The introduction of professional volleyball leagues across America does not come as a surprise with the sport growing in popularity. The two major leagues taking over the volleyball world are the Pro Volleyball Federation (PVF) and League One Volleyball (LOVB).
The creation of these leagues stemmed from lack of options to play professionally in the United States, forcing many players to seek options internationally.
“It’s really hard,” Haleigh Washington said in Deseret News. “You’re away from your family for eight to 10 months. You don’t get Christmas and you don’t get New Year’s with your family and you don’t have Thanksgiving with your family.”
The PVF is a newer addition with the 2024 inaugural season holding 24 matches. For their 2025 season, each of the eight teams will now play 14 matches at home and 14 matches on the road, following a four-team championship formatting in mid-May with a $1 million dollar prize.
PVF’s teams are the Atlanta Vibe, Grand Rapids Rise, Columbus Fury, Indy Ignite, Omaha Supernovas, Orlando Valkyries, San Diego Mojo, and Vegas Thrill.
LOVB, pronounced “love,” was founded in 2020. They started this year’s 14 week season on Jan. 8, 2025. Each week, all six teams play matches, rotating cities. Mid-season, there is a “winner takes all” competition in Kansas City. In April, at the end of the season, the champion is crowned at the finals in Louisville, Kentucky
LOVB has six teams throughout the country: Atlanta (Georgia), Austin (Texas), Houston (Texas), Madison (Wisconsin), Omaha (Nebraska), and Salt Lake (Utah).
Distributed throughout these six teams are 17 Olympians, 10 of them having competed for the 2024 Olympic silver medal-winning U.S. Women’s National Team. Some of these athletes include Kelsey Robinson Cook, Justine Wong-Orantes, Jordyn Poulter, Jordan Larson, and Dallas native Chiaka Ogbogu.
“I think for a lot of us, not only those of us who are on the national team in the Olympics, but for all of us, we’ve played abroad our entire careers,” Jordyn Poulter said to Deseret. “And so it feels like a nice homecoming to be starting this inaugural league in the States, kind of leading into the LA 2028 games.”
Currently, the PVF is formatted to 14 player teams with notable athletes including Morgan Hentz, Kazmiere Brown, Bethania de la Cruz, Leah Edmond, and Claire Chaussee.
Each league is structured differently with the PVF being an American-styled league, where each team is under the PVF leadership but still independent. Therefore, players get signed to individual teams similar to franchises and athletes can get drafted through PVF’s five-round draft in November.
“We have a viable economic model where we have teams and markets, and each team is owned by a separate investment group,” PVF CEO Jen Spicher said to Sports Business Journal. “And that’s why this is going to be a long-lasting league.”
For comparison, LOVB does not have a draft, instead runs as a single entity where players are signed to the LOVB name before placement on a team. In return, players cannot be cut or traded.
“One of the interesting distinctions for LOVB is that we’re centrally owned,” LOVB Madison’s Annie Drews Schumacher said. “They really have tried to make these teams as even as possible,” reported LOVB.
Players’ salaries in the PVF range between $60,000 and $175,000. Players have the opportunity to earn additional bonuses throughout the season. LOVB pros earn a minimum salary of $60,000 for their first season. Similar to the PVF, there will be bonuses available throughout the season.
“I truly feel like a professional athlete, which is really awesome,” Atlanta Vibes’ Tori Dilfer Stringer said to Sports Business Journal. “And I think that also raises the bar and the expectations for our performance and the way we approach every day that we are.”
Another way the LOVB has gained popularity and built their fan base is by placing athletes on their pro teams in the same city as their alma mater. By keeping these athletes in the same area as their former schools, it allows fans to continue to follow their athletes locally.
This past year, LOVB signed six athletes to the league, three of which are returning to the same cities as their former schools. These players include Sarah Franklin to Madison (University of Wisconsin), Lexi Rodriguez to Omaha (University of Nebraska), and Madisen Skinner to Austin (University of Texas at Austin).
“To have the opportunity to compete in the inaugural LOVB season with some of my old teammates and in a city that holds so many memories for me is a dream come true,” Madisen Skinner said to LOVB. “I cannot wait to see the impact that LOVB is going to have in the states and in the world of professional volleyball as a whole.”
In order to further promote LOVB, the league partnered with 58 clubs in 66 locations, which reached over 1500+ teams. Some of the more popular clubs include A5, Austin Juniors, Houston Skyline, Madtown Juniors, Premier Nebraska, Club V Sports, and many more. The involvement of the Triple Crown tournament specifically helps builds LOVB’s notoriety and brings in younger club volleyball fans.
LOVB is helping players progress from club to professional levels with their community-driven structure. Each pro team is linked to a local junior volleyball club which creates an authentic foundation for American professional volleyball to grow from the ground up.
These two leagues have been a popular topic as of late as USA Volleyball announced that a new professional women’s volleyball league will launch in Jan. 2026. The league is called Major League Volleyball (MLV) , which will have at least ten teams across the country including the Omaha Supernovas who will be leaving the PVF to join the MLV.
“It’s just another reminder that what we’re building is very much akin to the NBA of volleyball,” LOVB CEO Katlyn Gao said to AP news. “It’s such an incredibly popular sport and one that’s very uniquely female-led, given the participation. Volleyball is to girls as football is to boys in this country. The quality of the product and the quality of the competition we set out to create is very much coming true.”
