The rise of US Women's Volleyball?

[crashcarson15]

1 hour ago, the admiral said:

This is interesting. Can you elaborate on this? Why basketball, and why the girls' game? You said volleyball is chugging along fine post-pandemic, but what hurt girls' basketball? especially in Indiana, of all places?

A handful of running thoughts, starting specifically on the pandemic:

• Specifically during the pandemic year, I think being (a) a winter sport and (b) a fundamentally non-social distanced sport really hurt basketball numbers (especially on the girls side), compared to a sport like volleyball where like, hey, it was fall 2020 and the pandemic wasn't that bad and also at least you're always on the other side of a net from any opponent.
• In the program I coached in, our numbers were already lower, and multiple parents pulled their kids as the year went on due to pandemic concerns. One of those kids was a freshman we were excited about, who played like, two JV games and never came back. She's now the school record holder in a couple track events!
• With everyone's numbers down, schools canceling games, etc., you had a lot of nights where maybe you'd play 2 JV quarters or other nights where there was no JV game at all — so now that kid you want to get excited about basketball is maybe tipping off a JV game at 6:00, which finishes before 6:30, and now gets to go to practice for two weeks before getting to do that again.
• For kids who don't play travel basketball or for who maybe have another sport that's their favorite (which I think is a much larger part of the basketball player pool on the girls side), I think the interruption really hurt their desire to stick with the sport/deprioritize other sports, or if you didn't play for a year, you probably weren't coming back.

More general, non-pandemic driven thoughts:

• Specific to basketball vs. volleyball, there's more opportunities for more kids to play in volleyball. Volleyball has 6 on the floor at all times, but really 7 "starters" counting the libero. Because of substitution patterns, even the tightest rotations have 8-9 kids playing real action every game.
• Compare that to basketball, where you only need 5, and very few girls teams materially go past 6-8 in a rotation. We were maybe the deepest program in our enrollment class last year, and we still only played 6 in key games.
• As an example, at our volleyball state finals in Indiana this year, 76 girls played 3+ sets across the 8 teams. At our girls basketball state finals, only 50 girls played 5+ minutes across the 8 teams.
• This is all mostly to say that there's just more opportunities for a kid to actually play in volleyball than basketball, across any one school or program.
• Something I think is relatively unique to girls basketball compared to the boys game is that most good freshmen are playing varsity out of the gate on the girls side, where on the boys side, it's pretty rare to see a freshman playing for a good team (this is both a talent depth thing and probably more importantly, a physiology thing — the vast majority of girls aren't growing six inches at 15 or whatever).
• That has the downstream impact of meaning more playing time is "spoken for" down the line (e.g., if I'm a sophomore JV player, am I really gonna stick around when two freshmen are playing varsity already?), and there's less importance in developing kids who are maybe fringe players.
• At least in Indiana, basketball is a much longer season (13-week regular season) than volleyball (8-week regular season), is disruptive to school work in both semesters, and also often means giving up the ability to travel at Thanksgiving and Christmas/New Year's.
• Going back to the volleyball/basketball divide specifically, it's a lot easier for a travel basketball player (generally a spring and summer endeavor) to play high school volleyball than the other way around (since travel volleyball plays during the winter months and basketball school season).
• And maybe more than anything, basketball is also just … physically taxing in a different way from a lot of other sports. If you're a post player, basketball is running 75 feet, then turning around and doing the same thing 20 seconds later, and doing that over and over and over again, while also playing what is functionally a skilled game.
• I don't think most of this impacts the boys game in the same way because (a) more boys play sports to begin with and (b) it's probably still more of a mainstream cultural thing to be involved in.

None of this necessarily constitutes an actual take or anything (maybe I could throw it together into one), just a series of observations from the last few years, and I think the growth of volleyball is pretty logical in a lot of ways as the sport continues to slide more into the mainstream.

[MJWalker45]

1 minute ago, the admiral said:

That's interesting, thanks.

 

I don't remember high school basketball being coded one way or the other. It was not masculine to play on the basketball team; it was just something you did if you were kinda good at it. I will say that I went to a fairly small high school where everyone had to wear so many hats that it was hard to really code anything one way or another (e.g., doing theatre didn't make my peers call me a (I am intolerant towards the LGBTQ community), at least not more than usual for the early 2000s), but I don't remember a lack of girliness being an issue. 

 

Income inequality hitting basketball hard, though, I think that's significant and something we're already seeing at the NBA level, where the league has undergone a stark process of dehomiefication. 

You can see it in the Texas high school football playoffs this year. Most of the champions are from North Texas this year, and they're almost all either the wealthier districts up there, or traditional state powers. 

[4_tattoos]

Two things

 

FIRST. Since neither league has a team based in DC or Baltimore I took the time out to look up the rosters to see where the players are from. LOVB has only announced a handful of players, and unless I overlooked someone none of them are from my local area. PVF however has 2 players from my home county that went to high schools from the same school district I came from. Rainelle Jones of the Columbus Fury and M'Kaela White of the Orlando Valkyries are both from Prince George's County, Maryland. So I guess I'll be rooting for those teams until PVF expands or more hometown players come into the league.

 

SECOND. I was talking to a friend of mine that is also a volleyball fan, and they pointed out between the 2 leagues there's 16 clubs with the cities they've announced. We looked at the locations and noticed these leagues have a (combined) heavier presence in the middle part of the country than most leagues tend to have. 

• Atlanta, GA (both leagues)
• Omaha, NE (both leagues)
• Madison, WI (LOVB)
• Salt Lake, UT (LOVB)
• Austin, TX (LOVB)
• Houston, TX (LOVB)
•  Columbus, OH (PVF)
• Grand Rapids, MI (PVF)
• Orlando, FL (PVF)
• San Diego, CA (PVF)
• Las Vegas, NV (PVF)
• Dallas, TX (PVF 2025 expansion)
• Indianapolis, IN (PVF 2025 expansion)
• Kansas City (PVF 205 expansion)

Is there a reason for this? I'm sure both leagues have done research before placing their teams anywhere, but 10 of these 16 clubs are in the middle of the US. The complete lack of any club in the northeast is surprising without further explanation. As well as just a single team on the west coast.

 

We both agreed at some point PVF and LOVB will likely merge, in which one of the Atlanta and Omaha teams would more than likely end up relocating.

[The_Admiral]

40 minutes ago, 4_tattoos said:

We both agreed at some point PVF and LOVB will likely merge, in which one of the Atlanta and Omaha teams would more than likely end up relocating.

 

I have the Omaha team moving to Champaign.

[crashcarson15]

56 minutes ago, 4_tattoos said:

Is there a reason for this? I'm sure both leagues have done research before placing their teams anywhere, but 10 of these 16 clubs are in the middle of the US. The complete lack of any club in the northeast is surprising without further explanation. As well as just a single team on the west coast.

I mean, the geographic distribution overlays pretty well with the NCAA attendance leaders — most of the bigger crowds are in the Midwest or at like, Hawai'i, Texas and Florida. If I'm banking on anywhere adopting pro volleyball, I think starting in the Midwest feels like a good place to be. Unless I'm missing someone, Maryland was the closest thing to a northeastern team in the top 50 of D1 volleyball attendance last year.

[4_tattoos]

2 hours ago, crashcarson15 said:

Unless I'm missing someone, Maryland was the closest thing to a northeastern team in the top 50 of D1 volleyball attendance last year.

Penn State?

[Fowler2]

West Coast teams have usually dominated the NCAA but the Women's game has grown to a point with more midwest/central schools taking over the sport. 

[The_Admiral]

We love our tall big-boned German girls, don't we, folks? You're hearing it more and more. 

[MJWalker45]

19 hours ago, the admiral said:

 

I have the Omaha team moving to Champaign.

Nebraska has Nebraska volleyball fans just down the road to bring in. What does Champaign add?

13 hours ago, BottomlessPitt said:

West Coast teams have usually dominated the NCAA but the Women's game has grown to a point with more midwest/central schools taking over the sport. 

We also see startup leagues avoiding California, XFL and USFL, due to cost of living compared to the salaries the players are getting. It's also why the WNBA players stump for raising salaries, or granting some type of COLA for players in areas that the cost of living is higher. 

[Germanshepherd]

40 minutes ago, MJWalker45 said:

Nebraska has Nebraska volleyball fans just down the road to bring in. What does Champaign add?

If this actually catches on I could see both Lincoln and Omaha having a team. NU/Creighton is a decent rivalry, although its one-sided.

After 92,003, I’m fairly confident in saying this is the biggest volleyball fanbase in the country. 

[4_tattoos]

On 12/18/2023 at 4:06 PM, 4_tattoos said:

PVF is already beating LOVB in terms of branding. I present you the branding for each league's respective Omaha based teams.

Might as well do a branding comparison post of the 2 Atlanta based clubs too.

 

PVF's Atlanta Vibe

 

LOVB Atlanta Volleyball

 

I seriously hope LOVB's team branding are just placeholders. I refuse to believe they honestly thought these names and symbols would get people interested in their league. I'm not a fan of singular team names in general but Atlanta Vibe is a far superior team name than LOVB Atlanta Volleyball.

[McCall]

39 minutes ago, Germanshepherd said:

If this actually catches on I could see both Lincoln and Omaha having a team. NU/Creighton is a decent rivalry, although its one-sided.

After 92,003, I’m fairly confident in saying this is the biggest volleyball fanbase in the country. 

Lincoln is not a big enough market on its own to have a professional team. And it would make no sense to cut into Omaha's already small market, however big the interest in the sport is there. It would be like putting an NFL team in Milwaukee.

[Sykotyk]

1 hour ago, 4_tattoos said:

 

I can't be the only one that sees it, right?

[4_tattoos]

So I reached out to LOVB via email regarding the team names a few days ago. Here is the reply I received earlier today.

Quote

Took my name out,

 

Thank you so much for reaching out to League One Volleyball.  In our team names, we wanted to reflect the communities they are rooted in. Each of the LOVB pro teams are named after their cities and these are their official names.  

 

Happy Holidays!

 

LOVB Team

 

On Friday, December 22, 2023 at 9:44:36 AM UTC-8 took my name out wrote:

Hello. I was curious to know if the teams in LOVB's pro league will get proper team names before the season starts in November?

 

OOF! PVF easily wins the team branding battle between the 2 leagues. I just don't understand how having traditional North American style team names does not reflect the community a team is rooted in . So while PVF is going to give us the Omaha Supernovas vs the Atlanta Vibe, LOVB is committed to giving us LOVB Omaha Volleyball vs LOVB Atlanta Volleyball. Sheesh!

 

LOVB better hope the quality of play in their league is drastically superior to PVF. I don't see too many people getting excited for those generic placeholder names and hieroglyphics they call logos. Technically the full name of the teams in this league is "League One Volleyball (City Name) Volleyball". Who thought this was a good idea? I was prepared to give this league the nod over PVF for having several of my favorite current players and the backing of USA Volleyball. This choice in team branding is a huge fumble in my eyes.

[MJWalker45]

12 hours ago, 4_tattoos said:

So I reached out to LOVB via email regarding the team names a few days ago. Here is the reply I received earlier today.

 

OOF! PVF easily wins the team branding battle between the 2 leagues. I just don't understand how having traditional North American style team names does not reflect the community a team is rooted in . So while PVF is going to give us the Omaha Supernovas vs the Atlanta Vibe, LOVB is committed to giving us LOVB Omaha Volleyball vs LOVB Atlanta Volleyball. Sheesh!

 

LOVB better hope the quality of play in their league is drastically superior to PVF. I don't see too many people getting excited for those generic placeholder names and hieroglyphics they call logos. Technically the full name of the teams in this league is "League One Volleyball (City Name) Volleyball". Who thought this was a good idea? I was prepared to give this league the nod over PVF for having several of my favorite current players and the backing of USA Volleyball. This choice in team branding is a huge fumble in my eyes.

So they copied the new hockey league? That's not good business.

[4_tattoos]

It appears USA Volleyball is partnered with both leagues now.

 

Pro Volleyball Federation, USA Volleyball Announce New Alliance – Pro Volleyball Federation

 

 

 

 

[Germanshepherd]

LOVB no longer unique in that regard. Another win for PVL. 

[LMU]

The fact that PVF already has full rosters in place while LOVB still lists one to two "founding athletes" per team as the extent to their player pool shows that they're clearly the also-ran.  Heck, looking at LOVB's own press releases makes me not able to take them seriously since they even are reporting on PVF's signings.  They really should stick to amateur clubs and work out some kind of partnership agreement with PVF at this point.

[4_tattoos]

There's no L in PVF lol

[The_Admiral]

I'm surprised they didn't go with a Chicago team if Big Ten volleyball has been a significant part of the sport's development. This seems tailor-made for either the Sears Centre or sharing the Rahmdome with the Sky.