Sorry for the long link. It is a gift link to a New York
Times article titled: Women’s Sports Are Raking in Investments. The Final
Four Shows Why. Posted on the Sunday of the NCAA Women’s Basketball Finals
between LSU and Iowa.
I read the article with excitement, a bit of jealousy, and
more than a little melancholy. As the author gushes about Women’s College
Basketball’s moment of attention, he predicts a healthy and lucrative future
for the sport. Excitement because this is another step towards the acceptance
of women’s sports. Jealousy because I kept thinking: why not volleyball? I am
very biased, but I think women’s volleyball is a much more exciting game than
women’s basketball. Melancholy because I remember all the time, effort, and
resources that we have poured into finding that moment for volleyball and it is
still relegated to second class citizenry.
Thinking about the differences between women’s basketball
and volleyball, I made a list. It is by no means comprehensive.
What women’s basketball has in its favor, in no order, other
than the bullets came into my mind extemporaneously:
· At this moment is WBB history, the college game is exciting, with exciting teams, with transcendent stars populating both the coaching and playing ranks. The NIL deals are also helping the collegiate stars become more popular.
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Collegiate volleyball players are also
beneficiaries of the NIL. What I don’t know are the actual numbers: the amount
of money and the percentage of the total number of players who are benefiting from
the NIL. How significant are the numbers for both categories?
· WBB has a viable professional league. As the article make clear,
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it is backed by the mighty NBA. Indeed, the teams
were initially co-located and owned by the NBA franchise.
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it had a less than auspicious start, like most
startups,
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it gives women’s basketball players a way to
play in the US, even though many still play overseas to pay the bills,
· WBB plays in the Winter.
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In competition with MBB, but far away from the College
Football juggernaut,
· WBB can be directly compared with MBB, a juggernaut in its own right.
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Which has a one-on-one comparison for Title IX
purposes, i.e. much more visible. For example, when the Oregon basketball
player Sedona Prince called out the NCAA for the paltry weight room allotted the
women’s tournament, it focused attention on the NCAA when everyone is covering
the parallel men’s tournament. No one likes to be called out publicly and
changes were studied and implemented.
· There are certainly rules variations for the collegiate, US Basketball, and FIBA rules. I am not an expert, but my observation is that the variations are relatively minor as compared to the volleyball rules variations.
What does volleyball have in its favor:
· We have three professional leagues:
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Athletes Unlimited, a known quantity, with an
organizational structure that asks the fans to adapt to their rules. This
structure is very player centric, but it also does not reward loyalty to teams.
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League One Volleyball (LOVB), a nascent league.
The Salient difference is that the franchises are partnered or own outright junior
volleyball clubs, ostensibly to leverage the junior volleyball bonanza with the
professional teams.
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Professional Volleyball League (PVL), yet
another nascent league, based more on the traditional structure of the sports
league. Contrary to the other two leagues the teams are owned by independent
owners.
· Many universities make women’s volleyball the flagship Fall women’s sport, focusing campus attention on the sport.
· USA Volleyball National Team won its first gold medal in the 2020 Olympic games, after many years of ups and downs.
In this time of WCBB upsurge, I am reminded of the 1996
Atlanta Olympics. The understanding that this was the moment for the United
States to put women’s sports squarely in the middle of the general public’s radar
screen. Of the major team sports, basketball, softball, and soccer leveraged
their medals into lucrative opportunities, and more importantly, attention. Twenty
seven years later some of those sports are still benefitting for their efforts
for relevance in the American sporting landscape, as the article makes clear. Pro
leagues were started and they went through their evolution, with differing successes,
living though the ebb ad flow of anything new.
We have focused a lot of attention on the establishment of a
professional volleyball league. The history of professional volleyball leagues is
well documented, Indeed, one hopes that the founders of the three professional leagues
have studied the history and learned from the past. Given the histories of the
professional leagues in the other sports, it makes me wonder about how
important having a professional leagues can help a sport gaining traction in
the minds of the general public. The benefit of a local pro league is self-explanatory:
· It gives collegiate players a chance to stay home and play, if not make a sustainable living.
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The question is, would the domesticate league
help the upper echelon players improve themselves in preparation for the
international game?
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If the answer to the previous question is no,
would there be a segmentation of players where those who have hopes of playing for
the national team play overseas only?
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Referencing the recent interviews with American
professional volleyball players on VolleyballMag.com, life in a foreign
country, working in a foreign country is not homogenously grand, there are many
obstacles and challenges.
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Can the players make a living without having to
go overseas to make a sustainable living? Will the domesticate league just be a
supplement to their overseas salary?
· It will put the sport of volleyball in center, we hope, of the very cluttered sports landscape.
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We have also been focused on the idea of
televising the matches as the springboard to popularity. Yet, that belief also
minimizes the number of broadcast technologies available and the various modes
of payment for access to the broadcast. The broadcast media has undergone a
massive sea change
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Will people watch?
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How often will people watch?
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Will people watch consistently?
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Are people willing to pay for the programming.
Many paid for the streaming services during the Olympics and European seasons,
are they willing to pay for access to the domestic league? How much?
· The real question is: whether there is a causal relationship between having a professional league and the popularity of a sport? Or is it just a correlational relationship?
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Soccer and volleyball are the most popular
sports for junior club sports. But neither has enjoyed the kind of moment that
basketball is enjoying outside of the Olympic quadrennials, and for soccer, the
Women’s World Cup quadrennials.
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I am not saying that we should not pursue the goal
of fielding a stable and sustainable domestic professional league. What I
question is whether we are using the Field of Dreams fantasy as reality: Will
they come if we built it?
We can look upon this explosive moment of popularity for
WCBB for lessons and try to spot trends, which is the wont of all humans: make
connections, draw analogies, create powerful metaphors. But what kind of
connections, analogies, and metaphors? How real are they? Or are we just indulging
in wishful thinking without any tangible and hopeful truths to back up our
conjectures?
The title of this shallow exploration is What Does
Volleyball Do Now? What can we do? This WCBB moment just made the Women’s
Collegiate basketball the 800-pound gorilla in the room. What is volleyball’s
game plan? What is our response to this challenge? Is there a cohesive element
to volleyball organizations? Or are the independent volleyball entities dallying
around with internecine childhood games?
We had a possible transcendent moment, when the USA National
Team won the gold in 2021, with a courageous and improbable performance. Yet I
did not see a concerted effort to leverage that gold medal to promote the sport
to the public. We had legitimate stars on that squad to promote the sport:
Jordan Larson, Jordan Thompson, Annie Drews, etc. But outside of a few immediate
post-Olympic events, silence. Yet another missed opportunity, in my humble
opinion. One can use the pandemic as an excuse: the NGB’s financial situation
post pandemic was challenging, the fear of the spread of COVID was still
palpable. But they also held an Olympics under the same conditions. In recent
years, the USAV has turned their board makeup towards the sports business end
of corporate governance, in the hopes of leveraging that know-how in turning
this Titanic around. And yet.
I am hoping that this can motivate discussions amongst those
of us who love the sport and have put in many years of work and faith towards
advancing the sport. Contrary to my initial assertion that the successes of the
WCBB is an 800 pound gorilla in the women’s sporting space, I hope that this is
a chance for volleyball fans and entities to coalesce around our sport and take
on this challenge. Inside the box, outside the box, doing away with the box, but
always thinking critically and working together.
What does volleyball do now?
