Private equity is building a volleyball empire on dreams of 12-year-old girls
mooreds
13 points
9 comments
November 09, 2026
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Discussion Highlights (6 comments)
nonford150
I am curious to know how this is different than every other sport other than where the money is coming from. While Little League and local/Pop Warner support baseball and football on public/private funds, LOVB is doing the same without taking any money away from the public through school taxes. Softball travelling teams have been following this exact playbook for years, sucking up every dollar from the parents. Build it and they will come. None of major sports markets are held for public interest.
quickthrowman
The same thing is happening in other youth sports. The people that can afford to have their kids play hockey and other sports are usually in the top 10% of the income distribution which spends over 50% of the money in the US. It sucks that youth sports can’t just exist without a PE shop extracting every dollar they can from parents, but that’s capitalism I guess.
gwbas1c
Isn't this how European football (soccer) leagues operate?
saaaaaam
Presumably the long term bet here is that a lot of men will pay handsomely to watch young female pro volleyball teams playing so there are massive sponsorship and media opportunities. It’s basically Victoria’s Secret mk2.
FireBeyond
> The “pathway to pro” they’re being sold is statistically less likely than getting into Harvard One thing the NBA does which I appreciate is, when a player is selected for a D1 college team, they get a letter congratulating them on their achievement, and exhorting them to keep studying . They break down the math, that something like 0.8% of D1 college players will ever be drafted to the NBA: > Are you sure? All those other D1 players are talented too. What does 0.8% look like? Flip a coin 7 times: the chances of you getting 7 correct guesses, in a row.
jacknews
"Every 12-year-old paying $5,000 for club fees" This is already insane. In most of Europe, sports clubs are run by local schools or sports associations and fees are nominal. As part of providing for a decent society.