On August 30, 2023, over 92,000 fans packed Memorial Stadium in Omaha, Nebraska to watch Nebraska women’s volleyball play Omaha. That Wednesday, the world record for attendance of a women’s professional sporting event was broken.

In the year to follow, the first ever sporting arena for a women’s professional team would be made for the Kansas City Current, an NWSL team. The final four of women’s March Madness would surpass the men’s tournament in viewership numbers by over 4 million people.

Women’s sports have been thriving across the nation, both in the collegiate and professional realms.

Another feat for women’s sports is the creation of the Pro Volleyball Federation: a women’s professional volleyball league in America.

“Volleyball is having a moment. Women’s sports are having a moment,” said Jen Spicher, CEO of the Pro Volleyball Federation. “We have the exact right thing at the exact right time.

Prior to this league’s creation, the only option of playing professionally was going overseas. For college players wanting to enter into professional volleyball, they would have to leave home. Not anymore.

“My dream was coming true and it was starting to settle in that I was going to be a professional volleyball player,” said San Diego Mojo outside hitter Morgan Lewis. “Not just in my home country but in my hometown.”

For the San Diego native, this reality was not possible a year ago. After staying for her fifth year at Oregon, she got to return home for her professional debut. Something that was not even a thought when she entered college. And something she needed more than ever.

Lewis' father passed away from stage 4 glioblastoma in November of 2023. She says that being able to be back home and surrounded by family, specifically her mom, is something she is so thankful for.

“I knew when I was entering college that I wanted to play professionally,” said Lewis. “I feel very blessed that this league happened when it did because it’s such a cool experience being the first group doing it.”

With the Pro Volleyball Federation in its inaugural season, women’s professional volleyball has reached the United States. Despite facing skepticism, the league launched with individually owned teams in seven cities, gathering crowds of thousands for games.

The league has debuted in seven cities with seven teams: Omaha Supernovas, Atlanta Vibe, Grand Rapids Rise, San Diego Mojo, Vegas Thrill, Columbus Fury, and Orlando Valkyries. Three teams are already set to join them next season in Dallas, Kansas City, and Indianapolis.

Pre-PVF

There have been attempts at launching professional volleyball leagues before, but they have failed.

International Volleyball Association was a co-ed league lasting from 1975-1980. Major League Volleyball, played with women only, disbanded during its third season in 1989. The latest attempt was the US Professional Volleyball League that only played one season in 2002.

Overseas, volleyball continues to live on. And has for years.

The Fédération Internationale de Volleyball (FIVB) is an international league that was founded for the senior women’s national volleyball teams to compete. Challenger Cups are hosted in different countries.

In their respective countries, there are different leagues across the globe. In Puerto Rico, Turkey, Italy, New Zealand and more, these countries have established leagues.

With no established professional league in America for volleyball on the men’s or women’s side until now, this founding is seemingly overdue.

The beginning steps

The league was founded by two men: Dave Whinham and Stephen Evans. These men have been involved in sports, marketing and entertainment for their careers.

Whinham is a Columbus resident who is the president and CEO of The Team Management LLC. Evans lives in Frisco, Texas and is the president and CEO of The Remedy. Together, they founded the PVF.

Their goal was to make a true professional sports league in the typical American model, said Rob Carolla, PVF’s Vice President of Media Relations.

From here, the league staff was assembled and ownership groups for the teams were acquired.

Control of the league has now transitioned over to the ownership groups of the teams. Cole DeVos, DP Fox’s Director of Strategic Investments that is the ownership group of the Grand Rapids Rise, says that the league had a goal of moving to the traditional American sports model where teams have an ownership stake in the league itself. But the fact that it happened this quickly in the first season was unexpected.

Current PVF CEO Jen Spicher came into the picture as a former colleague of Whinham at Wayne State. At the time, she was working as the Chief Revenue Officer of Level Up, a staffing company. After not seeing each other for 20 years, Spicher got a call from Whinham asking if she wanted to be a part in bringing this league together just six months before the launch.

As a former volleyball player herself, Spicher jumped on the opportunity.

“Why wouldn’t I do it?” said Spicher. “Given my love for volleyball, my excitement about mentoring women in business, and my career of building teams, of course I said yes.”

There was skepticism not just from the women playing, but the volleyball community. Knowing there have been professional leagues in America and seeing them collapse, the skepticism was warranted, said Spicher.

“I never really considered playing in this league because I had gotten good contracts overseas and wasn’t wanting to take too big of a risk here,” said Nunerviller. “But once I heard the information and getting to be a part of the league in such a volleyball hub like Nebraska seemed like a cool opportunity.”

Seemingly to Spicher, once players heard about the league and got to talk about it, their skepticism subsided and was replaced with excitement.

"What does it mean to you to have this league in America?"

The financial structure

Something that the league prides itself on is the pay for the athletes. All 41 players, said Spicher.

In the first year, every team has two franchise players who they pay $100,000. Rookies are not eligible to be a franchise player. These franchise players have played in the professional space in other countries. The two franchise players, who get an additional $40,000, are committed to guest appearances, interviews with TV or radio stations and any league or team marketing.

Every other player on the team makes a base salary of $60,000. For the two members of each team on the practice squad, they earn $45,000.

The championship team will receive a $1 million pool that is to be distributed amongst the players and staff.

While these numbers are higher than other professional leagues for women on average, none of the money is guaranteed.

Cuts and roster changes can be made up to 48 hours before the next match is played.

Active players make $2500 a game but can be cut the day after the game is played.

So yes, the salaries are $60,000 but it is spaced out over the length of the season and could not be given in full based on cuts, roster moves, and injury.

“I’m not someone who consistently starts or plays, so every week when the rosters come out it’s an added stressor,” said Meghan Jemison of the Vegas Thrill. “This is a job now so the fact that I could be unemployed at any moment is not a good feeling.”

Originally, Meghan wasn’t going to play this season so she got a job in educational technology. She says she is thankful for this remote opportunity so that if one day she gets cut, she still has an income.

Looking ahead to next season’s contacts, they have been increased and upgraded.

The new compensations include the top players in the league making a base salary of $175,000. Each player is now eligible for up to $10,000 in benefits. The 14 players on each team will earn $60,000 or above depending on their negotiated contract, as stated by the PVF.

Big time investors

As far as ownership, each team is independently owned.

Ownership groups are expanding to a wide range of people, including celebrities and athletes. Joe Burrow of the Cincinnati Bengals and his parents are part-owners of the Columbus Fury and a league investor. Popstar Jason Deruelo is a part-owner of the Omaha Supernovas, as well as a league investor.

The DeVos family with DP Fox are the ownership group of the Grand Rapids Rise in addition to their ownership of the NBA’s Orlando Magic.

Olympian and USA volleyball star Kerry Walsh-Jennings is the lead owner for the San Diego Mojo.

For the new teams, the Dallas group added Nancy Lieberman, Olympian and Hall of Fame basketball player, to their ownership team.

Ready to launch

The announcement of the league hit the public officially in November of 2022. From that point, building the teams and getting the players too priority.

Starting in the summer of 2022, the volleyball operations staff was reaching out to the top 500 players across the country. Spicher said she would meet with five players a day talking to them about the new league.

Once current professional players were acquired, the focus was shifted to the talent leaving college.

The draft happened on December 11, 2023. All for athletes leaving collegiate volleyball. There were 34 girls drafted.

“I was doing the math in my head for how long each round was going to take because nothing was televised or on Twitter or anything,” said Lewis.

The draft news was spreading through the volleyball community by texts and calls to each other, Lewis recalls. Her and her former college teammate Abby Hansen were keeping each other updated with news they were hearing from their other friends in the draft.

Each player received phone calls from the coaches and announcements weren’t posted until later that night.

Once the draft concluded, some girls still had to finish out their collegiate experience.

The first overall draft pick Asjia O’neal went on with the Texas Longhorns to win the National Championship six days after she had been drafted.

After the draft, some trades were made between teams and some girls could return to college if they desired.

Once contracts were signed, it became official.

Opening day

After about a month of practice with the team all together, it was time for opening day.

January 24, 2024, the Atlanta Vibe played with Omaha Supernovas on the road in Nebraska. The game went to an exciting five sets with the Vibe securing a road victory in the first ever game.

There were 11,624 fans watching the game in CHI Health Center, according to the PVF records.

The next game was between the Grand Rapids Rise and Columbus Fury in Grand Rapids, where the Rise swept the Fury 3-0.

There were 7,805 fans watching the game in Van Andel Arena.

“It’s all about getting people in the building,” said DeVos. “Once they get eyes on the game and see how fun it is, they’ll come back. I’m convinced.”

The last game of the opening weekend was Atlanta Vibe on the road against the Orlando Valkyries. The Vibe swept the Valkyries 3-0.

“Opening weekend was insane. To play at home for the first time with fans hollering and being so loud and engaged was awesome,” said Abby Hansen of the Orlando Valkyries. “We even have a hype squad come to every game.”

There were 5,284 fans watching the game at Additional Financial Arena.

For the first three games, there were over 25,000 people watching the women play.

The games were streamed on Bally Live through their app.

1 / 8

Warm ups started for the San Diego versus Vegas Thrill game.

2 / 8

San Diego Mojo lined up for the National Anthem.

3 / 8

The game started with a couple hundred fans in the stands for the Thursday night game.

4 / 8

The Vegas Thrill nearly block the kill from the Mojo.

5 / 8

The Mojo about to get another point on the board.

6 / 8

Coach Haneef-Park watching her team, the Mojo.

7 / 8

The San Diego Mojo tie game 2-2. The game goes to the 5th set.

8 / 8

The Mojo come back from being down 2 sets to win the game.

❮ ❯

Season goes on

As the season continued, there have been bumps in the road.

Attendance has dropped since opening weekend. Since a lot of these teams didn’t have plans for launch until a couple months before, a lot of games are during the week at obscure times due to minimal arena availability.

Next year, Spicher hopes with the advanced planning that the games can be between Thursday-Sunday to allow more time for travel and more fan attendance.

The strength of schedule is different for all teams, which some of the women deem unfair.

“Each team has major fluctuations with their schedules,” said Hansen. “We have only played Grand Rapids one time but have played Omaha four times in the first half of season. Some teams even have two weeks off with not a single game.”

Ticket prices fluctuate depending on the teams playing and the day of the week the game is played.

Looking on Stub Hub at the San Diego Mojo game versus the Omaha Supernovas in San Diego on Tuesday, April 23rd, the lowest ticket price is $26 and the highest is $114.

Now, looking on Stub Hub at the Atlanta Vibe versus Vegas Thrill game on Friday, April 28th, the lowest ticket is $21 and the highest is $241.

Seemingly based on the teams playing and the days of the games, the prices vary.

Looking ahead

Next year, the league plans on adding three more teams in three more cities: Dallas, Indianapolis, and Kansas City.

While only the Indy Ignite have launched their team logo and name, it has been noted by the PVF that Dallas and Kansas City are close to announcing their team’s details.

Going into next season, the league has signed a media deal with CBS Sports for the broadcasting rights of the games. Compared to the current system with streaming on YouTube and Bally Sports, this multi-year deal is broadcasting seven regular season games and the semi-final and championship games of this season.

Brennan Dean, director of the Wave Volleyball Club in San Diego, is excited that his youth players now have local professional volleyball players they can look up to as role models.

“It’s super exciting to have a team in our backyard that the girls can root for and how they don’t have to wait for the Olympics to be able to watch professional volleyball,” said Dean. “We’re all rooting for Mojo. It’s been such a community builder.”

Dean, as well as other players and staff in the league itself, want to see the league get the national attention that they believe it deserves. The media deals are a step in the right direction.

When asked where the girls want to see the league in 5-10 years, the answers were synonymous.

More teams. More viewership. More money. More players. More social reach. More inspiration for young players.