Boardroom talks with Gao about the new league’s first season, pro players practicing alongside youth players, and creating the NBA of volleyball.
After six years of planning and development, League One Volleyball (LOVB) finally served up its first season with six teams competing for the championship this weekend in Louisville, with ESPN2 broadcasting Sunday’s championship match. The league raised $160 million in funding, including from David Blitzer, Ares Management, Candace Parker, Lindsey Vonn, Amy Schumer, and Boardroom Sports Holdings. Its rosters include 19 Olympians who’ve won a combined 24 medals, with 59 affiliated youth clubs across America already providing the league’s future pipeline in the country’s most-played girls sport.
Boardroom spoke with league CEO Katlyn Gao last month about sustainable growth, the importance of integrating youth players, key adjustments made along the way, and matches in home markets like Atlanta, Houston, Omaha, Austin, Salt Lake, and Madison:
The following has been edited for length and clarity:
Subscribe for the biggest stories in the business of sports and entertainment, daily.
Shlomo Sprung: How would you assess how the first season is going?
Katlyn Gao: Having prepared for this for the last few years, culminating with our inaugural season, it’s going really well. Most of all, we’re just learning a lot, and that’s really what the first season is all about. It’s to really see what we envisioned, what’s actually working out like we had imagined, and what are good and not good surprises where we’re going to have to adjust midseason. We’re already applying a lot of learnings to the second season as we’re preparing for it.
Most importantly, the fans are really happy, the athletes are really engaged, and our roster for next season is already mostly done. So the enthusiasm of wanting to build LOVB with us has been tremendous from the players, who are the best in the world.
SS: What good and bad surprises have you encountered along the way?
KG: I don’t know what this says about me, but I really want to make sure that we’re not taking our eye off the ball with anything that we do. But this vision that we had, that our athletes are practicing side by side with our youth clubs and sharing a home to create some really special, authentic, and deeply held connections, has been really incredible to see that come to life. And it’s not just happening in the practice facilities themselves, but also when you go to the matches, you see the youth are so engaged with or without their parents.
And since many of these players have been gone for a while— because to play at the very highest level internationally, you are usually in Europe or Asia and not here in the States— it’s taken some time for fans to recognize the players, but it’s happening faster than we imagined. That connection between the youth and the pros is happening so quickly.
SS: What have you had to adjust or tweak on the fly?
KG: How do we make sure the in-venue hype to really get the fans excited is on point? We weren’t actually planning on doing as much of the play-by-play in-venue, but there’s still this education process of getting the audience to know who these players are. So, to call out the number or the play and hear names called out constantly is to build that connection with fans to these amazing superstars coming home to play. And, the casual fan is the biggest piece of the pie that we know we are already starting to attract, and we will attract more in the future.
SS: A lot of leagues starting up now, like Unrivaled, are holding all games in one place, which seems like an easier, safer approach. Why’d you elect to have all six teams play in their physical home cities?
KG: The main driver of that is really looking ahead to what our role is. We want to be no less than the NBA of volleyball. And for you to be a legacy league like that, the way that you build now has to be focused toward that vision. We definitely had an opportunity to make it one single location, and we looked into it. There were a lot of operational and financial efficiencies. But we also knew that eventually, we wanted to go city-based, and this fan base is a business of belonging, to have that authentic and rabid fan base at the local level. And to set the tone, we felt very strongly that we needed to really lean into the city-based.
It also really helped that the locations of our anchor youth clubs that share practice facilities with our teams enable that day-to-day connection where they practice side by side.
SS: You mentioned that top players previously had to go overseas for the best competition and income. How have they responded to this opportunity now, being here in the States?
KG: It’s really been incredible. When we were talking to the athletes who have been in preparation mode with us as part of the Athletes Council over the last four years, we started talking to them when they were going to Tokyo before they even won the gold in 2021. Even during the pandemic, we were on Zooms and had input on our uniform sponsor, our scheduling format, and how your training schedule fit with the national team because 90% of our athletes have national team experience. They felt like builders and founders along with us.
So when we had our first serves across our six cities, we saw some really strong emotions. I had one player tell me she was more nervous about the first serve for her team here at LOVB than in the Olympics. It reflects so much care and ownership of wanting to build this legacy league. One player broke down with emotion when they went on the court for the first time warming up and said, “This is actually happening.”
SS: Because of such a long buildup?
KG: Yes, but it was one where we shaped and built with the athletes together. It was a constant, open dialogue of where we can tweak within our financially responsible budget because we want what’s best for them, and they want what’s best for the league’s overall sustainability and success. They want to stay here to play at this level. They don’t want to play in the G-League of volleyball; they want to build an NBA of volleyball.
SS: Is that what you would consider other current competitor leagues?
KG: I’m not privy to their strategy, but I know that for us, it’s really important to continue bringing in the best of the best. That’s also one of the reasons why we’re being really thoughtful about expansion. We will expand, of course, but it’s not going to be overnight because everything we’ve done so far has been disciplined and methodical with wanting the best players. And if we don’t have enough of the best players, we’re going to slow down our expansion until we have enough players that are at the right level for us.
SS: How important is translating the success LOVB had at the youth level and providing that talent pipeline to college and the pros in what you guys are trying to accomplish?
KG: That’s what the entire model is about. Very early on, we onboarded NIL athletes at the collegiate level, and six of them joined us to become part of the inaugural season as soon as they were eligible to move on to the pros. They’re already on our rosters for the first season, and several of them are already in starting lineups, which has been incredible to see. Our sports team is looking into continuing this next season, and the group will depend on the quality of the graduating class in terms of their readiness for LOVB’s rosters.
SS: What are your goals for year one, and how do you make those adjustments to make LOVB even better next year?
KG: We’re already taking a lot of the learnings in terms of venue, location, and scheduling going into the second season. We’re learning a ton with our partners, who are co-creating a lot of activations with us, trying new things, and figuring out what’s working and what we want to do differently. The good news is all teams are directly operated by us, although we’re looking to add local owners.
SS: How have you balanced putting the best product on the court with staying financially viable long-term?
KG: That’s been the model since the beginning. That’s why we didn’t start with pro, right? We started with club, and that certainly helped. We have a really strong foundation already laid with our audience and club operational base at the youth level.
That said, we’ve also had three rounds of oversubscribed fundraising. And that’s not just a check but strategic investors who connect dots with talent and access to new technology. We’re also being really disciplined about being financially and fiscally responsible as we think about salaries, travel, and the quality of what we put out, and always trying to do a lot with less. We’re definitely pleased overall about where we are.
Read More:
The Afrobeats Takeover: Africa’s Soundtrack Goes Global
Nike and Hyperice Just Dropped the Apple Vision Pro of Recovery Gear
Meet the Man Behind Some of the NBA’s Biggest Changes
Jay Ellis Plays Every Role Like a Team Sport
‘SINNERS’ Marks a Bold New Chapter for Ryan Coogler & Michael B. Jordan
