How LOVB’s WAVES Framework Can Transform Women's Sports
Brands Need Authentic Women's Sports Properties. Here's How LOVB Built One.
Professional women's volleyball isn't just having a moment—it's creating a movement. This transformation didn't materialize by chance. League One Volleyball (LOVB) strategically constructed something unprecedented: a sports property engineered specifically for women athletes rather than adapting male sports blueprints. Their approach offers transformative insights for executives building sustainable women's sports investments.
The Opportunity Gap in Women's Sports Design
Women's sports organizations have operated with a fundamental market gap: they're typically adapted versions of men's models rather than purpose-built solutions designed for female athletes and their distinct commercial potential.
As Stephanie Martin, Chief Marketing and Communications Officer at LOVB explains, "When we looked at how we would approach league building, there was no blueprint we had to follow since there's no men's equivalent league in the US. We had the opportunity to build a league specifically for women, with input from the very women who were going to compete in it. Built with them and built for them both as players and as people."
This strategic oversight means the industry consistently misses a crucial commercial insight: women athletes have fundamentally different needs, requiring distinct strategies to league design that unlock new audience and revenue opportunities. Martin emphasizes, "Women athletes have different needs than men, so you need to be intentional in how you build for them. For example, we didn’t want our athletes to have the repeat of previous experiences in their career where their uniform was ‘pinked and shrinked,’ and doesn't actually fit a woman's form."
This "pink it and shrink it" mentality extends far beyond just uniforms—it represents a systemic approach where entire league infrastructures are adapted from men's models without fundamental redesign. The result is a large-scale mismatch that limits revenue opportunities, fragments development pathways, and creates fan experiences that don't authentically connect with audiences. When leagues simply overlay surface-level women-centric branding and packing onto products designed for men, they miss the strategic opportunity to build commercially vibrant properties designed specifically for female athletes and their unique market potential.
This blindspot is particularly evident in volleyball, America's #1 girls' team sport with at least 46 million past or current participants representing an untapped market. Despite robust participation at youth and collegiate levels, "they didn't have any opportunities after that to continue to play at an elite level in the US," Martin notes. "When opportunities aren’t in front of you, you don’t know what’s possible. For young girls, they couldn't see what they could be."
The Volleyball Development Disconnect
Traditionally, elite women's volleyball players faced limited professional pathways: pursue careers overseas or exit the sport entirely—creating a significant market inefficiency unique to volleyball.
As Martin precisely describes, "The American women are some of the very best volleyball players in the world - winning medals at consecutive Olympics – but they've always had to go overseas to play world-class pro volleyball." This disconnects America's top volleyball talent from domestic audiences and fractures development pathways, leaving substantial commercial opportunities unrealized in the nation's #1 girls' team sport.
Without a men's professional volleyball league in the U.S. as a template, previous attempts at women's professional volleyball leagues struggled with fundamental structural challenges. Most women's leagues simply replicate men's structures without questioning the underlying business model or whether these structures serve women athletes and their audiences. These included disconnected youth-to-pro pathways, equipment, and uniforms not optimized for female volleyball players, and unrealistic competition schedules that don't accommodate women's lives—all of which represent barriers to creating a sustainable league that recognizes the full person behind the player. "Their schedules were always every single day for months when they played in other leagues," Martin explains. "We were able to then go in and give them a break at Christmas and a break at Thanksgiving. They had never in their careers actually had a holiday break with their families."
She also notes that a lot of these challenges are born out of conventional thinking, citing that “people believe it's the same audience, so you just bring them over. They may watch both men's and women's sports, but they choose to watch them for different purposes."
This ecosystem gap, exclusive to volleyball, created an opportunity for LOVB to reimagine what a professional volleyball league could be when designed specifically for female athletes from inception, rather than adapting frameworks from other sports.
The Waves Framework
Martin and LOVB developed a transformative business approach—the WAVES Framework—that builds from the athlete outward to create sustainable commercial value:
W — Women-First Design
Every strategic element, from uniforms to schedules to benefits, is engineered specifically for athlete’s needs, creating authentic brand experiences. "We are working with our partner adidas to innovate the uniform. The challenge we put ahead of ourselves was, how do we ensure that the uniforms we build for these women are both highly performative, and at the same time actually make women feel good in the uniform."
This partnership with adidas represents true collaboration versus traditional sponsorship. "It's the difference between being a sponsor and a partner - they are as invested as we are in elevating our athletes’ full experience," Martin adds. With adidas, LOVB is also developing the next generation volleyball shoe with input from LOVB pro and junior players alike, further elevating both brands while advancing the sport—creating deeper value for everyone involved.
A — Athlete Co-Creation
LOVB established a "Founding Athletes Program" with "11 athletes who have been working with us over the course of the past 5 years to build the pro league through their input." Many are equity holders – as well as multi-Olympic medal holders – transforming the traditional talent-management relationship into a strategic partnership model.
There’s also a constant feedback loop between LOVB and its players that continue to improve the organization as it continues to scale.
V — Visible Pathways
"We started with youth 5 years ago," Martin explains. "There was youth volleyball being played across the country, but it was fractured... So we wanted to create a community where youth could be championed beginning with the very start of their volleyball journey, and could aspire to play in high school, college and professionally.." This creates long-term customer lifetime value by engaging audiences from youth participation through professional fandom.
E — Ecosystem Building
"We have a thriving community of more than 20,000 youth players playing in our system today, more than 3,500 coaches. We're currently in 28 different states through our LOVB Clubs," notes Martin. Most importantly, "Our pros and our juniors actually train in the same building, helping to inspire the next generation while our pros give back to the sport that has given them so much"—creating an integrated commercial ecosystem that drives multi-generational engagement.
S — Strategic Storytelling
Developing premium content that showcases athletes as multi-dimensional individuals, not just competitors. This responds to market insights showing women's sports fans engage differently—seeking connection and inspiration alongside competition, opening new commercial channels.
The WAVES Effect on Athlete and Market Development
This athlete-centered framework has transformed volleyball's professional landscape and market potential:
Pathway Creation: Young players who previously couldn't envision professional careers now have visible role models and clear development paths. "For young girls they couldn't see what they could be. Previously, their pathway might end at high school, or at college. Now they see that professional volleyball is a possibility," Martin explains. This visibility drives youth participation and long-term market growth.
Athlete Return: Elite American players can now build domestic careers, reconnecting with audiences and creating new commercial opportunities. This reverses the talent drain that has historically undercut US market development.
Cultural Intersection: LOVB elevated volleyball beyond traditional sports boundaries: "“We sit at a very interesting place with volleyball,” Martin notes. “Our sport is very graceful in its movement - from how you hit the ball, to how the athletes leap to incredible heights, how they can fly through the air from back court to net.” It serves as a distinctive quality that allows LOVB to create partnerships that celebrate both athletic performance and personal expression. This positioning has attracted non-endemic partners like REVOLVE and SPANX.
Digital-First Engagement: "During the week of the LOVB Finals we had over a million views of match play content," Martin reports, with LOVB social channels seeing engagement rates at 5.9% (industry average: 5.5%) and TikTok engagement reaching 10.3%—demonstrating quantifiable audience demand.
LOVB provides athletes with comprehensive content assets and digital resources, allowing players to build their personal brands while connecting with America's passionate volleyball community. The athlete-centered digital strategy creates a powerful multiplier effect, amplifying reach through both team and athlete channels to engage the sport's existing fan base - with LOVB athletes seeing their collective follower growth rise by 3.5M followers over the course of the season.
5 WAVES Principles for Market Leadership
For marketing executives looking to build sustainable women's sports properties, five core principles emerge:
1. Build For Women, Not From Men's Blueprints
As Martin emphasizes, women's sports organizations should be built from first principles based on the specific needs of female athletes, not adapted from male models. This creates authentic experiences that drive deeper fan engagement and brand value.
2. Involve Athletes as Co-Creators, Not Just Talent
Female athletes should help shape key business decisions from inception. When LOVB says they're "athlete centric, we really are," Martin explains—a model that creates stronger products and more compelling storytelling.
3. Connect Youth Participation with Professional Pathways
"Our youth to pro ecosystem is one of our biggest differentiators as a league, because our brand partners have the opportunity to engage with potential consumers at a young age and build out real lifetime customer value." With brand affinity beginning at the age of 12, LOVB is creating unprecedented lifetime value opportunities for brand partners.
4. Recognize Different Fan Motivations
"Women athletes connect with their fans in such a different way, the depth just unlocks so much more potential," Martin notes. "It’s important to understand that women’s sports taps into fandom in a completely unique way than men’s sports, even for the same fan." Understanding these distinctions creates more effective marketing strategies.
5. Be Intentional and Build for Long-Term Success
"We are very intentional in our approach, and have built from the ground-up, starting with our community of youth clubs, and from years of side-by-side work on the pro league with our Founding Athletes," Martin explains. This foundation-first approach has positioned LOVB for sustainable growth, raising $160 million from strategic investors including Billie Jean King, Candace Parker, and Kevin Durant.
By applying these principles, marketing executives can create women's sports properties that genuinely serve female athletes while unlocking substantial new commercial opportunities. For brands more forward-thinking, leagues built on the WAVES framework represent an extraordinary opportunity to establish early, authentic partnerships with properties designed for sustainable growth. These purpose-built frameworks offer brands connection to passionate communities through organizations where scale and sustainability are foundational—not afterthoughts.
