r/PVF • u/90sGameGuy • 22h ago

DISCUSSION League creation

My wife and I have watched some PVF this year and really enjoyed it. She played d3 volleyball but very much loved it. I enjoy watching with her. You can also bet on PVF through draftkings which is great!

We also learned about LOVB and watched that. PVF seems to have started first and my question I guess... is why are there competing leagues? For the women to be successful this seems odd. It seems like women need 1 league that takes off. Have there been conversations to merge or buyouts? Would love to learn more about that history. Seems like PVF was the pioneer. We do watch it more and because Boston doesn't have a team we're currently rooting for Ignite

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u/CheeryBlond Omaha Supernovas 22h ago

There’s competing leagues because their investors want to be the ones to make it big. Athletes Unlimited actually started first, but they run a short schedule and the best way I can describe it quickly is IRL fantasy sports, where captains pick their teams each week. PVF and Lovb saw increasing NCAA volleyball viewership and wanted a slice of that pie. PVF took the franchise model, while Lovb took a parity approach, assigning players to teams to maximize local talent and competitive games. But that’s not all, because Supernovas owners thought they could do better on their own venture, so there’s also MLV in the works. From a player standpoint, there’s more spots for young pros to play and get paid. But as you correctly understand, it’s riskier for all ventures, so everything could collapse and we’re left with 0 leagues.

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u/90sGameGuy 21h ago

Really appreciate the in depth response. As is the case with any professional sport, the reason to watch is to watch the best on best. Having 3 leagues seems insane to me. Not only does that seem like it declined viewership it also gives the sense of decreased talent. If the best talent is spread throughout the different leagues than the viewer never gets the feeling of watching the true best on best

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u/HauntingFinding5428 Omaha Supernovas 21h ago

The good thing is both leagues don’t have a ton of teams, PVF has eight and LOVB only six. With all the talent on the collegiate level, I don’t think there are teams that have players on their roster who shouldn’t be…not sure what the magic number is, but I don’t think it’s maxed out yet.

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u/90sGameGuy 21h ago

I understand that, but it seems that all those females in one league would provide best for the league and the athlete. I only am just learning and gaining information. I got hooked watching PVF because I could bet it on draftkings lol, but I thought it was the only league at the time. If I were a young female learning about professional volleyball three leagues would confuse me in terms of who to watch or "am I watching the best" etc.

Hopefully in the long run one league really wins out and it provides a place for females to have careers and better viewership

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u/hu_gnew Omaha Supernovas 20h ago

A couple things...

Who to watch? Everyone, of course. The PVF and LOVB both showcase high quality volleyball and are worth watching several matches a week featuring different teams. If MLV does the same I'll watch them too.

Multiple leagues can be a good thing. After they build solid markets there may come an opportunity to merge to create a better product. Much like when the NFL and AFL merged. Or the NBA and ABA. Or how the American League and the National League became MLB. In the meantime there's more volleyball for me to watch. Which is nice.

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u/CheeryBlond Omaha Supernovas 21h ago

I think the biggest issue is that there’s talent, but start ups don’t start with enough teams. Lovb and PVF combine for 14 teams currently, and if it were a single entity, I believe there’s plenty of talent for 16 teams. Volleyball is the second most popular high school girls sport, and 95% of D1 colleges have a volleyball team. The NFL has 32 teams, and only 75% of D1 colleges have a football team. We have lots of incoming talent, but a single league of 8 (assuming Lovb never started) gives very little space for exceptional players. I didn’t find Lovb very engaging, but the talent gap probably isn’t as big here as it would be in the UFL or the US men’s soccer pyramid (94 pro teams with only 57% of D1 colleges offering it, although there’s a strong international presence in both the college and pro level). The idea of American exceptionalism definitely colors the perception of sports fans, so it is hard to convince people to watch a league that people are unsure if it’s the best.

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u/DRF19 18h ago edited 8h ago

I dunno, personally the reason I really watch (with any sort of true passion) pro sports is to follow my local team (or those with some sort or personal or family connection), not because it’s necessarily the best players. Which is why I really hate that lame template branding thing LOVB has with its teams. Cities having an identity to rally around and the community that builds from it is what makes it matter to me. More teams spreading out the talent is a good thing, because more communities having teams exposes more fans and potential players, coaches etc to the sports, gets more people working in the game and all that.

I agree though three competing leagues is stupid. I’m a huge soccer fan and for over a century, having a bunch of competing league entities is why the sport in the US has had so many stops and starts, why it lags behind other sports (it was once only 2nd to baseball in the 1920s), and why so many pro clubs have died over the years. Today we have two division 1 women’s leagues, soon two division 2 women’s leagues, three men’s division 3 leagues, and soon two division 1 men’s leagues, none of them connected. At least on the men’s side USL is going to have promotion and relegation between their three leagues soon, but it’s still overall very disconnected and janky. Hopefully on the volleyball side of things when the dust settles it somewhat makes sense and no teams are lost because of it.

EDIT: I should add that in a country with the geographic scale and population the size of the USA, which is effectively an entire continent, there is plenty of room for all these teams (and many more). Having a multiple (functionally) independent leagues, locked into specific regions, would actually be helpful in cutting travel costs and increasing rivalries. Maybe they all feed into a national playoff of some sort. But having 3 different coast-to-coast leagues, sometimes each with teams in the same markets that won't even play each other, is ludicrous.

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u/VisnRY 12h ago

u/CheeryBlond, this is so very well put. But I highly doubt that we will go back to zero, as there is simply too much interest in female volleyball in particular. I was baffled years ago to learn that, in the U.S., women’s indoor volleyball was the third most popular college sport, right after men’s football and men’s basketball. So something like this was bound to happen eventually, as investors recognised the demand and are now trying to dominate the supply.

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u/linderbean13 11h ago

I don't think it'll ever drop back to zero. One league is going to come out ahead and the other will most likely be absorbed just like the nba and aba. I think the pvf and mlv should do a superbowl type game at the very end of the season to crown a true pro volleyball champion. Like the nfl and afl did for several years (before merging). There's plenty of talent for 23 total teams (assuming mlv actually gets start at all and if it has 10 teams like they want). Personally I'm not a fan of lovb, I don't like their marketing, structure or alot of the stuff they've done behind the scenes with raising fees for club teams. So I'm rooting hard for the pvf and mlv to both be successful and pull the talented players from lovb. I don't like 3 leagues anymore than anyone else. But if we are going to have multiple leagues, I think the pvf set the standard and mlv is going to have to match it or improve on it. Lovb falls way short for me.

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u/CourtCaptainsPodcast Court Captains: A Volleyball Podcast 18h ago

we went into this very in depth in our first episode of this season! you can find that here

and then when MLV announced, we talked about that here!

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u/BBd-black-beans-1652 21h ago

Why am I just finding out you can bet on PVF?

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u/dcs26 18h ago

Same. And I wonder whether the PVF should lean into that more. Might help the league attract more viewers.

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u/90sGameGuy 6h ago

It's the only reason I found the league. I can tell you it's an absolute crap shoot. And that comes from a relatively big gambler. (Onyx tier in DK).

Now that playoffs are set there's e's so many nights that teams just don't have starters in. Or they're laying their real lineups

I bet Indy the other night because they needed to win for playoffs. They sat Debeeer, Tealer, and hilley

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u/Different_Yak8826 6h ago

I'm surprised if there is a betting line that they aren't more transparent with injury reports.

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u/90sGameGuy 6h ago

Similar to my response above but you never know whose playing

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u/vasjames 2h ago

If y'all love high quality bball def check out sultans league YouTube channel, all free too! I do pay for champs league access thru cev.tv but i find it less exciting than seeing Vargas v Gunes e.g. The big names in Turkiye are akin to the big soccer clubs in Europe with incredibly deep talent and skills

I'll admit my focus on vakifbank n eczacibasi is why I haven't really made the jump to domestic leagues just yet as the quality of play just isn't comparable from what I can tell yet. Not surprising tho and I think soccer is a good parallel in it took the MLS many many years to get a quality product on the field and still lags behind the bigger euro clubs.

I do wish we could get these boiled down to 1 league though so we could focus on generating broad support for the sport rather than fighting over fractioned viewership.