Volleyball is becoming so popular that not one but two professional women’s leagues are launching this year. (And there was already one before that.) Is there room for that many? … The aftermath of Netflix’s $5 billion WWE deal goes on. … The Lions are still driving ticket sales in Detroit as they travel to San Francisco for the NFC Championship game. … And the business of sports continues to change classic on-field and on-court looks.
— David Rumsey
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A new professional volleyball league launches on Wednesday night, capitalizing on the rampant growth of women’s sports in the U.S. But in this growing space, they’re hardly alone.
The Pro Volleyball Federation will hit the court with seven teams competing against each other in a four-month regular season, followed by a four-team playoff to crown the season’s champion. It shouldn’t be surprising that the PVF’s first match is taking place in Omaha—in nearby Lincoln, Nebraska’s women’s volleyball team set the attendance record for a women’s sports event with 90,003 fans at the Cornhuskers’ football stadium last August. The Omaha Supernovas will be playing at the 18,000-seat CHI Health Center, which is home to Creighton basketball and has hosted NCAA tournament matches in basketball and volleyball.
Select PVF matches will be shown on CBS Sports Network, while others will be streamed by OTT platforms Stadium and Bally Live. Beyond those media rights deals, the values of which have not been disclosed, the PVF also has a partnership with USA Volleyball—the national governing body—and deals with staple volleyball brands like Franklin and Spalding. On the ownership front, the PVF has notable investors like Cincinnati Bengals quarterback Joe Burrow and music star Jason Derulo.
Is Consolidation Needed?
The PVF won’t be the only new pro volleyball league launching this year. In November, League One Volleyball (LOVB) is set to debut, with franchises in at least six markets—two of which overlap with the PVF: Omaha and Atlanta. LOVB has raised $35 million from key investors like Kevin Durant, Candace Parker, and Ares Management Funds. Meanwhile, Athletes Unlimited Volleyball has been operating since 2021, albeit with a different model that sees players switch teams each week and matches played at a single location.
Volleyball is certainly hot right now, particularly on the college level. In December, the Texas-Nebraska NCAA women’s volleyball national championship averaged a record 1.69 million viewers on ABC. And there’s clearly an appetite among sports power brokers to take advantage of the pro level, as seen by the various new leagues. But if the offerings are oversaturating the market, organizers may ultimately need to consider joining forces, much like the merger in women’s hockey last summer that led to a so-far-successful launch of the PWHL.
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The latest major player in live sports streaming is beating Wall Street expectations once again.
Just hours after announcing a landmark $5 billion-plus deal with WWE, Netflix said it has reached 260.28 million subscribers, expanding its status as the world’s largest streaming platform.
Up from 247 million subscribers a quarter ago, Netflix’s latest quarterly results showed a 12.5% bump in revenue to $8.8 billion and $938 million in net income, up from $55 million in the prior-year period. What’s more, Netflix also is projecting even larger growth rates in both revenue and net income in 2024’s first quarter—forecasts that sent the company stock up more than 8% in after-hours trading.
“We believe we have a lot more room to grow,” the company said in a letter to shareholders late Tuesday.
Sports figure to be an increasing part of that pursuit of growth. During the most recent quarter, Netflix expanded its live presence with its in-house golf tournament, The Netflix Cup, and solidified plans for a similar tennis tournament, The Netflix Slam, that will be held in March. Its already-well-established documentary presence is now being burnished with upcoming NASCAR and NBA projects.
And now the company is making its biggest step yet in both sports and live content overall with the addition of WWE, something that Netflix called “great sports entertainment with a huge, established, and passionate fanbase,” adding: “We believe this long-term partnership will be a big value add for our members.”
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Hours it took the Lions to sell out their Ford Field watch party—a total that is expected to exceed 20,000 tickets, at $20 each—for Sunday’s NFC Championship Game against the 49ers, which fans will watch on the Jumbotron from 2,400 miles away.
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Most sports fans are probably familiar with their favorite team’s “home whites,” or at least something of the like. But for the NBA, business decisions are making what was once a classic uniform choice an afterthought. The Athletic’s Mike Vorkunov explored the shift, writing:
“Laying out the right jerseys used to be an easy exercise across the NBA. There were just two choices. … Today, it needs lots of meetings. It has become one of the benchmark choices a franchise can make each season. Over the last six-plus years, jerseys have grown to become not just merchandise but also part of an entire marketing ensemble, a diadem of that year’s commercial enterprise. … The story of the league’s changeover can be told by the erosion of one old mainstay: the home white jersey. For decades, this was an NBA staple. Now, it is increasingly a rarity.”
Meanwhile, on the topic of classic jerseys, the New York Yankees are reportedly making a rare adjustment to their gray road shirts in 2024. The white outlining on the chest lettering and back number, along with decorative trim on the sleeve cuffs, are all being eliminated this season, according to UniWatch. Doesn’t seem like a big deal? Arguably, the last change of this significance to the Yankees’ iconic road uniform—traditionally one of MLB’s biggest sellers—occurred more than 40 years ago.
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On this date 60 years ago: CBS landed the media rights to NFL regular-season games for 1964 and 1965 with a winning bid of $28.2 million—more than tripling the amount it paid during the previous two seasons. CBS topped ABC ($26.1 million) and NBC ($21.5 million) in what marked the first time the NFL opened up the bidding process to make it more competitive. CBS’s bid, in the end, reportedly surprised Pete Rozelle—or Pete “Rozelie,” as The New York Times errantly identified the fifth-year commissioner—who “smiled as he said he had not expected the top bid to be as high as it was.”
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- In 1995, Dwayne Johnson was cut from the CFL and, he says, had $7 in his pocket. His post-football career turned out O.K. Check out his list of accomplishments.
- Tiger Woods will soon reveal what his life after Nike is. Trademark filings are pointing toward a major deal with TaylorMade, which already makes most of his clubs. Here is what could be on the way.
- Led by the 50.39 million people that watched the Kansas City Chiefs defeat the Buffalo Bills on Sunday, the NFL’s four divisional round games averaged a record 40 million viewers.
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 | Lexi Thompson and Rose Zhang compete with Rory McIlroy and Max Homa.
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 | Lawsuit alleges Favre entered into “handshake deal” to “personally guarantee the funds” for volleyball facility. |
 | “He could do anything he wants,” Will Cain, the former First Take guest debater, tells FOS. |
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