On a Wednesday night in February at the H-E-B Center in Cedar Park, purple foam fingers swayed in the air during LOVB Austin’s third home game of the season.
As the inaugural-season champions, the pressure was on for Austin to beat LOVB Atlanta. After a long rally, University of Texas alum Madisen Skinner scored a winning kill for Austin. As the ball hit the floor, cheers erupted from the standing crowd.
LOVB, pronounced “love,” stands for League One Volleyball — and it’s making a splash in Texas. The league currently has six teams and began having matches in 2025 in Austin and Houston.
It’s one of three major volleyball leagues that have launched recently in the U.S. There’s some serious money involved; in 2024, LOVB reported raising a total of $160 million in funding, including donations from prominent athletes such as NBA player Kevin Durant and the WNBA’s Candace Parker.
The growing number of volleyball fans is a nationwide trend. ESPN reported “more than 1.3 billion minutes watched across ESPN platforms” for the women’s 2025 NCAA volleyball tournament, the highest to date.
The sport is also seeing more young players signing up. According to USA Volleyball, 2024 marked a 40% increase since 2013-14 in the number of girls ages 11-18 registered with clubs.
“I think volleyball has just been on the trajectory for a while to have a pro league here in the U.S.,” said Audrey Tuttle, marketing and communications manager for LOVB Austin.
Both Austin and Houston made sense to have pro volleyball teams: Austin is home to the Texas Longhorns, who have won two NCAA Championships in the past four years, and Houston hosts the Houston Skyline, named the top club in the nation in 2024 by USClubRankings.
“Volleyball is huge here in this state, and both teams are very, very competitive,” Tuttle said. “There’s definitely a little bit of a fun rivalry that is going right now.”
LOVB isn’t the only volleyball outlet to stake a claim to Texas. Another pro league, Major League Volleyball, has the Dallas Pulse, which began playing this year.
For its part, MLV has eight teams and is backed by more than $100 million in funding, CBS News reported. (A third volleyball league, Athletes Unlimited, launched in 2021 in partnership with USA Volleyball.)
“Dallas was an obvious choice for a Major League Volleyball franchise,” said Rob Carolla in an email. Carolla is Vice President of Public & Media Relations for Major League Volleyball, and he cited significant youth participation in volleyball in the DFW area.
Both LOVB and MLV are expanding in the 2027 season. LOVB and MLV have both announced three new teams for the 2027 season. LOVB has announced teams in Los Angeles, Minnesota, and San Francisco. MLV is growing with teams in Washington, D.C., Minnesota, and Northern California.
LOVB athletes also host open practices, camps, and clinics for young athletes and meet them at their games.
“It’s really cool to create these personalized relationships with these kids,” said Logan Eggleston, outside hitter for LOVB Austin. “It’s something I would have loved to have when I was growing up. To get to see someone playing professional volleyball in my backyard would be so cool.”
Eggleston and Skinner helped the Longhorns win the 2022 and 2023 NCAA volleyball championships, and Eggleston was named the 2022 NCAA championship MVP.
But graduating would have meant saying goodbye to her Texas fans, as it would be impossible to continue to make a living playing volleyball in the state.
“Somewhere around high school, I realized if I want to keep playing post-college, I have to go overseas,” Eggleston said.
Then LOVB came calling.
Eggleston became a founding member of the new league, where she helped recruit, build and market the league, and was one of the first players.
“The idea of getting to play at home is awesome,” Eggleston said. “Coming back to this community that helped build me as a person and helped me grow as both (a) volleyball player and a human was really, really appealing.”
Other players apparently felt the same.
Two of LOVB Austin’s players, Carli Lloyd and Juliann Faucette, are moms. Playing in the new league means they’re able to stay on their home soil and raise their kids. The league, which has a minimum yearly salary of $60,000, also provides a “great living wage,” Eggleston said.
Meanwhile, LOVB is getting exposure through media partnerships with the USA Network and ESPN TV. Older matches stream on Victory+.
San Antonio resident Holly Hernandez attended the Feb. 4 match in Austin, rooting for LOVB Atlanta in support of outside hitter Mackenzie Adams, who coached Hernandez’s youngest daughter two years ago.
Hernandez said she watches games during the college volleyball season but didn’t watch women’s pro volleyball “because there wasn’t any and they didn’t show very much on TV.”
Now, her daughter finally has female role models for her sport on TV. She and her daughter were inspired by LOVB being on the screen. Hernandez said she watches women’s pro sports “on USA, ESPN, you know, wherever we can find it, we’ll watch.”
And on TV or in person, fans show up.
Matt Stephens has held LOVB Austin season tickets both years, he told The Barbed Wire.
Stephens attended the third home game covered in purple team merchandise.
He watched the Longhorns take home an NCAA championship and cites it as one of the attractions of the league.
“It’s top-tier volleyball,” Stephens said. “If you love athletics, if you love sports in any form, if you want to see people competing at the highest level, this is for you.”