With new professional leagues competing to capitalize on volleyball’s growth, Louisville looms as a likely candidate for expansion.
The city’s potential for a future franchise will be informally tested next spring when League One Volleyball (LOVB) stages its first post-season tournament at the KFC Yum Center, April 10-13. Though potential investors in a Louisville franchise have yet to emerge, recent tests of volleyball’s viability locally have been largely positive.
Except for the 2020 Covid-19 shutdown, the University of Louisville’s on-campus women’s volleyball matches have been sold out since 2019. The seven regular-season matches the Cardinals played at the Yum Center this season have averaged announced crowds of 8,995 – more than double the average attendance the Pro Volleyball Federation reported for its first regular season (4,490).
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“Louisville would be a great market for a pro volleyball team,” U of L coach Dani Busboom Kelly said. “This is a volleyball community with some of the biggest clubs and adult tournaments, right in the city. Then, if you look within 3-4 hours, there are even more of the best and biggest clubs in the country. I think we’d have a great following and people here have fallen in love with the sport.”
Local enthusiasm contributed to the Yum Center being selected to play host to next week’s NCAA women’s volleyball final four. The LOVB’s decision to hold its first post-season tournament in town is most easily explained by its desire to dovetail with the April 11-13 Junior Volleyball Association’s World Challenge, a massive event that has been held annually in Louisville since 2007.
More than 1,000 teams and 12,000 young girls will participate in the World Challenge, to be conducted on 134 courts at the Kentucky Exposition Center and Kentucky International Convention Center.
“We opened registration at midnight,” said Jenny Hahn, the JVA’s executive director. “And it was sold out at 12:18.”
Hahn cited Louisville’s fan base and “a number of very strong clubs in the area” as factors favorable to landing a pro franchise. Yet unless and until prospective investors pursue a team, potential roadblocks are more theoretical than tangible. Perhaps the biggest potential hurdle is the scheduling obstacle posed by the Yum Center’s contractual obligations to U of L men’s and women’s basketball. The regular seasons for both LOVB and the Pro Volleyball Federation begin in January and overlap months of NCAA basketball. Arena management may be reluctant to devote more prime winter dates to volleyball.
A third professional league, Athletes Unlimited, uses a five-week fall schedule, but has operated thus far as a single-site entity, most recently in Mesa, Arizona. A spokesman for Athletes Unlimited said no site has been announced for the 2025 season.
League One Volleyball currently consists of six teams, in Atlanta, Austin, Houston, Madison, Wisc., Omaha and Salt Lake City. The Pro Volleyball Federation’s eighth team, the expansion Indy Ignite, established a Louisville link last month by trading the first overall pick in the league’s draft for selections it used on U of L’s Anna DeBeer and Elena Scott.
Pro Tournament Could Test Louisville’s Viability For Volleyball Franchise
This article appears in Dec 4-17, 2024.