for a blockbuster starting.
“Issues come up day-after-day. As you’ll be able to think about, there’s so much whenever you begin fascinated about all of it,” Spaulding mentioned.
“The industrial facet, sponsorships, media, merchandise, ticketing, and all the game issues. There’s so much and on any given day there are issues that pop up and bumps within the highway, however largely I’m excited to be within the place the place we’re capable of begin sharing all the good work that’s been happening for months and years, in order that feels actually good.
“And to be constructing the groups, as properly.”
