Women's sports investors bet on volleyball breakout

Investors are lining up behind volleyball to become the next big women's sport to hit the mainstream.

Why it matters: The landmark year for women's sports in 2024 has led to increased attention and money to find the next WNBA or NWSL.

State of play: League One Volleyball (LOVB), a new professional league, tips off on Wednesday, starting a year that will feature three different pro volleyball leagues.

• LOVB will be joined by the Pro Volleyball Federation, which begins its second season on Friday. Athletes Unlimited has held a five-week professional volleyball season every year since 2021.

LOVB was founded in 2019 and deliberately slow-walked its pro launch to first build up its youth clubs, Katlyn Gao, LOVB's co-founder and CEO, tells Axios.

• "When we started this five years ago, we didn't know that [2024] was going to be a banner year," Gao says.

Follow the money: Investors are pouring in dollars to prop up the new leagues.

• LOVB closed a $100 million funding round last November led by Atwater Capital, a women-founded private equity firm. The league has raised $160 million in total.
• Pro Volleyball Federation's backers, which include Jason Derulo, Kerri Walsh Jennings and Joe Burrow, have committed more than $150 million.

Between the lines: Volleyball had the fifth-highest participation among high school athletes last school year, according to The National Federation of State High School Associations. Among girls, it ranked second.

• TV ratings for the college game have also grown. ESPN just had its most-watched season ever, averaging 140,000 viewers. Last month's championship match drew 1.3 million viewers, its third-biggest audience for a match.
• "It's not a matter of, is there a demand for it, or is the sport popular? It's a matter of, how can we catch up?" says Vania Schlogel, Atwater Capital's founder and managing director.

Yes, but: High participation doesn't always lend itself to big TV audiences.

• Track and field, one of the most popular sports among high school athletes, has struggled to find a sustainable professional model despite its popularity during the Summer Olympics.
• "You can quickly have fads with these new leagues. That's why we're so cautious on it," Kort Schnabel, an Ares Management partner who co-leads the firm's sports media and entertainment strategy. Ares was an early investor in LOVB.
• "You have to pick a sport that has broad appeal."

What's next: Pro Volleyball Federation will add at least one new team next year and could add two, its CEO Jen Spicher says.

• "Every single week, I get at least three to four emails asking about a team in a specific market," she says. "There's no lack of interest. It's growing it at the right pace."