Volleyball has been exploding in popularity worldwide. Boys high school volleyball is the fastest growing sport, having a 12.6% player increase, from 2024 to 2025. Female participation, however, has dominated the sport. Volleyball is the most popular girls high school sport with over 450,000 playing, an increase of 75,000 players in the last 20 years. According to USA Volleyball, the National Governing Body for the sport of volleyball, across 3 national events, 1600 youth volleyball teams participate, ranging from 11 to 17 years old. With over 100 courts commonly active at once, the demand for more professional representation is on the rise.
At Darien High School (DHS), volleyball has been growing in popularity. In 2022, 2023, and 2024, the girls varsity team won the State and Fairfield County Interscholastic Conference (FCIAC) championships. Girls volleyball has been the winningest sport at DHS with a banner filled with titles, including 20 State and 27 FCIAC championship wins, hung up in the main gym. The community of volleyball players has been increasing as more professional representation has arisen.
Although there are multiple professional women’s volleyball leagues, League One Volleyball (LOVB) is growing the fastest. Following its launch in 2025, LOVB (pronounced Love) has gained massive amounts of support. According to the Executive Chairman and Founder, Peter Hirschmann, the reason for the success was starting at the youth level. Now LOVB has 27,500 youth athletes and over 90 clubs nationwide. With ample support from young players, LOVB has taken off. Real players competing in cities across the nation allow youth athletes to find their own role model.
Volleyball is notoriously the hardest female sport to get recruited for college, with only 5.9% of athletes playing at the collegiate level and 1.2% going D1 (ASM Sports). LOVB has created a new pathway for athletes to strive for and continue their athletic career after college. Being the largest pool of scholarship money for women, Hirschmann sees LOVB as an access point for women to play a sport they love and receive higher education.
At their championship events on April 16th and 18th 2025 in Long Beach California, the Walter Pyramid, a 4,200 seat arena, sold out all its seats with people coming to support LOVB Austin vs LOVB Salt Lake. When I worked game operations at the event, handing out boom sticks, setting up activations, and instructing fans, I was able to witness the huge fanbase. Full LOVB youth teams came to watch the game, families wore their favorite teams’ shirts, and college athletes came to sign merch.
LOVB teams consist of well-known college athletes, such as Madisen Skinner who played for University of Texas, Lexi Rodriguez from the University of Nebraska, as well as 17 Olympians. One of the activations at the championship was challenging fans to reach the vertical touch of the athletes playing. This included 3 athletes touching over 11’. The interactive environment became a way for fans to become inspired by the players.
As LOVB’s popularity surges, it is necessary to expand the league’s reach. In the 2027 season, LOVB is planning to add three more teams to the original six: San Francisco, Los Angeles, and Minneapolis. These additions reflect the growing demand of a professional women’s volleyball league in more areas around the country.
All leagues depend on television viewership as the primary way to gain fans. After being broadcast on USA Network, the first match of the championship game was the most watched LOVB match ever. This averaged 163,000 viewers and peaked at over 225,000. LOVB has one of the strongest female viewership percentages for all professional sports leagues, with 52% of viewers being women. This audience is an embodiment of the community of women who are inspired by role models in professional sports.
The final two championship matches were up 50% since the previous year and the regular season was up 164%. Matt Hong, the president of USA sports and a partner of LOVB, stated “we try to partner with the leagues that we feel are best-in-class and have the highest growth potential”.
With an emphasis on more creative forms of media, Peyton Manning’s company, Omaha Productions, began broadcasting for LOVB as of January 2026. This broadcast expands beyond traditional filming and includes more player and coach audio, behind the scenes footage of team huddles, and interviews between sets. The partnership is focused on creating an engaging way to entertain fans. According to LOVB and Manning, the goal of this broadcasting is to make LOVB “America’s next major league” through increased visibility and enhanced fan experience on television.
In order to compete with other leagues and sports, LOVB is creating a support system of youth athletes in order to create a “community”. Their social media presence has reached a wide variety of fans. As of May 2026, LOVB has 269K followers on Instagram and 77.2K Followers on TikTok. Within the second year of the league, there has been a 60% increase in social media impressions and 30% more views of videos. With games being streamed on TVs at home and social media being an active way of reaching fans, LOVB will continue to expand.
LOVB is not only a new league, but the creation of a new community. In an environment where volleyball is predominantly women, athletes can find their role models and create new aspirations. As the league continues to expand, the popularity of volleyball will not only rise, but the course of female athletics will change in the future.
