Pro Volleyball in the USA

  • I just found out there is a professional league in the USA for both male and female teams.


    Many well known players were the in the 2013 season.


    The teams tanikg part to this league belong to the regional federation of USA Volleyball.


    Teams with famous players:
    -Arizona Sizzle: Patrice Arrington
    -Heart of America Havoc: Emily Brown
    -Hoosier Exterminators: Alyssa D'Errico, Whitney Dosty, Curtsty Jackson, Bryn Kehoe, Lauren Van Orden, Kim Willoughby
    -Pioneer Mayhem: Lola Arslanbekova, Lindsey Flatmier, Gwen Rucker
    -Team Evergreen: Meagan Ganzer
    -Florida Wave: Kristy Jaeckel, Benavia Jenkins, Jordana Price
    -TNT: Ashley Benson, Brittnee Cooper, Kristen Dozier


    Iowa Ice, was at the Club World Championship 2013, is the last champion of this league.


    The female league is called Premier Volleyball League, I not sure about the name of the male one. Does anyone know?


    In the male league I found some famous players too.


    -GoNation: Paul Sanderson, Mark Dusharme
    -Team Pineapple: Lloy Ball, Jeff Ptak, Riley Salmon, Craig Collins and the trainer is Arnie Ball.


    Official web site is here. Not really good, but neighter that bad...


    I'm looking for more infos. Please help me.

  • Since I did a long interview with Janelle Hester (Iowa's head coach) in Zurich I can give you some info.


    PVL was created 2 years ago and the idea behind it was to get all the best players from each region (state) and make team out of them. The league is for post-college players or those who came back from playing abroad, basically for anyone who wants to play (so no age limit or something like that).


    The league doesn't have the schedule like other leagues do. Every couple of weeks/months there is a tournament in one state and some teams just meet there and play. For example last season Iowa played in 2 tournaments. Some teams take part in more tournaments, but that really depends on money and availability of players. Now, since like 90-95% of the players aren't professional players anymore, so they have other jobs (another example from Iowa - there are players who work as teachers, doctors or attend univeristy - like Justin Landi). Which also means they not train as often as they probably would like and also that often teams borrow players from other teams, so they can have enough players to play. Before Zurich players from Iowa met for the first time since winning the league. Janelle told me that till the last moment she didn't know if they make it to the Switzerland, cause there weren't enough players that were free at that time.


    What else... they have no relation to the NCAA, they play by standard FIVB rules of the game. The teams have tryouts before each season. The league is getting some popularity, cause this season there were more players at the tryouts than the year before. The league finals were broadcasted by USA Volleyball, but apart from that they don't show PVL in the tv (yet).

  • Thank you so much. There is a girl from Iowa Ice I really liked in World Club Championship: Brittney Brimmage.


    They're level was pretty good at the WCC. I didn't expect them to win a set just because they faced Rio de Janeiro and VakifBank, but they could have done much more playing in the other group.


    I really hope this could work. It is really sad to know there are many USA players who are having hard time to find a team overseas.

  • Yes, I liked her game too.


    I've talked with Janelle before the tournament, so I asked her what are (were) their goals for CWC. And she said that she would like her team to get to at least 20 points each set, that the team will remain active on court no matter what. And also that her players won't be afraid of high block. Iowa had some nice moments - third set against Unilever or the game against Vakif. Guidetti was also very impresed with their game.


    I've also talked with Landi (she played in Poland few seasons ago) and she said that for the people who are not professional players anymore, she thinks they did really a good job. It's a pity they didn't play a match for the fifth place. I think it could be interesting to see them playing agains Kenya (who is also not a professional team and players and coaches have other jobs).


    Anyway, Iowa is a nice team. I really hope that this open the doors for other teams from the USA and that we'll get to watch them in Europe more often. And that PVL will develop. There are quite a lot players who played overseas in the teams, so the matches are competetive. We'll see how it grows (I will definitely be following Iowa and PVL).

  • I find it slightly confusing that a lot of the players listed above are/were playing professionally in Europe at the same time (Ganzer, Dozier, Rucker, Benson etc.) :what:


    The 2013 tournaments of the league were held in may, so the players were back from overseas championships.

  • I wouldn't really call the PVL a legitimate professional league. It's more like a professional tournament. Most of the players mentioned play full seasons abroad and then come back to the states during the summer when the NT season starts to participate in these "championships." Unfortunately, women's sports just don't have much traction in the USA due to the popularity of men's basketball, American football and baseball. There have been numerous attempts to launch leagues with little success. While the PVL is a great, albeit very small, opportunity for collegiate players to have a professional experience post-college, it's not comparable to any other professional volleyball league in the world.

  • Article from Sports Business Journal about USA Volleyball wanting a new professional league in the USA by 2020.


    Here are some questions that I have.


    How many teams will there be? Personally, I think 8 is the minimum.


    Where will those teams be located? USVB will want major media markets, but I would go the opposite direction, go to towns where college teams draw well (within reason for travel).


    When will season be played? Has to be around the FIVB summer calendar (World GP, Norceca, etc.) Cannot compete with NCAA women's volleyball in the fall. I would guess January to April-May.


    What will salaries look like? If a player can make $100,000 for 5 months work in the USA, they would do it in a heartbeat. But if you get $500,000 from Russia, Japan or China, which would you choose?


    Will league have foreign players? With Dom. Republic, Puerto Rico, Mexico and Canada, I could see some national team players going there.


    Who will be your coaches? College coaches with good programs will not jump at the opportunity. You may get coaches at smaller schools or former indoor or beach players. Let alone what will their salaries be?


    Streaming of matches has been popular, but the league needs to get on cable TV, USVB has worked with NBC the last few years, it needs to maintain that relationship.


    How many players per team? I would figure 12-14, 2 at each position maybe a couple of players on roster and practice, but name 12 for match


    Will league have different rules (like NCAA free subs) compared to other leagues?

  • When will season be played? Has to be around the FIVB summer calendar (World GP, Norceca, etc.) Cannot compete with NCAA women's volleyball in the fall. I would guess January to April-May.
    I don`t see a problem competing with the NCAA,The NBA and NCAA Basketball runs at the same time for example. And starting January would be too late, this means the season would have to be shorter and the players would have no break at all from the end of the season and training starting for the NT. And this would make them more likely to go play overseas because what would they be doing from August to January? And shorter league usually means less pay.


    And a league starting after the NCAA season, would be attracting mostly NCAA players. And if they will create a league with mostly NCAA players like in Germany and Puerto Rico, then this would not work because the level will not be high, and would not even attract the Top American players from the NT, because they will want to play with the top players in the world and not college players, otherwise their level would drop. And if we will see mostly college players why even create a league?? We can just watch them in the NCAA.


    Where will those teams be located? USVB will want major media markets, but I would go the opposite direction, go to towns where college teams draw well (within reason for travel).
    That is hard to tell, I can`t think of any city that would be perfect. Maybe Omaha?, Los Angeles area? Portland probably :wacko: would be one of the last choices.


    Will league have foreign players? With Dom. Republic, Puerto Rico, Mexico and Canada, I could see some national team players going there.
    At first, each team should be allowed to have as many international players they want. Just to try to build really strong teams.


    Will league have different rules (like NCAA free subs) compared to other leagues?
    The rules would have to be the same to other leagues, with no free subs, taking the OPP out of the game every time she goes to the back row would not work. :lol:

  • I would like to see teams in the USA that are at the same caliber of the European teams. The Premier League that we have in the USA are ex NCAA players who play for a short amount of a season and the rosters are players who are older, play for fun, or not even close to players on A1 or A2 teams overseas. But my questions/statements are: the USA teams will have to be players that are just as good as the teams overseas, not just players close to the USA; Mexico, Canada, etc. The seasons need to be the same as overseas, however China has a short fall season. What happens to the USA teams that don't participate in the CEV Cup or CEV championship games? and the talent overseas is good and how many players overseas will come here to play?

  • What happens to the USA teams that don't participate in the CEV Cup or CEV championship games?



    Champions League is only for Europeans teams, if they create a league in the US they won`t play against any team from Europe, they would play in the Norceca Championship (I`m not even sure if there`s one?).

  • I would like to see teams in the USA that are at the same caliber of the European teams. The Premier League that we have in the USA are ex NCAA players who play for a short amount of a season and the rosters are players who are older, play for fun, or not even close to players on A1 or A2 teams overseas. But my questions/statements are: the USA teams will have to be players that are just as good as the teams overseas, not just players close to the USA; Mexico, Canada, etc. The seasons need to be the same as overseas, however China has a short fall season. What happens to the USA teams that don't participate in the CEV Cup or CEV championship games? and the talent overseas is good and how many players overseas will come here to play?


    See teams that are the same caliber as European teams? That is just not going to happen. Kim Yeon-Koung contract is 1.2 million euros ($1.28 million thanks Oanda), so I am guessing that Fenerbahce is spending 5-6 million euros for their team. That doesn't include Vakif or European squads.


    If each team in the future USA league had a $1 million for each team, that would be a good start.


    More likely than not, the teams in the USA league will have a majority (85%-90%) of USA players or players with NCAA experience. With a number of Canadian, Mexican and Puerto Rican college players being potential players on teams.


    For a first season, the league would probably be around 20 matches. This would allow 10 matches to be played at home for each team, probably 2 games over a weekend against the same team. It would be nice to split matches up, but to be cost effective, it will be 2 matches a weekend.


    Regular season would last 10 weeks and then playoffs, probably broken into Western and Eastern Conferences.

  • I guess what I meant to say, that the USA club teams would not be participating in the CEV because its European so they would be playing the CEVs which are competitive and very good players playing against one another. So the teams and the clubs would be mediocre at best. I would really love to have a clubs here in the USA that could rival teams overseas.