SANDY, Utah (ABC4 Sports) – While sports fans in Utah will have to wait to see if they will get a Major League Baseball or National Hockey League team, a new professional women’s volleyball team is coming to town next fall.
Just as the WNBA did in women’s basketball, and the NWSL in women’s soccer, League One Volleyball (LOVB) hopes to attract the best players in the world.
“We really see ourselves and the next major league,” said League One Volleyball COO Rosie Spaulding. “We’ve started it from the grass roots from the ground up. We spent the last three years building up a really robust club community across the country, and that will be our base and foundation for launching our pro league.”
Salt Lake City joins Houston, Atlanta and Madison, Wisconsin as the first four cities, with two more to come. Where the Salt Lake team will play has yet to be released.
“It’s one of the fastest growing regions for volleyball in the country,” Spaulding said. “We are very connected here with our two clubs.”
Utah is a hotbed for girls volleyball, with BYU and Utah on the college level, and two huge club teams, Club V and Club 801.
“A lot of people don’t know outside the state,” said Club V Director Matt Carlson. “Most people think volleyball, they think California, Texas, Florida or the Midwest. But in fact, Utah sends more college athletes per capita then just about any other state.”
Previously, the top women’s volleyball players in the country would have to go overseas to Europe to play professionally. Now, they can stay home and play for League One Volleyball.
“A lot more girls will play pro because I think some don’t really want to leave the country,” said former Bountiful High and incoming Stanford freshman Jordyn Harvey. “It’s a lot harder and more of an adjustment. But now that it’s here, I think it can be more of a bigger thing.”
Former Utes All-American Maddie Robinson just finished playing in Sicily, and is excited about playing in the U.S.
“I think it’s exciting to be close to home and not have to go through not speaking the language,” Robinson said. “It’s always a great experience, but it’s just really exciting more players will probably want to play pro now that they don’t have to live internationally.”
League One has already signed five U.S. Olympic medalists in Jordan Thompson, Carli Lloyd, Lauren Carlini, Micha Hancock and Jordyn Poulter.
“People have tried to do what League One is doing,” Carlson said. “But it hasn’t been super successful only because they can’t get the top talent to stay here. They go overseas to play because everybody wants to play the best of the best. Now to sign some of the Olympic gold medalists to play here in the United States, that’s a key right there.”
And the league plans to capitalize on the Paris Olympics, beginning play in November of 2024.
“That’s very intentional that we’re launching after the Paris Olympics,” Spaulding said. “We want to let that top level talent that we’re recruiting focus on the Olympics, and then come here and build this league in the fall.”