The inaugural season of the Athletes Unlimited, the first women’s volleyball championship in the United States in years, has truly made a breakthrough in the country. But, its format is not based on what fans around the world and in the USA got used to, so the new league is finding its way there.
A new women’s volleyball professional championship in the USA is underway and should be played alongside the tournament organized by Athletes Unlimited, which was launched this year and gathered big names of American and international volleyball but is based on individual performances rather than teams’. The organizers of the new league, which will be called League One Volleyball, better known by the acronym LOVB, said that the intention is to start with a light event in 2022 and then grow more articulated in the following two years with a championship that is held over the whole season (16 weeks) and covers several cities.
It is not yet known how many clubs will participate but it is clear that it will include some of the already existing clubs in the USA (A5 Atlanta, Houston Skyline, Mizuno Long Beach…), while others were created ad hoc. The LOVB project is yet to be revealed in detail, but the organizers disclosed that many current and former national team players are involved in governing the competition: Haleigh Washington, Carli Lloyd, Kelsey Robinson, Kimberly Hill, Alisha Glass, and Justine Wong-Orantes.
