May 14, 2025 • 39 mins
There was no home for pro volleyball in the U.S.—so Katlyn Gao built one from the ground up: LOVB (A.K.A. League One Volleyball). She joins Laura to share how a personal mission became a national movement, why conviction matters more than consensus (or even fundraising), and what it takes to build something that lasts—and reshapes the future—in the world of women’s sports.
00:35 Meet Katlyn Gao: Visionary Behind League One Volleyball
01:25 Building a Pro League: Challenges and Strategies
02:58 The Youth Pipeline: Foundation of the League
05:54 Commercialization and Brand Building
13:54 Creating Cultural Relevance and Fan Engagement
23:02 Personal Stories and Motivations
27:00 Season One Highlights and Future Plans
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:04):
Whenever I hear oh my gosh, women's volleyball are women's sports,
it's just having such a great moment. Nothing breaks through
happens overnight. This has been fifty years in the making,
so we really owe how popular this sport is to
all the people that have come before us.
Speaker 2 (00:24):
Welcome back to Courtside, where we break down the business
of women's sports with the people bold enough to build
its future from scratch. I'm your host, Laura Currenty, and
today's episode is all about vision, conviction and volleyball. My
guest is Kaitlin gu co founder and CEO of League
one Volleyball. In this conversation, Caitlyn and I dig into
how she built Love through the pandemic, through the doubters,
(00:45):
all with a clear why, rooted and belonging. We talk
about the strategy behind choosing Love's first six markets, what
it means to build cultural relevance from the ground up,
and why this league isn't just a business, it's a movement.
Speaker 3 (00:57):
Let's get into it.
Speaker 2 (01:00):
I am in the studio with co founder, CEO and
total badass of League one Volleyball, Caitlin Gao.
Speaker 3 (01:06):
Welcome to the show.
Speaker 1 (01:07):
Thanks for having me so excited to be here.
Speaker 2 (01:09):
I'm so so thrilled to have you and I had
such a good time at First Serve. It's hard to
believe that Season one is already wrapped. I feel like
we were just in Atlanta a couple weeks ago, but
really an entire season has gone by, with Austin ending
uplifting the final trophy. I'd love to just get your
gut reactions to season one and then we'll get into
(01:29):
the backstory of the founding of this incredible league, in
the pipeline that you're developing for volleyball in the United
States and around the world.
Speaker 1 (01:36):
Yeah, no big deal, just launching a pro league, just
doing it our way though, which is certainly very special.
So I just feel incredibly grateful that all these incredible
people came together and made this happen. We painted a
vision almost six years ago. Some people thought we were crazy.
Others were really excited by it, especially the club directors
(01:58):
that have seen trained and helped to grow these incredible
athletes and to go on to play professional elsewhere at
the levels that they want to play at, which is
at the Olympic level, at the highest level in the world.
And we painted this vision of let's start with youth
and then we'll work up to the pros. So you
(02:19):
might call it doing it the hard way, but we
call it doing it our way and what felt right
to us and what felt right to the sport.
Speaker 2 (02:26):
I had the opportunity to listen to a couple of
interviews you've done since building this league, and one of
them was to do it at the right pace. So
I'd love if you can to sort of take us back.
You talk about a five six year journey to get
to season one. Obviously people only get to see the
end result and the product. Very few people really ever
(02:47):
can say they were there in the room from the
beginning in building a net new professional league, especially one
that was thrown a curveball with COVID.
Speaker 1 (02:58):
The journey really started when Peter and I and a
few other incredible founders came together. Actually it was end
of twenty nineteen and just recognizing how big this sport
already was at the participation level. It's the largest and
(03:18):
fastest growing team sport for girls. And this was before
ninety two thousand people showed up in Nebraska. It was
before we even won our very first goal. Even though
Tokyo being the Gold. Prior to that, we'd always muddled
at the Team USA level and then looking around and
really not seeing that much commercialization around the sport. Instead
(03:43):
of asking why and going down the rabbit hole, we
actually just said, well, what can we do about it?
You know, is there an opportunity for us to build
the NBA of volleyball and how will we do it
based on where it is today? And right away our
focus went into just how enormous that the community already
was at the youth level, at the under eighteen club level.
Speaker 2 (04:04):
Can you size that, like, how many youth players are
actually active today?
Speaker 1 (04:08):
So any given point you've got over four hundred thousand
twelve to eighteen year olds playing in the United States.
Speaker 3 (04:14):
Incredible.
Speaker 1 (04:15):
There are about five thousand plus of these youth clubs
all over the country. So the fact that we are already,
you know, the largest volleyball community at love with seventy
five locations across twenty seven states, that just goes to
show you just how fragmented it has been, but already
(04:36):
a really active, really committed, really dynamic and fast growing community.
So that I think is fifty years in the making.
So whenever I hear oh my gosh, women's volleyball or
women's sports. It's just having such a great moment. And
as you mentioned, nothing breaks through happens overnight. Now, this
(04:58):
has been fifty years in the making, so we really
owe how popular this sport is to all the people
that have come before us. So in a way, I
really see love. And you talk about the discipline in
the you know, almost six years. So we've taken to
build this the right way with the cadence and the
discipline that we've demonstrated. That is with the north star
(05:21):
of building legacy. Right, you can't build legacy overnight, sure,
and this straight foundation already from the popularity, and then
we went in with a commercial strategy that was very
different from others. In fact, I think we're the very
first pro league men or women's that started with you first.
Speaker 2 (05:39):
Yeah, and when you think about the fact that you
have a built in pipeline of nearly a half a
million young athletes, this is not a case of if
you build it, will they come.
Speaker 3 (05:47):
This is a place of where is it so that
they can go.
Speaker 2 (05:50):
I was listening to a great interview you did with
Jason Kelly and Alex Rodriguez and Alex had mentioned it
was so interesting to talk to you because you had
this incredible background having worked lou Lemon Sephora Baine. One
of the things as a brand marketer and longtime industry
agency executive that I was so enamored with was Lee
(06:10):
One Volleyball's ability to bring in brands who had never
spent in sports period, including Revolve and Spanks. How much
did you lean on your resume hat to really think
differently about not just how you were going to show
up from a professionalization of volleyball, but from a commercial standpoint,
to really punch out and create again.
Speaker 3 (06:30):
To your point, doing it your way, the right way,
I'd say a lot.
Speaker 1 (06:34):
And it's not just me, certainly, it's also the community
we've already built around us, with investors and board members
and other working team leaders who already had those connections
ready to give us when we illustrated our intention of
saying this ecosystem is uniquely positioned to help brands grow
(06:55):
affinity in a very authentic way, a way that all
market sitting in boardrooms are talking about, and with a
really hard to get community. If you think about it,
a customer segment of under eighteens and her mom and
her parents. That's the holy grail for many of the
B two C brands certainly, but even the B to
(07:15):
B brands, knowing that the parents are so engaged. These
are parents that are also making decisions for their businesses
as well. I also think it comes from a recognition
of the business of sport is actually very much a
B two C sport as well. We have the product,
whether it's the experiential product, a competition product, or the
physical products around merch all of those things come together
(07:38):
and you're offering it to the fans, You're offering it
to that youth family that's consuming that product. So you're
driving this lifetime consumption of volleyball from training all the
way to consuming it at the pro level. And so
why wouldn't you think about what other brands make sense
to come along for that journey so that you're building
that long lasting relationship, so that that twelve year old
(07:59):
girl all grows out to be the head of the
household that decides what that entire household consumes. So it
really became a very natural overlap of how do we
think about growing the pie and going after brands that
resonate with us, especially our unique model.
Speaker 2 (08:16):
What I find so interesting about Love is that you
were unencumbered by legacy.
Speaker 3 (08:22):
You're writing your own rules.
Speaker 2 (08:23):
You know, in many instances, I see the commercial side
as the afterthought.
Speaker 3 (08:26):
Once we have the product build, then we'll go and
sell it.
Speaker 2 (08:29):
Can you take us behind the scenes in terms of
thinking about both sport and the fan experience, the commercial opportunity, etc.
Speaker 1 (08:36):
Maybe it's just kind of going back to the background.
It's really hard to take a girl out of retail
and consumer. We almost agreed upon from day one as
a founding group that this would be a brand that Love.
We didn't have the name just yet, but we had
the intention of really building it into a very thoughtful
and intentional brand. That we were building a brand that
(09:00):
will commercialize the sport of volleyball, a very naturally women
led sport, just by participation and also awareness and recognition,
and doing so with purpose and profit in mind to
help advance the lives of folks that are involved in
the sport, which are predominantly women. And so it's a
very kind of almost natural landing spot of saying brand
(09:25):
is the most powerful thing we can create. Once we
create that brand, and we do so intentionally, then everything
else has this cohesion that kind of marries up to
the north star of the brand. So if you think
about us as an ecosystem, I know that sometimes it
gets used a lot, but in this case it truly
is a pipeline of youth all the way to pro
ecosystem that we've already built in under six years. This
(09:49):
branded ecosystem now has these two incredible core parts. Right,
you have the youth and you have the pro but
coming from that, and they're already working so symbiotically together,
which is so special to see. Probably the most gratifying
thing that I feel at the end of the first
Pro season is really seeing that true connection between the
pros and our club community. And when I think about
(10:13):
that dynamic, it's really interesting to then think about all
the different ways that can come out of having these
two core pieces already in place, whether it's merchandising or
what we put around in terms of content the journey right,
as well as the other possibilities we're probably not even
thinking about because this is a bit of a blank slate,
(10:35):
if you will, Huge sport, under commercialized and totally not
yet where we think it would be. Just given the
numbers that are already there.
Speaker 2 (10:43):
Yeah, perhaps maybe the worst kept secret for those in
the volleyball community in terms of how big the market is,
but in terms of the lack of commercialization, the lack
of storytelling, the lack of exposure access.
Speaker 3 (10:55):
I thought what you all did.
Speaker 2 (10:56):
In terms of year one in getting these games tell
and leveraging social and creators and influencers in the space. Again,
going back to first Serve in Atlanta, it was incredible
to see the amount of industry talent that showed up
to support sitting courtside and capturing the moment. How are
you thinking about that sort of commercialization in terms of visibility,
(11:17):
exposure and storytelling. Because I think of Haley Washington, who
is probably my favorite player that I discovered in this process.
I'm just like, how the hell have I never heard
of Haley Washington? And I was just like, this is
the challenge, and this is not unique to volleyball, but
certainly volleyball has been on the short end of that
coverage stick. Can you talk about how you're thinking about
(11:37):
that exposure and storytelling component?
Speaker 1 (11:40):
Well, Number one, there's so many Haley's in volleyball. They're
so dynamic, you know, they're fun, they're incredibly athletic, they're
so eloquent, they're so deep in terms of all the
things that they care about. And I think that's what's
really beautiful about volleyball and so many other sports where
athleteses are so worthwhile to tell and to share. And
(12:04):
with the disaggregation of media, of course there's a lot
of turmoil as well. But what it does is it
also frees up different ways where our athletes can really
connect with the audience. And that audience could be, you know,
a millennial Gen X mom, or it could also be
the twelve year old who wants to see what I
(12:24):
can be. And so the plan is there's no silver bullet,
you know, I wish there was one phrase to say,
if we do this, this will come. If there is
anything that's even close to a silver bullet, it's having
the intention that this is important, and so everything that
we do will marry up to saying if this is important,
(12:45):
then everything we do we need to check to see
are we prioritizing this. And so what's awesome to see
is also a lot of great new technology that is
coming up. You know, with scoreplay, you're able to give
access to all the content that the league captures so
very readily our players can leverage that and post it
(13:06):
on their own Instagram or TikTok, and so that they
can get to leverage the content that the league can
help to capture. So that's just one very small example
of everything that we're doing. We're saying, how can we
help these athletes become stars themselves? Tell their story? Tell
behind the scenes because those stories are very worthwhile, and
(13:29):
they're so rich and so complex. It's not just one
fifteen second TikTok that can really address it. And we
love that because that's how you build lifelong fandom and
lifelong engagement.
Speaker 3 (13:54):
So let's talk about the lifelong fandom.
Speaker 2 (13:56):
After six years of building one season under your belt,
were there any audience insights that both validated your thesis
as well as maybe surprised you in your first season.
Speaker 1 (14:06):
There's not many things that when you do a startup
that you say, oh, it's for sure going to happen this.
Speaker 3 (14:12):
Way, and I can attest, and I think.
Speaker 1 (14:18):
That's what makes it so fun. Right, You actually don't
know what's going to be on the journey except that
it's going to be hard and it's going to be
something that you have to pivot and refine in very
quick terms. In terms of the audience, it is actually
what very close to what we had hypothesized, which is
it skews more women, a SCUS younger, it's quite diverse,
(14:42):
household income excuse higher than average, and I think that
it's really important for us to take it and say, Okay,
this is somewhat in line with what we thought we
would see. However, we're still in season one, right, and
when you look at a lot of other analogous merging leagues,
they see an evolution over a period of time, and
(15:04):
whether it's generational change or just the fact that this
is the first group that has the closest ability to
come to our games, to watch our games because of awareness, right,
Because again, having that grassroot as our foundation is such
an advantage of raising awareness of bringing them into this
(15:27):
incredible product that we've put together at the highest level
of volleyball. However, that's kind of the center of the
concentric circle. And for Love to win, for really any
emerging league to win, you have to go outside of
that concentric circle. And it can't just be an amazing
competition product as sports product. It has to be a
(15:50):
cultural relevant product, right, and that cultural relevance cannot again
happen overnight. So many things that can't happen overnight, even
though I'm pretty impatient and I wish everything has.
Speaker 3 (16:00):
Done yesterday already, So I get that.
Speaker 1 (16:03):
Knowing that it would take a few years journey to
do it the right way, to do it our way,
it's the same thing with cultural relevance that's going to
come and build, and the brand partnerships can do so
much to help you. The way that our pro athletes
are really leaning in right, they feel like they're builders
with us, that's going to help us. These are all
foundational things that if you just keep going at it,
(16:26):
that breakthrough is going to come because you have the
intentionality and you have to write people involved, you know.
Speaker 2 (16:32):
I think some of the biggest challenges women's sports have
had is we've led with sport not thinking about the IP,
the asset, the derivatives that come off of that. I'm
a big believer and we're building brands, We're building IP
that happen to play a sport. But thinking horizontally is
what's going to actually help us to accelerate growth and
looking at the markets where you first launch, you know,
from Austin to Salt Lake to Atlanta and beyond. How
(16:55):
did you choose those markets? So you've got this national
need to brand women's professional vauvolleyball, but then clicking into
those markets with different flavors and brands that are relevant
to the communities on the ground.
Speaker 1 (17:07):
Really really good question. Number one. The locations that we
picked came from a much bigger number than six because
it's really important to us again that we are zooming back, future,
back right, So where would we want to be when
this is a thirty plus league in terms of teams,
(17:30):
and where do we want to start and that starting
off point. There are so many different lenses that we
looked at, mostly related to where do we think the
fans will be, Where do we think there will be
resonance right away? How do we think about the participation
base and also the strength of the college programs, and
that becomes a support network really for us as well.
(17:52):
And so that's really paid dividends, which is why we're
kind of concentrated more in the up and down center
of the country and then the co That doesn't mean
we don't have just incredible support and interest and unsolicited
inbounds to say when are we getting a team here?
And that's also data point for us to say where
(18:14):
is there interests that's completely unprompted by us, and so
I do expect this to expand. But so much has
gone into the thoughtfulness that the team has had in
selecting the first six and as you also know, everything
isn't just the shininess that you see on the outside.
There's also some very core logistics that we looked into,
(18:36):
including availability of the venues that we want to be in,
the size of venues we wanted to be in, and
also marrying that up to the founding athletes that we
had and where they're also the most familiar in terms
of awareness by the communities on the ground. So we
try not to be perfectionists. We're probably recovering perfectionists, but
(18:58):
a lot of balance score part of you well that
we looked into to land on the sixth that you see,
and to your second question is such a good one
because when you think about so many amazing brands that
are out there, many ways, the way that they became
so broad and so well recognized is the singularity and
(19:20):
how well they are able to present their brand in
a very consistent way. That said, when I think about sports,
sports is a very different brand territory. Not to say
they're unlike each other. I think they can learn a
lot from each other from the typical consumer brands and
sports brands. Sports brands I think has so much more
(19:43):
emotion to it.
Speaker 3 (19:45):
That's what I was curious about.
Speaker 2 (19:46):
You know, the brand the volleyball in Atlanta versus Salt Lake, Like,
I have to imagine how you're creating the game day
experience and communications on the ground, et cetera.
Speaker 3 (19:55):
Do they look and feel similar?
Speaker 1 (19:57):
It needs to be porous, right. The Love brand is
is meaningful, intentional, consistent. It's literally pronounced love, so you
know what the what the.
Speaker 2 (20:08):
I'm glad because people they love be love that? Yeah?
Speaker 3 (20:12):
It's love? Yeah? In how many years before?
Speaker 1 (20:14):
Thank you get that that pronunciation correctly?
Speaker 3 (20:17):
In adidask right?
Speaker 1 (20:18):
I think it's really cool to have a porous brand
that also stands for something so strong because then as
you translate it to how it shows up in Atlanta,
that's different than how it shows up in Madison, Wisconsin.
That's where that juxtaposition becomes even more interesting. Without giving
(20:39):
away what Love stands for it's like, what's the translation
of love in Madison that's different than love volleyball in Atlanta.
So that's aspiring to really design and execute on a
multi layered brand that can have the consistency that it needs,
but also has the ability to absorb and also learn
(21:02):
from what happens on the ground in each of these markets.
So I'm excited to see that evolve over time as well.
Speaker 3 (21:09):
Totally.
Speaker 2 (21:09):
What are the storylines that jumped out to you from
season one? Are their rivalries that emerged, you know, stars
that came through adversity.
Speaker 1 (21:18):
Like well, ultimately, the biggest narrative here has to do
with the athletes, right, That's what this is all about.
There is certainly the ones that are so obvious, which
is you've got nineteen Olympic medalists being able to play
at the NBA A volleyball level back home here in
(21:39):
the US. Ten of the thirteen that just won in silver.
This is the very first time they came back from
I think they've meddled twenty years in a row. First
year that they could come home meddling from the Olympics
and play in the US and a league that they've
been talking to for four years, so it was a
long time coming. So that's certainly the coming home, the
(21:59):
home building something from scratch alongside with love that's really
coming through. I think I remember Kelsey getting emotional before
she stepped on the court to practice during that first
serve that you came to in Atlanta, the first serve
ever for love, and that's expressing so much a mix
(22:22):
of emotions altogether. But after talking to them after all
the different first serves across six cities, the one thing
that I heard the most was, we put so much
pressure on ourselves to be perfect because this is so
meaningful for us to be building this with you. I
don't know many leagues that I chose, I choose I
get emotional. That's a really amazing theme that we couldn't
(22:46):
have asked for.
Speaker 2 (22:47):
Well, just the sense of it seems like responsibility. We're
going to leave this better than we found it, which
is just a consistent thread you hear through all professional
women's sports and the athletes who are hellbent on making
sure they're part of the not to solve, but the
resolve of the industry. You know, speaking of stories, I
had watched this incredibly compelling video about your why that
(23:08):
you wanted to create a space based on your own
personal experience of being close to home and not having
to leave your family to work and to do the
thing you love, and the ability to have it all
and at the same time ensuring that there's sustainability and longevity.
Can you touch on your why and your personal experience
(23:29):
with the amount of traveling your mom did, and how
that sort of influenced your decision to really dive in
headfirst to build this league whoof.
Speaker 1 (23:40):
That's definitely the core of my why of creating love
with these incredible people around me. My mother came to
the US really as a result of her fighting for
her chance to do what she felt like, you know,
she was meant to do, just be this incredible physicist
(24:04):
in you know, at the top of her game in
that field. And it wasn't necessarily, you know, in the
cards for her to do so outside of China, but
she really fought for those opportunities to learn more. And
I just remember she was clearly excited about going to
West Germany for two years, and I couldn't understand why,
because like, you're leaving me behind and my brother and
(24:26):
your sisters and brothers and my dad, and yet I
also saw how much my dad supported that, which I
think is also an amazing modeling of this can't just
be one person's doing. And I was in elementary school
and clearly seeing what it meant for my mother to
go abroad but also meant that we didn't get to
(24:48):
see her for almost two years.
Speaker 2 (24:50):
Wow.
Speaker 1 (24:50):
She did it again when she went to the US,
but this time a year later she asked us to
join her. So the whole family moved, and that the
trajectory of our lives. How old were you at this point,
I was in sixth grade?
Speaker 3 (25:04):
Okay.
Speaker 1 (25:05):
It was also when I think about resilience sometimes I
have to sit back and say I was pretty resilient
that like I came and I didn't understand what anyone
would say around me. But what I learned from that
was also I was really just drawn to sports. I
was really bad at it. There was no d one
genes in me. Apologies to my own kids, but I
(25:28):
really loved trying different sports because you know, I might
have mentioned before, it was just an opportunity to be
with others and feel belonging without actually speaking the language.
And Chicago is my hometown in the US. And so
you really can't talk smack about any any sports team
(25:49):
in Chicago without me defending it despite winning or losing.
So I think that identity, the community that sports can
bring to someone like myself that definitely stuck.
Speaker 3 (26:02):
With me so powerful.
Speaker 1 (26:03):
So has been Yeah, so has been the idea of
creating something that lasts, Like this is not Caitlin's league
or one person's league or Haley's league. And that's what's
great about all the people that are involved in it.
We all think of it as like we're here during
this period of time and we're caretakers of this legacy.
(26:23):
So can we build it to be stronger so that
our kids can feel belonging to a league that we
help to create. We just happen to be in this
really special period of like willing it from nothing to something.
But it's not successful if twenty years from now, forty
years from now, there isn't lef there isn't an opportunity
for the best volleyball players to play the NBA volleyball
(26:45):
here in the US.
Speaker 3 (27:00):
What keeps you moving?
Speaker 2 (27:01):
Because I know how hard it is to start something
from nothing and to take something off of the page,
and honestly sometimes out of your brain. Use the words
like will it into existence, especially weathering COVID and coming
through the other side when I'm sure investment was shaky,
you know, the market was crazy. But to see it
through and to get to first Serve in Atlanta, did
(27:25):
you take a step back? You know, like they say
on your wedding day, like take a step back and
take it all in.
Speaker 3 (27:29):
What emotions were you feeling?
Speaker 1 (27:31):
Oo A huge sense of relief. I think it's relief
and relief with pride. I don't I can't tell which
one is greater than fifty percent, but those are the
two that jumps out the most, right, So proud of
how we did it, So not just what we did,
but how we did it. To tune out the voice
(27:52):
because we definitely got a lot of incredulous you're doing?
Speaker 3 (27:55):
What?
Speaker 1 (27:56):
When is pro coming?
Speaker 2 (27:58):
Right?
Speaker 1 (27:58):
Is it ever going to happen? Both of those things
came to mind. And also just so proud of the
team we assembled. This can't happen with one person.
Speaker 2 (28:07):
Women's sports industry team sport through and through full stop.
Speaker 1 (28:10):
I mean, come on, right, it really is where it
takes a village, and it takes a village including partners,
and we call them literally friends of love. I mean
Deep Blue and yourself have been part of that for
a long time now, So it really does take everyone
to come together and make this happen.
Speaker 3 (28:31):
Yeah, we wouldn't have it any other way.
Speaker 2 (28:32):
One of the things that I have been thinking a
lot about is how to put naming conventions around those
skills that you do acquire while being in a team environment.
And if you're playing individual sport, you still obviously are
part of a team that is helping you to prepare.
Are there skills that you look back now when you
started playing in perhaps the sixth grade in Chicago, that
(28:53):
jump out at you saying, well, actually, regardless of level,
sport taught me x.
Speaker 1 (28:59):
Regardles level sport taught me. And that resonates because you know,
I was probably the lowest level, but I was the
captain of our tennis team. I was the worst player.
My serves weren't very good, but I just enjoyed being
with my teammates. And when I got voted to be
the captain of the varsity team, I'm like, wait, me,
(29:22):
I'm like the worst player on the team by far,
But I think it comes down to I get a
lot of satisfaction in picking winners and helping them.
Speaker 3 (29:34):
I love that.
Speaker 1 (29:35):
It's really translated to just wanting to build a team,
wanting to surround yourself with the best club directors here
at love, the best players, the best working team members,
the best friends of love from all aspects of how
do we emerge as a cultural product. There's just so
many aspects of then connecting the dots so that this
(30:00):
can be bigger than all of us together. Like, I
don't know that I put those words in my sixteen
year old self when I clearly didn't make the volleyball
team and had to pittot really hard to tennis and
was the worst player on the team. But it's learning
to be outside of yourself.
Speaker 3 (30:19):
I love that.
Speaker 2 (30:20):
And how does that translate in founding the first professional
volleyball league?
Speaker 1 (30:25):
And love it translates to when you have the right
people around you, it's much easier to tune out the
voice that's inside you that says, oh, this could be
pretty risky, or can really this happen? To keep you
from reading Reddit? And the noise around that to not
(30:45):
let the two or three people Actually it was a
lot more than that. When we were out on our
fundraising journey, who couldn't understand our brand, couldn't understand why
we had to do this a hard way, And that's okay.
There needs to be a self selection of sorts, if
you will, for them to opt in to be part
of this journey, to be really part of a movement,
(31:08):
because when we become the Legacy League generations from now right,
we will have changed the narrative of women's through the
sport of volleyball.
Speaker 3 (31:18):
I love it.
Speaker 2 (31:18):
Bethcom Stag was a former vice chair of GE is
a longtime friend and mentor who I learned a lot from.
And one of the bethisms she always you say, Laura,
no means not yet. I think to build on the
business side in women's sports is a lot of convincing.
It's a lot of validating, it's a lot of pressure testing,
it's a lot of building the business case for but
(31:40):
when you believe in it, I truly think as much
as you and I both do, and you can see
the forest through the trees. I don't take it as no.
I just say this not yet for you, but you'll
get there.
Speaker 1 (31:50):
I couldn't resonate with that more. Yeah, and the other
one I like to say right after that, I didn't
know that was a methism.
Speaker 3 (31:57):
I really love it.
Speaker 1 (31:58):
If you don't ask, you don't get.
Speaker 2 (31:59):
Yeah, what's the craziest thing you asked for in this journey?
What's the craziest thing You're like, you know what, We're
gonna put it on the table.
Speaker 3 (32:05):
Gotch.
Speaker 1 (32:05):
I feel like everything we've done we were fully expecting,
knows asking the founding athletes that one gold in Tokyo
to say, Hey, why don't you come home to play?
I mean, I know you want to, but you know
you might be giving up some money, right, And that's
a different mentality of saying what are the trade offs
(32:29):
for them, you know, to play abroad full time versus
coming home to play full time. I was just thinking
about it the other day of how grateful I was
of so many believers and ones that we never thought
we could connect with. I mean, just when you look
at folks like Kandace Parker. I grew up watching her
and the WNBA. I'm a big NBA fan as well,
(32:52):
and you know we have Kevin Durant and Jason Tatum
and Melody Hobson. I mean, I've admired her my days
in Chicago as a twenty something year old. You know,
she's been an aerial for such a long time and
incredible leader and really stood out in so many different
stages of my own journey. And we were introduced to
(33:14):
her and I was like, can you just give me
twenty minutes because I so admire her and it would
just mean so much that she even knows that we're here,
and you know, she became an investor and that's just
been incredible. It's just a reminder that you never know,
right if you don't ask, if I if you don't ask,
(33:34):
you don't get this opportunity. Oh, we actually do know her.
It's never going to be a yes for everyone. But
if you're you have a lot of conviction, you don't
give up, and you surround yourself with the right people,
things will come you just it just doesn't come all
at once.
Speaker 3 (33:49):
I love that you just used the word conviction.
Speaker 2 (33:50):
I was at an industry conference not that long ago,
focus on female founders that was put on by Rebecca
Minkoff and Ali Wyatt, who have the Female Founders Collective.
The question in a Q for the panel I was
on came up around the art of selling and I
was very clear and like, I don't get up every
day and sell agency services or a product or a solution.
(34:11):
I'm selling a conviction just seeing the way love shows up.
I mean even your merchandise like love is the next
big thing in women's sports, the next big league in
women's sports on your merchandise. That's a conviction, that's a statement,
that's not a question. When you think about those athletes
that you asked to come and perhaps take a pay
cut and a risk on something that was an idea,
(34:33):
what was the conviction you sold and what was the
thing that got you to yes.
Speaker 1 (34:38):
That they're joining a movement that they can play a
key role in creating the next major league one with
the sport that they're clearly already passionate about it is
their life, already taking it to the next level and
touching more lives and do so with intention. That's a
(34:59):
mo movement. And that opportunity to join a movement doesn't
come to you every day, certainly does not, And that
really got them over the line.
Speaker 3 (35:08):
I love that. Well.
Speaker 2 (35:08):
There is one confession I have to make, so as
I was at first serve, I hadn't played volleyball or
really been in a volleyball environment since high school, right,
so we're going twenty plus years back.
Speaker 3 (35:19):
And there were a.
Speaker 2 (35:20):
Couple of things that I observed. One, I love the
intimacy and the closeness to the action, but it also
realized I need to brush up on the rules. So
my whole flight home from Atlanta to New York, you know,
I'm going deep into the YouTube's of volleyball one oh one.
Speaker 3 (35:36):
I still think I have a lot to learn.
Speaker 2 (35:38):
But can you talk about the intimacy of the environment
and some of the perhaps things fans don't know until
they're there in the action.
Speaker 1 (35:45):
Especially when you're in person, it becomes so like in
your face. And yet I know we were sitting courtside,
but even when you're pretty far up in the stands,
the fast paced nature of the game really kind of
lends itself to very much a sports product that kind
of like before you know it's done, so you have
(36:07):
to watch it so closely to catch all of the drama,
all of the cross net, you know, competitive talk. Not
sure that it's trash talking, although you know, if we
had some.
Speaker 3 (36:19):
I'm here for mix.
Speaker 1 (36:22):
The funny part is many of them are literally best
friends off the court. But when you see the darn teammates'
teammates in USA and they've known each other and from
their teens and so to see them on the court
with dagger eyes across the net is really fun to watch.
And the drama of also discovering that it's not just
(36:44):
the i'll say hitters who are scoring the points. But
I heard so many people in the audience just like
amazed at what the ds, the libros or liberos depending
on where you are which part of the world you're in,
of digging, I mean, how do they go from one
end of the court to the other in a split
second to catch that ball that was about to die.
(37:06):
So that's actually become one of my favorite things to watch,
or all the surprises that you might not recognize because
now there's we have a full season now whereas before
you watch it for I don't know, seven days every
four years. For the Olympics, it's one of the most
popular sports to watch period, women's or men's. And this
data really killed me the other day. Those women can
(37:29):
jump higher in many cases than the men in basketball,
Like they can dump that that's the high that they
can get to. Oh, you see the sheer power forty
six inches off the ground.
Speaker 3 (37:41):
I mean that's two job fast are they spiking?
Speaker 2 (37:43):
Like?
Speaker 3 (37:43):
How fast is the ball going.
Speaker 1 (37:45):
Fifty plus miles? I mean that's the same level of
speed as a quarterback throwing the ball, right, badass.
Speaker 2 (37:55):
Well, we're not going to have to wait till LA
twenty eight, although I am excited to see the crescendo
to it. But if you haven't been to a League
one volleyball game in your local city, go there, check
it out, and if it's not in your backyard, get
on a plane and have the fun and experience nearby.
Congratulations on an incredible first season and all that you've built.
We're certainly rooting for you and excited to see where
(38:17):
things go next. So thank you for joining.
Speaker 1 (38:19):
Great to be here, big fan, thank you.
Speaker 2 (38:24):
I'm your host, Laura Krenti, founder and CEO of Deep
Blue Sports and Entertainment. Our executive producer is Jesse Katz,
and this show is produced by Ryan Martz along with
associate producers Meredith Barnes and Rachel Zuckerman. Court Side is
an iheartwomen's sports production and partnership with Deep Blue Sports
and Entertainment. Listen on the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcasts, or
(38:44):
wherever you get your podcasts.
Speaker 3 (38:47):
Want more, follow, rate.
Speaker 2 (38:48):
And review court Side wherever you get your podcasts, and
stay in the game by following us on social media
at iHeart Women's Sports. And don't forget to subscribe to
our newsletter. In the show notes, thanks for listening. We'll
see you next time. Court Saide
Whenever I hear oh my gosh, women's volleyball are women's sports,
it's just having such a great moment. Nothing breaks through
happens overnight. This has been fifty years in the making,
so we really owe how popular this sport is to
all the people that have come before us.
Speaker 2 (00:24):
Welcome back to Courtside, where we break down the business
of women's sports with the people bold enough to build
its future from scratch. I'm your host, Laura Currenty, and
today's episode is all about vision, conviction and volleyball. My
guest is Kaitlin gu co founder and CEO of League
one Volleyball. In this conversation, Caitlyn and I dig into
how she built Love through the pandemic, through the doubters,
(00:45):
all with a clear why, rooted and belonging. We talk
about the strategy behind choosing Love's first six markets, what
it means to build cultural relevance from the ground up,
and why this league isn't just a business, it's a movement.
Speaker 3 (00:57):
Let's get into it.
Speaker 2 (01:00):
I am in the studio with co founder, CEO and
total badass of League one Volleyball, Caitlin Gao.
Speaker 3 (01:06):
Welcome to the show.
Speaker 1 (01:07):
Thanks for having me so excited to be here.
Speaker 2 (01:09):
I'm so so thrilled to have you and I had
such a good time at First Serve. It's hard to
believe that Season one is already wrapped. I feel like
we were just in Atlanta a couple weeks ago, but
really an entire season has gone by, with Austin ending
uplifting the final trophy. I'd love to just get your
gut reactions to season one and then we'll get into
(01:29):
the backstory of the founding of this incredible league, in
the pipeline that you're developing for volleyball in the United
States and around the world.
Speaker 1 (01:36):
Yeah, no big deal, just launching a pro league, just
doing it our way though, which is certainly very special.
So I just feel incredibly grateful that all these incredible
people came together and made this happen. We painted a
vision almost six years ago. Some people thought we were crazy.
Others were really excited by it, especially the club directors
(01:58):
that have seen trained and helped to grow these incredible
athletes and to go on to play professional elsewhere at
the levels that they want to play at, which is
at the Olympic level, at the highest level in the world.
And we painted this vision of let's start with youth
and then we'll work up to the pros. So you
(02:19):
might call it doing it the hard way, but we
call it doing it our way and what felt right
to us and what felt right to the sport.
Speaker 2 (02:26):
I had the opportunity to listen to a couple of
interviews you've done since building this league, and one of
them was to do it at the right pace. So
I'd love if you can to sort of take us back.
You talk about a five six year journey to get
to season one. Obviously people only get to see the
end result and the product. Very few people really ever
(02:47):
can say they were there in the room from the
beginning in building a net new professional league, especially one
that was thrown a curveball with COVID.
Speaker 1 (02:58):
The journey really started when Peter and I and a
few other incredible founders came together. Actually it was end
of twenty nineteen and just recognizing how big this sport
already was at the participation level. It's the largest and
(03:18):
fastest growing team sport for girls. And this was before
ninety two thousand people showed up in Nebraska. It was
before we even won our very first goal. Even though
Tokyo being the Gold. Prior to that, we'd always muddled
at the Team USA level and then looking around and
really not seeing that much commercialization around the sport. Instead
(03:43):
of asking why and going down the rabbit hole, we
actually just said, well, what can we do about it?
You know, is there an opportunity for us to build
the NBA of volleyball and how will we do it
based on where it is today? And right away our
focus went into just how enormous that the community already
was at the youth level, at the under eighteen club level.
Speaker 2 (04:04):
Can you size that, like, how many youth players are
actually active today?
Speaker 1 (04:08):
So any given point you've got over four hundred thousand
twelve to eighteen year olds playing in the United States.
Speaker 3 (04:14):
Incredible.
Speaker 1 (04:15):
There are about five thousand plus of these youth clubs
all over the country. So the fact that we are already,
you know, the largest volleyball community at love with seventy
five locations across twenty seven states, that just goes to
show you just how fragmented it has been, but already
(04:36):
a really active, really committed, really dynamic and fast growing community.
So that I think is fifty years in the making.
So whenever I hear oh my gosh, women's volleyball or
women's sports. It's just having such a great moment. And
as you mentioned, nothing breaks through happens overnight. Now, this
(04:58):
has been fifty years in the making, so we really
owe how popular this sport is to all the people
that have come before us. So in a way, I
really see love. And you talk about the discipline in
the you know, almost six years. So we've taken to
build this the right way with the cadence and the
discipline that we've demonstrated. That is with the north star
(05:21):
of building legacy. Right, you can't build legacy overnight, sure,
and this straight foundation already from the popularity, and then
we went in with a commercial strategy that was very
different from others. In fact, I think we're the very
first pro league men or women's that started with you first.
Speaker 2 (05:39):
Yeah, and when you think about the fact that you
have a built in pipeline of nearly a half a
million young athletes, this is not a case of if
you build it, will they come.
Speaker 3 (05:47):
This is a place of where is it so that
they can go.
Speaker 2 (05:50):
I was listening to a great interview you did with
Jason Kelly and Alex Rodriguez and Alex had mentioned it
was so interesting to talk to you because you had
this incredible background having worked lou Lemon Sephora Baine. One
of the things as a brand marketer and longtime industry
agency executive that I was so enamored with was Lee
(06:10):
One Volleyball's ability to bring in brands who had never
spent in sports period, including Revolve and Spanks. How much
did you lean on your resume hat to really think
differently about not just how you were going to show
up from a professionalization of volleyball, but from a commercial standpoint,
to really punch out and create again.
Speaker 3 (06:30):
To your point, doing it your way, the right way,
I'd say a lot.
Speaker 1 (06:34):
And it's not just me, certainly, it's also the community
we've already built around us, with investors and board members
and other working team leaders who already had those connections
ready to give us when we illustrated our intention of
saying this ecosystem is uniquely positioned to help brands grow
(06:55):
affinity in a very authentic way, a way that all
market sitting in boardrooms are talking about, and with a
really hard to get community. If you think about it,
a customer segment of under eighteens and her mom and
her parents. That's the holy grail for many of the
B two C brands certainly, but even the B to
(07:15):
B brands, knowing that the parents are so engaged. These
are parents that are also making decisions for their businesses
as well. I also think it comes from a recognition
of the business of sport is actually very much a
B two C sport as well. We have the product,
whether it's the experiential product, a competition product, or the
physical products around merch all of those things come together
(07:38):
and you're offering it to the fans, You're offering it
to that youth family that's consuming that product. So you're
driving this lifetime consumption of volleyball from training all the
way to consuming it at the pro level. And so
why wouldn't you think about what other brands make sense
to come along for that journey so that you're building
that long lasting relationship, so that that twelve year old
(07:59):
girl all grows out to be the head of the
household that decides what that entire household consumes. So it
really became a very natural overlap of how do we
think about growing the pie and going after brands that
resonate with us, especially our unique model.
Speaker 2 (08:16):
What I find so interesting about Love is that you
were unencumbered by legacy.
Speaker 3 (08:22):
You're writing your own rules.
Speaker 2 (08:23):
You know, in many instances, I see the commercial side
as the afterthought.
Speaker 3 (08:26):
Once we have the product build, then we'll go and
sell it.
Speaker 2 (08:29):
Can you take us behind the scenes in terms of
thinking about both sport and the fan experience, the commercial opportunity, etc.
Speaker 1 (08:36):
Maybe it's just kind of going back to the background.
It's really hard to take a girl out of retail
and consumer. We almost agreed upon from day one as
a founding group that this would be a brand that Love.
We didn't have the name just yet, but we had
the intention of really building it into a very thoughtful
and intentional brand. That we were building a brand that
(09:00):
will commercialize the sport of volleyball, a very naturally women
led sport, just by participation and also awareness and recognition,
and doing so with purpose and profit in mind to
help advance the lives of folks that are involved in
the sport, which are predominantly women. And so it's a
very kind of almost natural landing spot of saying brand
(09:25):
is the most powerful thing we can create. Once we
create that brand, and we do so intentionally, then everything
else has this cohesion that kind of marries up to
the north star of the brand. So if you think
about us as an ecosystem, I know that sometimes it
gets used a lot, but in this case it truly
is a pipeline of youth all the way to pro
ecosystem that we've already built in under six years. This
(09:49):
branded ecosystem now has these two incredible core parts. Right,
you have the youth and you have the pro but
coming from that, and they're already working so symbiotically together,
which is so special to see. Probably the most gratifying
thing that I feel at the end of the first
Pro season is really seeing that true connection between the
pros and our club community. And when I think about
(10:13):
that dynamic, it's really interesting to then think about all
the different ways that can come out of having these
two core pieces already in place, whether it's merchandising or
what we put around in terms of content the journey right,
as well as the other possibilities we're probably not even
thinking about because this is a bit of a blank slate,
(10:35):
if you will, Huge sport, under commercialized and totally not
yet where we think it would be. Just given the
numbers that are already there.
Speaker 2 (10:43):
Yeah, perhaps maybe the worst kept secret for those in
the volleyball community in terms of how big the market is,
but in terms of the lack of commercialization, the lack
of storytelling, the lack of exposure access.
Speaker 3 (10:55):
I thought what you all did.
Speaker 2 (10:56):
In terms of year one in getting these games tell
and leveraging social and creators and influencers in the space. Again,
going back to first Serve in Atlanta, it was incredible
to see the amount of industry talent that showed up
to support sitting courtside and capturing the moment. How are
you thinking about that sort of commercialization in terms of visibility,
(11:17):
exposure and storytelling. Because I think of Haley Washington, who
is probably my favorite player that I discovered in this process.
I'm just like, how the hell have I never heard
of Haley Washington? And I was just like, this is
the challenge, and this is not unique to volleyball, but
certainly volleyball has been on the short end of that
coverage stick. Can you talk about how you're thinking about
(11:37):
that exposure and storytelling component?
Speaker 1 (11:40):
Well, Number one, there's so many Haley's in volleyball. They're
so dynamic, you know, they're fun, they're incredibly athletic, they're
so eloquent, they're so deep in terms of all the
things that they care about. And I think that's what's
really beautiful about volleyball and so many other sports where
athleteses are so worthwhile to tell and to share. And
(12:04):
with the disaggregation of media, of course there's a lot
of turmoil as well. But what it does is it
also frees up different ways where our athletes can really
connect with the audience. And that audience could be, you know,
a millennial Gen X mom, or it could also be
the twelve year old who wants to see what I
(12:24):
can be. And so the plan is there's no silver bullet,
you know, I wish there was one phrase to say,
if we do this, this will come. If there is
anything that's even close to a silver bullet, it's having
the intention that this is important, and so everything that
we do will marry up to saying if this is important,
(12:45):
then everything we do we need to check to see
are we prioritizing this. And so what's awesome to see
is also a lot of great new technology that is
coming up. You know, with scoreplay, you're able to give
access to all the content that the league captures so
very readily our players can leverage that and post it
(13:06):
on their own Instagram or TikTok, and so that they
can get to leverage the content that the league can
help to capture. So that's just one very small example
of everything that we're doing. We're saying, how can we
help these athletes become stars themselves? Tell their story? Tell
behind the scenes because those stories are very worthwhile, and
(13:29):
they're so rich and so complex. It's not just one
fifteen second TikTok that can really address it. And we
love that because that's how you build lifelong fandom and
lifelong engagement.
Speaker 3 (13:54):
So let's talk about the lifelong fandom.
Speaker 2 (13:56):
After six years of building one season under your belt,
were there any audience insights that both validated your thesis
as well as maybe surprised you in your first season.
Speaker 1 (14:06):
There's not many things that when you do a startup
that you say, oh, it's for sure going to happen this.
Speaker 3 (14:12):
Way, and I can attest, and I think.
Speaker 1 (14:18):
That's what makes it so fun. Right, You actually don't
know what's going to be on the journey except that
it's going to be hard and it's going to be
something that you have to pivot and refine in very
quick terms. In terms of the audience, it is actually
what very close to what we had hypothesized, which is
it skews more women, a SCUS younger, it's quite diverse,
(14:42):
household income excuse higher than average, and I think that
it's really important for us to take it and say, Okay,
this is somewhat in line with what we thought we
would see. However, we're still in season one, right, and
when you look at a lot of other analogous merging leagues,
they see an evolution over a period of time, and
(15:04):
whether it's generational change or just the fact that this
is the first group that has the closest ability to
come to our games, to watch our games because of awareness, right,
Because again, having that grassroot as our foundation is such
an advantage of raising awareness of bringing them into this
(15:27):
incredible product that we've put together at the highest level
of volleyball. However, that's kind of the center of the
concentric circle. And for Love to win, for really any
emerging league to win, you have to go outside of
that concentric circle. And it can't just be an amazing
competition product as sports product. It has to be a
(15:50):
cultural relevant product, right, and that cultural relevance cannot again
happen overnight. So many things that can't happen overnight, even
though I'm pretty impatient and I wish everything has.
Speaker 3 (16:00):
Done yesterday already, So I get that.
Speaker 1 (16:03):
Knowing that it would take a few years journey to
do it the right way, to do it our way,
it's the same thing with cultural relevance that's going to
come and build, and the brand partnerships can do so
much to help you. The way that our pro athletes
are really leaning in right, they feel like they're builders
with us, that's going to help us. These are all
foundational things that if you just keep going at it,
(16:26):
that breakthrough is going to come because you have the
intentionality and you have to write people involved, you know.
Speaker 2 (16:32):
I think some of the biggest challenges women's sports have
had is we've led with sport not thinking about the IP,
the asset, the derivatives that come off of that. I'm
a big believer and we're building brands, We're building IP
that happen to play a sport. But thinking horizontally is
what's going to actually help us to accelerate growth and
looking at the markets where you first launch, you know,
from Austin to Salt Lake to Atlanta and beyond. How
(16:55):
did you choose those markets? So you've got this national
need to brand women's professional vauvolleyball, but then clicking into
those markets with different flavors and brands that are relevant
to the communities on the ground.
Speaker 1 (17:07):
Really really good question. Number one. The locations that we
picked came from a much bigger number than six because
it's really important to us again that we are zooming back, future,
back right, So where would we want to be when
this is a thirty plus league in terms of teams,
(17:30):
and where do we want to start and that starting
off point. There are so many different lenses that we
looked at, mostly related to where do we think the
fans will be, Where do we think there will be
resonance right away? How do we think about the participation
base and also the strength of the college programs, and
that becomes a support network really for us as well.
(17:52):
And so that's really paid dividends, which is why we're
kind of concentrated more in the up and down center
of the country and then the co That doesn't mean
we don't have just incredible support and interest and unsolicited
inbounds to say when are we getting a team here?
And that's also data point for us to say where
(18:14):
is there interests that's completely unprompted by us, and so
I do expect this to expand. But so much has
gone into the thoughtfulness that the team has had in
selecting the first six and as you also know, everything
isn't just the shininess that you see on the outside.
There's also some very core logistics that we looked into,
(18:36):
including availability of the venues that we want to be in,
the size of venues we wanted to be in, and
also marrying that up to the founding athletes that we
had and where they're also the most familiar in terms
of awareness by the communities on the ground. So we
try not to be perfectionists. We're probably recovering perfectionists, but
(18:58):
a lot of balance score part of you well that
we looked into to land on the sixth that you see,
and to your second question is such a good one
because when you think about so many amazing brands that
are out there, many ways, the way that they became
so broad and so well recognized is the singularity and
(19:20):
how well they are able to present their brand in
a very consistent way. That said, when I think about sports,
sports is a very different brand territory. Not to say
they're unlike each other. I think they can learn a
lot from each other from the typical consumer brands and
sports brands. Sports brands I think has so much more
(19:43):
emotion to it.
Speaker 3 (19:45):
That's what I was curious about.
Speaker 2 (19:46):
You know, the brand the volleyball in Atlanta versus Salt Lake, Like,
I have to imagine how you're creating the game day
experience and communications on the ground, et cetera.
Speaker 3 (19:55):
Do they look and feel similar?
Speaker 1 (19:57):
It needs to be porous, right. The Love brand is
is meaningful, intentional, consistent. It's literally pronounced love, so you
know what the what the.
Speaker 2 (20:08):
I'm glad because people they love be love that? Yeah?
Speaker 3 (20:12):
It's love? Yeah? In how many years before?
Speaker 1 (20:14):
Thank you get that that pronunciation correctly?
Speaker 3 (20:17):
In adidask right?
Speaker 1 (20:18):
I think it's really cool to have a porous brand
that also stands for something so strong because then as
you translate it to how it shows up in Atlanta,
that's different than how it shows up in Madison, Wisconsin.
That's where that juxtaposition becomes even more interesting. Without giving
(20:39):
away what Love stands for it's like, what's the translation
of love in Madison that's different than love volleyball in Atlanta.
So that's aspiring to really design and execute on a
multi layered brand that can have the consistency that it needs,
but also has the ability to absorb and also learn
(21:02):
from what happens on the ground in each of these markets.
So I'm excited to see that evolve over time as well.
Speaker 3 (21:09):
Totally.
Speaker 2 (21:09):
What are the storylines that jumped out to you from
season one? Are their rivalries that emerged, you know, stars
that came through adversity.
Speaker 1 (21:18):
Like well, ultimately, the biggest narrative here has to do
with the athletes, right, That's what this is all about.
There is certainly the ones that are so obvious, which
is you've got nineteen Olympic medalists being able to play
at the NBA A volleyball level back home here in
(21:39):
the US. Ten of the thirteen that just won in silver.
This is the very first time they came back from
I think they've meddled twenty years in a row. First
year that they could come home meddling from the Olympics
and play in the US and a league that they've
been talking to for four years, so it was a
long time coming. So that's certainly the coming home, the
(21:59):
home building something from scratch alongside with love that's really
coming through. I think I remember Kelsey getting emotional before
she stepped on the court to practice during that first
serve that you came to in Atlanta, the first serve
ever for love, and that's expressing so much a mix
(22:22):
of emotions altogether. But after talking to them after all
the different first serves across six cities, the one thing
that I heard the most was, we put so much
pressure on ourselves to be perfect because this is so
meaningful for us to be building this with you. I
don't know many leagues that I chose, I choose I
get emotional. That's a really amazing theme that we couldn't
(22:46):
have asked for.
Speaker 2 (22:47):
Well, just the sense of it seems like responsibility. We're
going to leave this better than we found it, which
is just a consistent thread you hear through all professional
women's sports and the athletes who are hellbent on making
sure they're part of the not to solve, but the
resolve of the industry. You know, speaking of stories, I
had watched this incredibly compelling video about your why that
(23:08):
you wanted to create a space based on your own
personal experience of being close to home and not having
to leave your family to work and to do the
thing you love, and the ability to have it all
and at the same time ensuring that there's sustainability and longevity.
Can you touch on your why and your personal experience
(23:29):
with the amount of traveling your mom did, and how
that sort of influenced your decision to really dive in
headfirst to build this league whoof.
Speaker 1 (23:40):
That's definitely the core of my why of creating love
with these incredible people around me. My mother came to
the US really as a result of her fighting for
her chance to do what she felt like, you know,
she was meant to do, just be this incredible physicist
(24:04):
in you know, at the top of her game in
that field. And it wasn't necessarily, you know, in the
cards for her to do so outside of China, but
she really fought for those opportunities to learn more. And
I just remember she was clearly excited about going to
West Germany for two years, and I couldn't understand why,
because like, you're leaving me behind and my brother and
(24:26):
your sisters and brothers and my dad, and yet I
also saw how much my dad supported that, which I
think is also an amazing modeling of this can't just
be one person's doing. And I was in elementary school
and clearly seeing what it meant for my mother to
go abroad but also meant that we didn't get to
(24:48):
see her for almost two years.
Speaker 2 (24:50):
Wow.
Speaker 1 (24:50):
She did it again when she went to the US,
but this time a year later she asked us to
join her. So the whole family moved, and that the
trajectory of our lives. How old were you at this point,
I was in sixth grade?
Speaker 3 (25:04):
Okay.
Speaker 1 (25:05):
It was also when I think about resilience sometimes I
have to sit back and say I was pretty resilient
that like I came and I didn't understand what anyone
would say around me. But what I learned from that
was also I was really just drawn to sports. I
was really bad at it. There was no d one
genes in me. Apologies to my own kids, but I
(25:28):
really loved trying different sports because you know, I might
have mentioned before, it was just an opportunity to be
with others and feel belonging without actually speaking the language.
And Chicago is my hometown in the US. And so
you really can't talk smack about any any sports team
(25:49):
in Chicago without me defending it despite winning or losing.
So I think that identity, the community that sports can
bring to someone like myself that definitely stuck.
Speaker 3 (26:02):
With me so powerful.
Speaker 1 (26:03):
So has been Yeah, so has been the idea of
creating something that lasts, Like this is not Caitlin's league
or one person's league or Haley's league. And that's what's
great about all the people that are involved in it.
We all think of it as like we're here during
this period of time and we're caretakers of this legacy.
(26:23):
So can we build it to be stronger so that
our kids can feel belonging to a league that we
help to create. We just happen to be in this
really special period of like willing it from nothing to something.
But it's not successful if twenty years from now, forty
years from now, there isn't lef there isn't an opportunity
for the best volleyball players to play the NBA volleyball
(26:45):
here in the US.
Speaker 3 (27:00):
What keeps you moving?
Speaker 2 (27:01):
Because I know how hard it is to start something
from nothing and to take something off of the page,
and honestly sometimes out of your brain. Use the words
like will it into existence, especially weathering COVID and coming
through the other side when I'm sure investment was shaky,
you know, the market was crazy. But to see it
through and to get to first Serve in Atlanta, did
(27:25):
you take a step back? You know, like they say
on your wedding day, like take a step back and
take it all in.
Speaker 3 (27:29):
What emotions were you feeling?
Speaker 1 (27:31):
Oo A huge sense of relief. I think it's relief
and relief with pride. I don't I can't tell which
one is greater than fifty percent, but those are the
two that jumps out the most, right, So proud of
how we did it, So not just what we did,
but how we did it. To tune out the voice
(27:52):
because we definitely got a lot of incredulous you're doing?
Speaker 3 (27:55):
What?
Speaker 1 (27:56):
When is pro coming?
Speaker 2 (27:58):
Right?
Speaker 1 (27:58):
Is it ever going to happen? Both of those things
came to mind. And also just so proud of the
team we assembled. This can't happen with one person.
Speaker 2 (28:07):
Women's sports industry team sport through and through full stop.
Speaker 1 (28:10):
I mean, come on, right, it really is where it
takes a village, and it takes a village including partners,
and we call them literally friends of love. I mean
Deep Blue and yourself have been part of that for
a long time now, So it really does take everyone
to come together and make this happen.
Speaker 3 (28:31):
Yeah, we wouldn't have it any other way.
Speaker 2 (28:32):
One of the things that I have been thinking a
lot about is how to put naming conventions around those
skills that you do acquire while being in a team environment.
And if you're playing individual sport, you still obviously are
part of a team that is helping you to prepare.
Are there skills that you look back now when you
started playing in perhaps the sixth grade in Chicago, that
(28:53):
jump out at you saying, well, actually, regardless of level,
sport taught me x.
Speaker 1 (28:59):
Regardles level sport taught me. And that resonates because you know,
I was probably the lowest level, but I was the
captain of our tennis team. I was the worst player.
My serves weren't very good, but I just enjoyed being
with my teammates. And when I got voted to be
the captain of the varsity team, I'm like, wait, me,
(29:22):
I'm like the worst player on the team by far,
But I think it comes down to I get a
lot of satisfaction in picking winners and helping them.
Speaker 3 (29:34):
I love that.
Speaker 1 (29:35):
It's really translated to just wanting to build a team,
wanting to surround yourself with the best club directors here
at love, the best players, the best working team members,
the best friends of love from all aspects of how
do we emerge as a cultural product. There's just so
many aspects of then connecting the dots so that this
(30:00):
can be bigger than all of us together. Like, I
don't know that I put those words in my sixteen
year old self when I clearly didn't make the volleyball
team and had to pittot really hard to tennis and
was the worst player on the team. But it's learning
to be outside of yourself.
Speaker 3 (30:19):
I love that.
Speaker 2 (30:20):
And how does that translate in founding the first professional
volleyball league?
Speaker 1 (30:25):
And love it translates to when you have the right
people around you, it's much easier to tune out the
voice that's inside you that says, oh, this could be
pretty risky, or can really this happen? To keep you
from reading Reddit? And the noise around that to not
(30:45):
let the two or three people Actually it was a
lot more than that. When we were out on our
fundraising journey, who couldn't understand our brand, couldn't understand why
we had to do this a hard way, And that's okay.
There needs to be a self selection of sorts, if
you will, for them to opt in to be part
of this journey, to be really part of a movement,
(31:08):
because when we become the Legacy League generations from now right,
we will have changed the narrative of women's through the
sport of volleyball.
Speaker 3 (31:18):
I love it.
Speaker 2 (31:18):
Bethcom Stag was a former vice chair of GE is
a longtime friend and mentor who I learned a lot from.
And one of the bethisms she always you say, Laura,
no means not yet. I think to build on the
business side in women's sports is a lot of convincing.
It's a lot of validating, it's a lot of pressure testing,
it's a lot of building the business case for but
(31:40):
when you believe in it, I truly think as much
as you and I both do, and you can see
the forest through the trees. I don't take it as no.
I just say this not yet for you, but you'll
get there.
Speaker 1 (31:50):
I couldn't resonate with that more. Yeah, and the other
one I like to say right after that, I didn't
know that was a methism.
Speaker 3 (31:57):
I really love it.
Speaker 1 (31:58):
If you don't ask, you don't get.
Speaker 2 (31:59):
Yeah, what's the craziest thing you asked for in this journey?
What's the craziest thing You're like, you know what, We're
gonna put it on the table.
Speaker 3 (32:05):
Gotch.
Speaker 1 (32:05):
I feel like everything we've done we were fully expecting,
knows asking the founding athletes that one gold in Tokyo
to say, Hey, why don't you come home to play?
I mean, I know you want to, but you know
you might be giving up some money, right, And that's
a different mentality of saying what are the trade offs
(32:29):
for them, you know, to play abroad full time versus
coming home to play full time. I was just thinking
about it the other day of how grateful I was
of so many believers and ones that we never thought
we could connect with. I mean, just when you look
at folks like Kandace Parker. I grew up watching her
and the WNBA. I'm a big NBA fan as well,
(32:52):
and you know we have Kevin Durant and Jason Tatum
and Melody Hobson. I mean, I've admired her my days
in Chicago as a twenty something year old. You know,
she's been an aerial for such a long time and
incredible leader and really stood out in so many different
stages of my own journey. And we were introduced to
(33:14):
her and I was like, can you just give me
twenty minutes because I so admire her and it would
just mean so much that she even knows that we're here,
and you know, she became an investor and that's just
been incredible. It's just a reminder that you never know,
right if you don't ask, if I if you don't ask,
(33:34):
you don't get this opportunity. Oh, we actually do know her.
It's never going to be a yes for everyone. But
if you're you have a lot of conviction, you don't
give up, and you surround yourself with the right people,
things will come you just it just doesn't come all
at once.
Speaker 3 (33:49):
I love that you just used the word conviction.
Speaker 2 (33:50):
I was at an industry conference not that long ago,
focus on female founders that was put on by Rebecca
Minkoff and Ali Wyatt, who have the Female Founders Collective.
The question in a Q for the panel I was
on came up around the art of selling and I
was very clear and like, I don't get up every
day and sell agency services or a product or a solution.
(34:11):
I'm selling a conviction just seeing the way love shows up.
I mean even your merchandise like love is the next
big thing in women's sports, the next big league in
women's sports on your merchandise. That's a conviction, that's a statement,
that's not a question. When you think about those athletes
that you asked to come and perhaps take a pay
cut and a risk on something that was an idea,
(34:33):
what was the conviction you sold and what was the
thing that got you to yes.
Speaker 1 (34:38):
That they're joining a movement that they can play a
key role in creating the next major league one with
the sport that they're clearly already passionate about it is
their life, already taking it to the next level and
touching more lives and do so with intention. That's a
(34:59):
mo movement. And that opportunity to join a movement doesn't
come to you every day, certainly does not, And that
really got them over the line.
Speaker 3 (35:08):
I love that. Well.
Speaker 2 (35:08):
There is one confession I have to make, so as
I was at first serve, I hadn't played volleyball or
really been in a volleyball environment since high school, right,
so we're going twenty plus years back.
Speaker 3 (35:19):
And there were a.
Speaker 2 (35:20):
Couple of things that I observed. One, I love the
intimacy and the closeness to the action, but it also
realized I need to brush up on the rules. So
my whole flight home from Atlanta to New York, you know,
I'm going deep into the YouTube's of volleyball one oh one.
Speaker 3 (35:36):
I still think I have a lot to learn.
Speaker 2 (35:38):
But can you talk about the intimacy of the environment
and some of the perhaps things fans don't know until
they're there in the action.
Speaker 1 (35:45):
Especially when you're in person, it becomes so like in
your face. And yet I know we were sitting courtside,
but even when you're pretty far up in the stands,
the fast paced nature of the game really kind of
lends itself to very much a sports product that kind
of like before you know it's done, so you have
(36:07):
to watch it so closely to catch all of the drama,
all of the cross net, you know, competitive talk. Not
sure that it's trash talking, although you know, if we
had some.
Speaker 3 (36:19):
I'm here for mix.
Speaker 1 (36:22):
The funny part is many of them are literally best
friends off the court. But when you see the darn teammates'
teammates in USA and they've known each other and from
their teens and so to see them on the court
with dagger eyes across the net is really fun to watch.
And the drama of also discovering that it's not just
(36:44):
the i'll say hitters who are scoring the points. But
I heard so many people in the audience just like
amazed at what the ds, the libros or liberos depending
on where you are which part of the world you're in,
of digging, I mean, how do they go from one
end of the court to the other in a split
second to catch that ball that was about to die.
(37:06):
So that's actually become one of my favorite things to watch,
or all the surprises that you might not recognize because
now there's we have a full season now whereas before
you watch it for I don't know, seven days every
four years. For the Olympics, it's one of the most
popular sports to watch period, women's or men's. And this
data really killed me the other day. Those women can
(37:29):
jump higher in many cases than the men in basketball,
Like they can dump that that's the high that they
can get to. Oh, you see the sheer power forty
six inches off the ground.
Speaker 3 (37:41):
I mean that's two job fast are they spiking?
Speaker 2 (37:43):
Like?
Speaker 3 (37:43):
How fast is the ball going.
Speaker 1 (37:45):
Fifty plus miles? I mean that's the same level of
speed as a quarterback throwing the ball, right, badass.
Speaker 2 (37:55):
Well, we're not going to have to wait till LA
twenty eight, although I am excited to see the crescendo
to it. But if you haven't been to a League
one volleyball game in your local city, go there, check
it out, and if it's not in your backyard, get
on a plane and have the fun and experience nearby.
Congratulations on an incredible first season and all that you've built.
We're certainly rooting for you and excited to see where
(38:17):
things go next. So thank you for joining.
Speaker 1 (38:19):
Great to be here, big fan, thank you.
Speaker 2 (38:24):
I'm your host, Laura Krenti, founder and CEO of Deep
Blue Sports and Entertainment. Our executive producer is Jesse Katz,
and this show is produced by Ryan Martz along with
associate producers Meredith Barnes and Rachel Zuckerman. Court Side is
an iheartwomen's sports production and partnership with Deep Blue Sports
and Entertainment. Listen on the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcasts, or
(38:44):
wherever you get your podcasts.
Speaker 3 (38:47):
Want more, follow, rate.
Speaker 2 (38:48):
And review court Side wherever you get your podcasts, and
stay in the game by following us on social media
at iHeart Women's Sports. And don't forget to subscribe to
our newsletter. In the show notes, thanks for listening. We'll
see you next time. Court Saide
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