Women’s professional volleyball opens another chapter tonight with the debut of League One Volleyball (LOVB, pronounced as “LOVE”). Atlanta’s Gateway Center Arena will host to the league’s inaugural match between LOVB Atlanta and LOVB Salt Lake on ESPN+. The six-team league -- with franchises in Atlanta, Austin, Omaha, Salt Lake, Houston and Madison -- will embark on a 14-week campaign. The championship-winning team will be crowned in a three-day tournament in April at Louisville’s KFC Yum! Center that is slated to air on ESPN. All six teams are owned by LOVB. Players’ salaries begin at $60,000.
“It’s an incredible full circle moment,” said LOVB Pro President Rosie Spaulding. “We’ve been planning it for a long time and intentionally structured and organized ourselves in this way. It’s exciting to be at this moment.”
LOVB will play under the 2024 FIVB guidelines, but with a few modifications to push the game forward, such as eight free substitutions, a TV timeout once one team arrives at 12 points, and switching sides after the second set. Broadcasters can stop play once or twice a set to educate or highlight a play to the in-arena audience and viewers. This is referred as a “Hero Moment.”
Fans will be able to catch LOVB’s 60 matchesacross ESPN platforms (ESPN2, ESPNU, ESPN+), DAZN, Women’s Sports Network and LOVB Live, through the league’s website. South Korean pay TV network SPOTV is the league’s international distributor in Southeast Asia. LOVB has also added iHeartRadio as a partner for its “Serving Pancakes” podcast on the iHeart Women’s Sports Network and Rebel Girls for “LOVB x Rebel Girls Sport,” a season-long weekly highlights series dedicated to Gen Alpha.
The league’s official partners starting off the season are Adidas, Mikasa, Spanx, Sports Imports, Taraflex, Revolve and Tonal.
LOVB joins two additional U.S. women’s indoor pro leagues that have emerged in recent years. Athletes Unlimited finished its fourth season this past November while the Pro Volleyball Federation begins its second season tomorrow.
The January debut of LOVB comes on the heels of pivotal points in the sport such as the 2024 Paris Olympics and the college season. Ten of the league’s players are from the U.S. silver medal-winning team from this year’s Games. December’s NCAA Women’s Volleyball Championship between Penn State and Louisville drew 1.3 million viewers on ABC-- the second-most-watched title match. That figure sits slightly behind 2023’s record-setting 1.6 million viewers for the Texas-Nebraska matchup. In August 2023, the Univ. of Nebraska volleyball team set the world record for the largest attendance at a women's sporting event with 92,003 fans at Omaha’s Memorial Stadium.
CEO Katlyn Gao, Exec Chair Peter Hirschmann and Kevin Wong co-founded the league in 2020. Since inception, it has attracted an ensemble of firms and names in sports and entertainment raising $160M to date from investors: Billie Jean King; Suns F Kevin Durant and business partner Rich Kleiman’s Boardroom Sports Holdings; David Blitzer’s Bolt Ventures; VetOne; Heights; Verance Capital; SR Group; and Elysian Park Ventures.
Additional investors include SEA 2026 CEO Peter Tomozawa; WNBA Toronto Tempo President Teresa Resch; WME agent Jill Smoller; LOVB Salt Lake’s Haleigh Washington and Jordyn Poulter; LOVB Atlanta’s Kelsey Robinson Cook; former U.S. volleyball players Danielle Scott-Arruda and Lindsey Berg; entertainer Chelsea Handler; Birdies co-founder & President Marisa Sharkey; longtime retail fashion exec Jenny Ming; U.S. skier Lindsey Vonn; former WNBAer Candace Parker and her daughter Lailaa; actress Amy Schumer; G9 Ventures Managing Partner Amy Griffin; Fenway Sports Group partner Linda Henry; and Celtics F Jayson Tatum.
A $100M funding round led by Atwater Capital, Ares Management, and Left Lane Capital was recently announced in November.
LOVB also features a network of youth clubs across 26 states. It boasts 58 junior clubs, 1,500 teams, and over 17,000 players. The league’s pro teams train at the facilities for its club teams as part of their ecosystem.
But in regard to the pro league, Gao, a 2023 SBJ Game Changers honoree, is focused on innovation, continued growth, and momentum heading into the second season, along with the traditional business metrics. “Our players ... [and] our partners are builders with us,” she said. “LOVB cannot build a legacy league on its own. We absolutely want to make sure we have the right partners who are building this legacy league with us.”
“I’m just as excited about some of the traditional indicators of progress as I am about the other pieces. Our partners are just as pumped about learning with us because we’re activating in an ecosystem as opposed to traditional ways of partnership,” said Gao.
