As far as professional volleyball goes, there isn’t much two-time Olympic medalist Micha Hancock hasn’t done.
Hancock won gold with Team USA at the Tokyo Games and a silver medal at the Paris Games. She played professionally in Italy for the last seven years. Before that, in Poland for two years.
This winter, though, she’s preparing to do something she’s never done before: play a season of professional volleyball in the United States, on a Houston team in a first-of-its-kind league debuting in January.
Whereas most sports leagues launch pro franchises and then develop academy and youth programs, League One Volleyball (abbreviated to LOVB and pronounced “Love”) did the opposite. It started with a network of established youth clubs all over the country, then branched upward to pro teams in six cities: Houston; Austin; Atlanta; Omaha, Neb.; Madison, Wis.; and Salt Lake City.
Until a few years ago, top American volleyball players had to go overseas to play professionally. LOVB Pro is one of three professional indoor volleyball leagues that have launched in the U.S. since 2021, but the only one that started at the grassroots level.
Hancock and U.S. Olympic teammate Jordan Thompson were the first two athletes to commit to LOVB Houston. Hancock said the new league gave her the opportunity not only to come home, but to help grow professional volleyball in what is hopefully a lasting way.
“I think it wasn’t the most important thing for this league to be first. It was like, we want to make sure we have time to do the things how we want to do them,” Hancock said. “In 10 years, I just want there to be one really good option for young women, and young men eventually, to stay home and play if that’s what they choose to do.”
LOVB started in 2020 and now has 58 junior clubs across the country. The six pro franchises each share a practice gym with a local affiliated youth club. LOVB Houston practices at Houston Skyline’s gym and will play home matches at the Fort Bend County Epicenter, with the first home match scheduled Jan. 9 against Austin.
LOVB Pro owns and operates each of its teams, a single-entity model also used by Major League Soccer and the Professional Women’s Hockey League. But LOVB Pro president Rosie Spaulding said she is unaware of a professional sports league anywhere in the world with the same community up structure.
“I think what’s been missing for a long time in the U.S. for volleyball has been the highest level of the game and this sort of North Star and halo effect that a pro league can bring,” Spaulding said. “And in doing it this way, we’re really forging this really strong connection from the very beginning so that kids playing in our clubs can see and actually train in the same gyms as our pro teams and see firsthand.”
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The league will debut just sixth months after the 2024 Summer Olympics in Paris, where Team USA took home the women’s volleyball silver medal.
The timing was intentional, Spaulding said. So was picking Houston as one of the base cities.
Houston Skyline was ranked the No. 1 youth club in the country this year, as the number of girls playing volleyball in Texas and nationwide continued to skyrocket. A record-high 479,125 girls participated in high school volleyball in 2023-24, second only to track and field, according to the National Federation of State High School Associations. Texas led the way with 52,608 girls volleyball participants.
At the college level, the Texas Longhorns are defending their national championship this month in the NCAA Tournament. In total, nine of the 64 teams in the field are from the Lone Star State, including Texas A&M, Baylor, SMU and Texas State.
When it came time to launch pro teams, Spaulding said LOVB started with a list of 28 cities. Houston easily rose to the top.
“We looked at everything from affinity for volleyball, USA Volleyball membership, where women’s sports where popular, cities that were easy to get to from a transport perspective for logistics, the existing pro teams and leagues that were already in cities — and of course, importantly, our clubs,” Spaulding said. “Houston Skyline continues to be one of the top clubs in the country, and it was a no-brainer for us.”
Rice also has a strong volleyball program, though they fell short of the NCAA tournament this year. I have no idea how big the audience will be for LOVB, but the league appears to be pretty well-capitalized and they have a broadcast deal with ESPN, as does the forthcoming Athletes United Softball League. If this is your jam you should buy a ticket and go see a game – if this is going to work, sufficient support out of the gate is a big deal. You can learn more about the league here and its apparently not-yet-named Houston team here. The schedule runs into the first week of April. I wish them well.