The LOVB Playbook

How Private Equity is Building a Volleyball Empire on the Dreams of 12-Year-Old Girls

Part 3 in the Youth Sports Industrial Complex series

They call it "love."

League One Volleyball—LOVB, pronounced "love"—wants you to know they're different. They're women-led. They're empowering young girls. They're creating opportunities. They're building pathways from youth to pro. They're championing female athletes.

They've raised $160 million from private equity firms.

If that last sentence gave you whiplash, you're paying attention.

Let me be clear: I love that we finally have a high-level professional volleyball league here in the United States. Watching world-class volleyball without having to stream matches from Italy or Turkey at 3 AM? Seeing American players compete at home instead of spending their entire careers overseas? Having young girls able to watch professional female athletes on ESPN? This is genuinely wonderful.

But I have to ask: at what cost to youth sports is this coming?

LOVB represents the next evolution in the private equity takeover of youth sports. Not content with simply extracting value from existing leagues and clubs, they're building an entirely vertically integrated empire—from the 9-year-old learning to serve to the professional athlete on ESPN. They're not just capturing value at one level; they're creating a pipeline designed to extract money from families at every stage of a girl's volleyball journey.

And they're doing it while waving the flag of female empowerment.

The Model: Building Your Own Supply Chain

LOVB's strategy is breathtakingly ambitious and ruthlessly efficient. Instead of buying into existing professional sports (too expensive) or just rolling up youth clubs (limited upside), they're creating an entire ecosystem where every dollar spent at any level feeds the same machine.

Here's how it works:

Step 1: Buy the grassroots. LOVB has quietly acquired 75+ youth volleyball clubs across 28 states, now controlling 21,000+ young athletes. They're actively acquiring established local clubs and "several other youth volleyball organizations." They keep the original names—parents often don't even know ownership has changed.

Step 2: Create the dream. Launch a professional league with massive fanfare, ESPN coverage, and Olympic athletes. Make sure every 10-year-old in your youth clubs sees these pros as their potential future.

Step 3: Connect the pipeline. Market it as a "youth-to-pro pathway"—the first of its kind! Tell parents their daughter isn't just playing club volleyball; she's in the development system for professional sports. The same organization that runs her Tuesday night practice runs the pro league she watches on TV.

Step 4: Extract at every level. Club fees from 21,000 athletes. Tournament revenues. Merchandise sales. Streaming subscriptions. Ticket sales for pro games. Sponsorship deals leveraging your captive audience of affluent families. Every level feeds the next.

Step 5: Scale nationally. Use private equity funding to acquire more clubs, expand to more cities, create more "pathways." Rinse. Repeat. Exit to the next PE firm at a higher valuation.

The Money: Following the Private Equity Trail

Let's be clear about who's funding this "empowerment":

• Atwater Capital: A private equity firm that led the latest $100 million round

• Ares Management: One of the world's largest alternative investment managers with $450+ billion under management

• Left Lane Capital: A growth equity firm focused on high-growth consumer and software companies

Yes, there are celebrity investors too—Kevin Durant, Amy Schumer, Lindsey Vonn. They provide great PR cover. But make no mistake: this is a private equity play dressed up in the language of women's empowerment and youth development.

The recent $100 million funding announcement is telling. CEO Katlyn Gao said: "As the sport of volleyball continues to grow not just in size but in popularity, we are humbled to be rolling up our sleeves alongside leading investors like Atwater, Ares and Left Lane Capital to enable volleyball to become the next major league."

Notice the language: "rolling up our sleeves." As if Ares Management, with nearly half a trillion dollars under management, is just a scrappy partner helping girls play volleyball. This is financial engineering masquerading as community building.

The Acquisition Strategy: Buying Local, Thinking Global

LOVB's acquisition of youth clubs follows the private equity playbook perfectly, but with a twist that makes it even more insidious.

When LOVB acquires a local club, they often keep everything that parents trust—the name, the coaches, the facilities. Your local club is still called by its original name. Parents might notice some new LOVB branding, maybe some talk about "pathways to pro," but their daughter still goes to the same gym on Tuesday nights.

What changes happens behind the scenes: centralized pricing decisions, standardized policies, mandatory participation in LOVB tournaments, required purchases from LOVB-approved vendors. The local club that used to make decisions based on what was best for the community now makes decisions based on what's best for LOVB's investors.

But here's the twist that makes LOVB different: they're not just acquiring clubs for their current revenue. They're acquiring them as farm teams for their professional league. Every 12-year-old paying $5,000 for club fees is not just a current customer—she's a potential future pro player, a guaranteed future fan, a walking advertisement for the LOVB ecosystem.

The Language Game: Empowerment as Marketing

LOVB has mastered the art of using social justice language to obscure private equity extraction. Every press release, every website page, every social media post is saturated with the language of empowerment:

• "Championing athletes throughout their entire volleyball journey"

• "Creating unprecedented opportunities for female athletes"

• "Building a platform where women and youth athletes can truly thrive"

• "Empowering young athletes to access life-changing opportunities"

This isn't accidental. LOVB knows that parents—especially mothers—who might be skeptical of another expensive sports program will open their wallets for "empowerment." They know that criticism of their model can be deflected with accusations of not supporting women's sports.

It's genius marketing. Who wants to be the parent who denies their daughter access to this "groundbreaking" opportunity for female athletes? Who wants to be seen as standing in the way of women's sports progress?

But let's be clear: private equity firms don't invest $160 million in empowerment. They invest in returns.

The Pipeline Dream: Manufacturing Aspiration

The most insidious part of LOVB's model is how they've weaponized the dreams of young girls to create a captive market.

Every 12-year-old in a LOVB club now has a tangible professional dream: she could play for LOVB Pro. She can see the pathway. She trains in the same facilities as the pros. She wears the same brand. She's part of the same ecosystem.

For volleyball-loving families, this feels like a dream come true. Your daughter isn't just playing club volleyball—she's part of something bigger. She's in the same organization that produces Olympians. She can watch her heroes on TV wearing the same logo that's on her practice jersey.

I get it. As someone who loves volleyball, who has watched the sport struggle for recognition and resources in this country, the appeal is undeniable. We want our daughters to have heroes who look like them. We want volleyball to thrive. We want to be part of something special.

But here's what breaks my heart: This isn't just about college scholarships anymore (though LOVB markets those too—"nearly 600 athletes from the LOVB Class of 2024 are competing in collegiate volleyball"). This is about professional sports. The biggest dream. The impossible dream. The dream that will cause parents to spend whatever it takes.

The math is brutal. In the inaugural season, LOVB Pro had six teams with rosters of about 14 players each. That's roughly 84 professional spots. LOVB controls 21,000 youth athletes and quickly growing.

That means 99.6% of the girls in LOVB clubs will never play for LOVB Pro. But 100% of their families will pay fees that help fund it.

The Volleyball Moment: Perfect Timing or Manufactured Demand?

LOVB's timing seems perfect. Women's volleyball is having "a moment"—record crowds at college games, increased TV viewership, growing social media presence. But how much of this moment is organic, and how much is being manufactured by the very companies that profit from it?

When private equity pumps $160 million into volleyball, they're not just responding to demand—they're creating it. They fund marketing campaigns. They buy media coverage. They sponsor influencers. They create the perception of a "movement" that requires immediate participation.

Parents are told volleyball is "the #1 high school team sport for girls." They're shown videos of 92,000 fans at a Nebraska volleyball game. They're told their daughter needs to be part of this moment, right now, before it's too late.

The fear of missing out isn't accidental. It's engineered.

The Real Cost: What Families Don't See

When a family signs up for a LOVB club, they're told they're joining "the largest and most connected youth volleyball organization in the U.S." What they're not told:

• Their fees are helping fund a professional league that their daughter will almost certainly never play in

• Their local club's decisions are now being made by private equity firms optimizing for returns

• The "pathway to pro" they're being sold is statistically less likely than getting into Harvard

• The community club they trusted has become a node in a national corporation

• Every additional program, camp, and clinic they're encouraged to buy is designed to maximize revenue per athlete

The average LOVB family will spend thousands per year on club fees, travel, equipment, and camps. Multiply that by 21,000 athletes, and you start to understand why private equity is interested. This isn't about volleyball. It's about accessing affluent families with daughters and extracting maximum lifetime value from each customer relationship.

The Celebrity Shield: Using Famous Names to Deflect Criticism

LOVB's celebrity investors serve a crucial function: they make it seem like this is about sports, not finance. When you see that Kevin Durant, Candace Parker, and Lindsey Vonn have invested, it feels legitimate. These are athletes who understand sports, who care about the next generation, who wouldn't be involved in something exploitative.

But celebrity investors typically put in relatively small amounts compared to the PE firms. Durant's investment through Boardroom Sports Holdings might be a few million. Ares Management and Atwater Capital are putting in tens of millions. Guess whose interests drive decision-making?

The celebrities provide cover. They show up at events. They post on social media. They make it feel like a movement rather than a private equity play. But when decisions are made about pricing, expansion, and exits, it's the PE firms calling the shots.

The Feminist Paradox: Using Women's Empowerment to Extract Value from Women

Perhaps the cruelest irony of LOVB is that it uses the language of feminism to extract money primarily from mothers for their daughters' sports.

LOVB celebrates being "women-founded" and having "50% women investors." Atwater Capital, which led the latest round, is "women-founded." This is supposed to make us feel good about the money we're spending. We're supporting women! We're fighting the patriarchy! We're building opportunities for our daughters!

But private equity is private equity, regardless of the gender of its partners. The business model—consolidation, extraction, exit—remains the same. The fact that women are leading this extraction from other women doesn't make it empowering. It makes it heartbreaking.

The Community Cost: What We Lose When Local Clubs Sell Out

Every time a local volleyball club sells to LOVB, a community loses something irreplaceable.

I've been around volleyball long enough to know these clubs—maybe you have too. That club run by the retired teacher who just loves volleyball? She probably got a good offer from LOVB—enough to retire comfortably. Who could blame her for taking it? She's been subsidizing volleyball in her community for years, probably losing money some seasons because she couldn't bear to turn away a kid who couldn't pay. But her club, which used to make decisions based on what was best for local girls, now makes decisions based on what's best for investors.

The coach who used to run extra practices for free because he saw potential in your daughter? He's now bound by corporate policies about billable hours. The tournament director who used to waive fees for families going through hard times? She now has to follow LOVB's accounts receivable procedures. The local volleyball community that used to feel like an extended family? It's now a node in a corporate network.

These changes happen slowly, quietly. The club keeps its name. The same coaches show up to practice. The gym looks the same. By the time parents realize their community club has become a corporate entity, it's too late. LOVB owns volleyball in their town.

And here's what really stings for those of us who love this sport: We're losing the very people who built volleyball from the ground up. The coaches who've been developing players for decades, who know every high school program in the area, who remember when your daughter first learned to pass—they're being replaced by a system that sees athletes as revenue units.

The Exit Strategy: Who Wins When LOVB Sells?

Private equity doesn't do long-term ownership. The typical PE playbook is to buy, grow, and exit within 5-7 years. LOVB's investors aren't in this for the long haul of building sustainable women's sports. They're in it to build something they can sell.

So what happens when LOVB exits?

Option 1: They sell to another PE firm at a higher valuation. The new owners need even higher returns, which means higher prices for families, more aggressive expansion, more extraction.

Option 2: They take it public. LOVB becomes a publicly traded company, beholden to quarterly earnings reports. Every decision gets made based on stock price impact.

Option 3: They sell to a media company or sports conglomerate looking to own content and audiences. Your daughter's volleyball club becomes part of someone's streaming strategy.

None of these scenarios end with volleyball becoming more accessible or community-centered. They all end with more extraction from families who just wanted their daughters to play sports.

The Resistance: What Real Empowerment Looks Like

If LOVB really wanted to empower young female athletes, here's what they could do with $160 million:

• Fund free volleyball programs in underserved communities

• Provide equipment and coaching to schools that can't afford programs

• Create sliding-scale fee structures based on family income

• Pay coaches living wages instead of extracting value for investors

• Keep clubs locally owned and operated

• Make volleyball more accessible, not more expensive

But that's not what private equity does. Private equity consolidates, extracts, and exits.

Real empowerment in youth volleyball looks like the clubs that haven't sold out. You know these clubs—they're in your community right now. The ones that stay small, stay local, stay connected. The ones where the director knows not just your daughter's name but remembers her sister who played five years ago. The ones where decisions are made by people who will see you at the grocery store, not by investment committees in Manhattan.

These clubs still exist. They're run by former players who came back to give to the sport they love. By parents who saw a need and filled it. By coaches who measure success not in revenue but in the number of kids who still love volleyball at 18.

Real empowerment looks like parents understanding that their daughter doesn't need a "pathway to pro" to benefit from playing volleyball. She needs teammates who become lifelong friends. She needs coaches who care about her as a person. She needs the life lessons that come from working hard, failing sometimes, and getting back up. She needs volleyball to be a part of her childhood, not a financial product designed to extract maximum value from her family.

And maybe most importantly, she needs to play for the joy of playing—not because she's been convinced that her worth depends on making it to the next level.

The Pattern Continues: From Volleyball to Every Sport

LOVB isn't unique. They're just the latest and perhaps most sophisticated example of private equity's assault on youth sports. They've taken the playbook—consolidation, vertical integration, premium pricing—and added a twist: building a professional league on top to create even more aspiration and extraction opportunities.

Watch for this pattern in other sports. Basketball. Soccer. Softball. Private equity will identify sports with passionate parents (especially affluent ones), fragment local markets, and strong youth participation. They'll create "pathways to pro." They'll use the language of empowerment and opportunity. They'll extract billions from families desperate to give their children every advantage.

The Choice: Love or LOVB?

LOVB wants parents to believe that loving their daughters means buying into the LOVB ecosystem. That supporting women's sports means supporting private equity's consolidation of volleyball. That empowerment comes through corporate programs and manufactured pathways.

But real love might look different.

Real love might mean choosing the local club that isn't trying to be an empire. Real love might mean saying no to the travel team and yes to family dinners. Real love might mean recognizing that your daughter's worth isn't measured by her volleyball trajectory.

Real love might mean understanding that when private equity says "love," they mean return on investment.

The Bottom Line: It's Not About Volleyball

Atwater Capital doesn't care about empowering young women. Ares Management doesn't care about creating opportunities for female athletes.

They care about returns.

They've identified volleyball as an efficient vehicle for extracting money from affluent families with daughters. They've recognized that wrapping this extraction in the language of empowerment makes it not just palatable but desirable. They've understood that building a professional league on top of youth clubs creates additional extraction opportunities while manufacturing the aspiration that drives spending.

Your daughter's volleyball journey has been turned into a financial instrument. Her dreams are the raw material for private equity returns. Her sport has been financialized, corporatized, and optimized for extraction.

The question isn't whether this is happening. It's happening. The question is whether we're going to keep pretending it's about empowerment while private equity builds empires on the dreams of 12-year-old girls.

They call it LOVB—"love."

But there's nothing loving about turning childhood dreams into quarterly earnings.

There's nothing loving about extracting thousands from families for manufactured pathways to nowhere.

There's nothing loving about using the language of empowerment to obscure corporate consolidation.

What LOVB really loves is the sound of 21,000 families writing checks, month after month, year after year, funding an empire built on impossible dreams.

That's not love. That's private equity.

And those of us who truly love volleyball—who love watching girls discover their power at the net, who cherish the friendships forged on tournament days, who believe in the transformative power of sports—we need to call it what it is. We can celebrate professional volleyball while questioning the system built beneath it. We can support our daughters' dreams without feeding them to the machine.

Because real love for volleyball means protecting it from those who would exploit it.

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