I'm a pediatrician who cares for kids whose mental health is crumbling under the weight of the Youth Sports Industrial Complex, and whose bodies are broken due to early specialization's false promise of "elite status."
I'm also a volleyball mom and LOVB-club "survivor." I can attest to the poignant acccuracy of your post. I've witnessed the empowerment rhetoric poured like water from a bedazzled Stanley cup, and I've seen dubious decision-making from "local leadership." Thankfully, my daughter stayed healthy, and still loves and plays the game. But, would she (we) do it again..... (shrug)
Thank you so much for this comment - "empowerment rhetoric poured like water from a bedazzled Stanley cup" is the most perfect description I've ever heard.
Your perspective as both a pediatrician AND a LOVB-club survivor is incredibly valuable. The fact that you're seeing the damage in your exam room and then going home to navigate the same system with your own daughter - that dual view is powerful and important.
I've been contemplating writing about the physical and mental health crisis in youth sports, particularly around early specialization and the "elite" pressure cooker. Would you be willing to share more about what you're seeing from the pediatrician side? The crumbling mental health, the broken bodies - parents need to hear this from someone who sees the actual medical consequences.
Even if you prefer to remain anonymous, your professional perspective on what this system is doing to kids' bodies and minds could help other families understand the real cost beyond the financial.
If you're open to it, I'd love to connect. Your voice - as both a medical professional and a parent who's lived it - could help other families avoid the path you've walked.
Thank you for your courage in sharing this. And I'm glad your daughter still loves the game despite everything. That's a victory in itself.
See this happening locally this season. Girls so excited to be in this model, asked to play for a team that is 1 or 2 levels higher than they have played before, parents paying 2x, 3x for a season, and traveling to bigger/ better tournaments, even though they weren’t winning Regional ones. I hope it doesn’t crush their love of volleyball.
Yes — this is exactly the heartbreaking tension. On the surface, it feels like an incredible opportunity: play “up,” travel to big tournaments, wear the shiny jersey. But the cost (financial and emotional) adds up fast, and too often the joy that drew them to volleyball in the first place gets chipped away. My hope — and what I keep pushing for — is that we don’t confuse “more expensive” with “more meaningful.” Kids thrive when the game still feels like theirs.
This package has been dynamite stuff, Loren. Great work! I know first-hand that this stuff doesn't do itself. I'll do my bit to help get exposure for the story.
I’m not sure I really get this one Loren. You’ve written a lot here but I think it can all just be summed up as ‘LOVB are capitalists’. They are behaving like capitalists. They market like capitalists. Many of the largest clubs in the country, the ones LOVB acquired first were already capitalists. Should it surprise any of us when capitalists do what they always do?
You're absolutely right that this is capitalism doing what capitalism does. No surprise there.
But here's what's different and worth exposing: Most parents have no idea their local volleyball club is now owned by private equity firms. They think they're supporting a community organization or a small business run by people who love volleyball. They don't know their fees are generating returns for Ares Management's $450 billion portfolio.
The other piece is the weaponization of feminism and empowerment language to obscure what's happening. When PE bought up emergency rooms and nursing homes, at least they didn't pretend it was about "empowering grandma." LOVB has wrapped extraction in the language of social progress, making parents feel like questioning the model means opposing women's sports.
You're right that capitalism gonna capitalism. But parents deserve to know when their daughter's Tuesday night practice has become a node in a private equity roll-up strategy. They deserve to know that "pathway to pro" is marketing speak for "we'll extract value at every level of play."
Sometimes naming the obvious is still necessary. Especially when the obvious is hiding behind inspirational Instagram posts about girl power.
But I take your point - maybe I should have just written: "Private equity bought volleyball. Price goes up. Access goes down. Same as everything else they touch." Would have saved us both some time!
Yes, fair point about parents getting to know what is going on. I’m sure most of them are not really paying close enough attention to grok what’s happening here.
Is this really very different from the Jrs programs funding the national team pipeline? Replace LOVB with USA national team and that has been the dream USA volleyball has been selling through the regions and the national championship divisions they keep adding. I know it’s a gross oversimplification but the reality is that our juniors model is broken and it’s making volleyball even more of a country club sport and harder for the average familia to access.
Didn’t say it does. Just pointing out that Jrs has been flawed from the beginning. It’s been trying to replicate the club model in Europe but their systems are run very differently and have a much more transparent approach.
You're absolutely right that the USAV junior model is flawed - no argument there. But you're mistaken about it trying to replicate the European model. If anything, it's the opposite.
European clubs are typically community-owned or member-owned nonprofits, heavily subsidized by government funding, with professional teams required to support youth development as part of their licensing. Kids pay minimal fees, if any. The transparency you mention comes from their nonprofit status and public funding requirements.
Our system? It's pure American capitalism - pay-to-play from day one. USAV may sell the national team dream, but at least those fees largely stay within volleyball's ecosystem, funding actual volleyball operations (however inefficiently).
What makes LOVB different is that now we have Wall Street firms extracting value to generate returns for investors who couldn't care less about volleyball. Your daughter's club fees aren't just funding some bureaucrat's salary at USAV anymore - they're generating returns for Ares Management's $450 billion portfolio.
You're right that juniors volleyball has been broken from the beginning. But private equity isn't here to fix it - they're here to optimize the extraction. That's a meaningful escalation from flawed to exploitative.
The European model we should actually copy? Community ownership, public funding, and treating sports as a public good rather than a private investment vehicle. But that would require admitting sports serve a social purpose beyond generating returns.
That is my point about the European system being very different. The professional clubs run it like a farm system and they are more realistic about taking kids not money. In other words they can’t pay their way into playing on a top level team like some parents do here in the states. And yes the money/profits go to private entities now not USAV but neither was correct. Great conversation and one that is long overdue.
I'm a pediatrician who cares for kids whose mental health is crumbling under the weight of the Youth Sports Industrial Complex, and whose bodies are broken due to early specialization's false promise of "elite status."
I'm also a volleyball mom and LOVB-club "survivor." I can attest to the poignant acccuracy of your post. I've witnessed the empowerment rhetoric poured like water from a bedazzled Stanley cup, and I've seen dubious decision-making from "local leadership." Thankfully, my daughter stayed healthy, and still loves and plays the game. But, would she (we) do it again..... (shrug)
Thank you so much for this comment - "empowerment rhetoric poured like water from a bedazzled Stanley cup" is the most perfect description I've ever heard.
Your perspective as both a pediatrician AND a LOVB-club survivor is incredibly valuable. The fact that you're seeing the damage in your exam room and then going home to navigate the same system with your own daughter - that dual view is powerful and important.
I've been contemplating writing about the physical and mental health crisis in youth sports, particularly around early specialization and the "elite" pressure cooker. Would you be willing to share more about what you're seeing from the pediatrician side? The crumbling mental health, the broken bodies - parents need to hear this from someone who sees the actual medical consequences.
Even if you prefer to remain anonymous, your professional perspective on what this system is doing to kids' bodies and minds could help other families understand the real cost beyond the financial.
If you're open to it, I'd love to connect. Your voice - as both a medical professional and a parent who's lived it - could help other families avoid the path you've walked.
Thank you for your courage in sharing this. And I'm glad your daughter still loves the game despite everything. That's a victory in itself.
Happy to connect!
See this happening locally this season. Girls so excited to be in this model, asked to play for a team that is 1 or 2 levels higher than they have played before, parents paying 2x, 3x for a season, and traveling to bigger/ better tournaments, even though they weren’t winning Regional ones. I hope it doesn’t crush their love of volleyball.
Yes — this is exactly the heartbreaking tension. On the surface, it feels like an incredible opportunity: play “up,” travel to big tournaments, wear the shiny jersey. But the cost (financial and emotional) adds up fast, and too often the joy that drew them to volleyball in the first place gets chipped away. My hope — and what I keep pushing for — is that we don’t confuse “more expensive” with “more meaningful.” Kids thrive when the game still feels like theirs.
This package has been dynamite stuff, Loren. Great work! I know first-hand that this stuff doesn't do itself. I'll do my bit to help get exposure for the story.
I’m not sure I really get this one Loren. You’ve written a lot here but I think it can all just be summed up as ‘LOVB are capitalists’. They are behaving like capitalists. They market like capitalists. Many of the largest clubs in the country, the ones LOVB acquired first were already capitalists. Should it surprise any of us when capitalists do what they always do?
You're absolutely right that this is capitalism doing what capitalism does. No surprise there.
But here's what's different and worth exposing: Most parents have no idea their local volleyball club is now owned by private equity firms. They think they're supporting a community organization or a small business run by people who love volleyball. They don't know their fees are generating returns for Ares Management's $450 billion portfolio.
The other piece is the weaponization of feminism and empowerment language to obscure what's happening. When PE bought up emergency rooms and nursing homes, at least they didn't pretend it was about "empowering grandma." LOVB has wrapped extraction in the language of social progress, making parents feel like questioning the model means opposing women's sports.
You're right that capitalism gonna capitalism. But parents deserve to know when their daughter's Tuesday night practice has become a node in a private equity roll-up strategy. They deserve to know that "pathway to pro" is marketing speak for "we'll extract value at every level of play."
Sometimes naming the obvious is still necessary. Especially when the obvious is hiding behind inspirational Instagram posts about girl power.
But I take your point - maybe I should have just written: "Private equity bought volleyball. Price goes up. Access goes down. Same as everything else they touch." Would have saved us both some time!
Yes, fair point about parents getting to know what is going on. I’m sure most of them are not really paying close enough attention to grok what’s happening here.
Is this really very different from the Jrs programs funding the national team pipeline? Replace LOVB with USA national team and that has been the dream USA volleyball has been selling through the regions and the national championship divisions they keep adding. I know it’s a gross oversimplification but the reality is that our juniors model is broken and it’s making volleyball even more of a country club sport and harder for the average familia to access.
Does that make it any better? That another organization does it too?
Didn’t say it does. Just pointing out that Jrs has been flawed from the beginning. It’s been trying to replicate the club model in Europe but their systems are run very differently and have a much more transparent approach.
You're absolutely right that the USAV junior model is flawed - no argument there. But you're mistaken about it trying to replicate the European model. If anything, it's the opposite.
European clubs are typically community-owned or member-owned nonprofits, heavily subsidized by government funding, with professional teams required to support youth development as part of their licensing. Kids pay minimal fees, if any. The transparency you mention comes from their nonprofit status and public funding requirements.
Our system? It's pure American capitalism - pay-to-play from day one. USAV may sell the national team dream, but at least those fees largely stay within volleyball's ecosystem, funding actual volleyball operations (however inefficiently).
What makes LOVB different is that now we have Wall Street firms extracting value to generate returns for investors who couldn't care less about volleyball. Your daughter's club fees aren't just funding some bureaucrat's salary at USAV anymore - they're generating returns for Ares Management's $450 billion portfolio.
You're right that juniors volleyball has been broken from the beginning. But private equity isn't here to fix it - they're here to optimize the extraction. That's a meaningful escalation from flawed to exploitative.
The European model we should actually copy? Community ownership, public funding, and treating sports as a public good rather than a private investment vehicle. But that would require admitting sports serve a social purpose beyond generating returns.
That is my point about the European system being very different. The professional clubs run it like a farm system and they are more realistic about taking kids not money. In other words they can’t pay their way into playing on a top level team like some parents do here in the states. And yes the money/profits go to private entities now not USAV but neither was correct. Great conversation and one that is long overdue.