On Tuesday, the Pro Volleyball Federation and Major League Volleyball announced the merger of the two leagues, a step in unifying volleyball at the professional level. All it means is that the status quo is maintained in the sport. At least for now.
If you’re new to pro volleyball, a little bit of background is important to understanding why the biggest headline of the offseason is a complete nothingburger.
History Lesson
In 2024, the Pro Volleyball Federation launched as the first major professional volleyball league in the United States, aiming to capitalize on the growing popularity of the sport at the high school and collegiate levels.
This year, a second league entered the field, League One Volleyball (which the league wants people to pronounce as ‘love’ for some reason), dividing fan loyalty, as well as roster talent. It has lagged behind the PVF in terms of popularity and used a brand new model for professional sports, leading many to question its viability.
During the middle of the 2025 PVF season, the Omaha Supernovas, who were the biggest revenue drivers for the PVF, announced that they were leaving the league to start a new one: Major League Volleyball.
That leads us to a multi-month lull with no news coming from either league following the conclusion of the 2025 PVF season…until now.
The Lull
This is where what happened over the summer starts to get speculative, but I think with some basic reasoning we can get an idea of what was going on between the two leagues.
The PVF was going to face financial difficulty without its flagship team. Imagine if, in the 1990s, the Chicago Bulls had decided to leave and go start their own league. Scale the financial figures down, and that gives you an idea of what the PVF was up against.
On the other side of the coin, MLV quickly amassed over $100 million in investment, and declared that they planned on starting their first season in 2026. Starting a professional, franchise model league in less than a year, however, is not an attainable goal. Pro volleyball’s relevance, to a large extent, hinges on Omaha playing.
The PVF needed Omaha and the wild volleyball fans in the state of Nebraska, and Omaha needed a schedule to play against. And now, only a few months later, Omaha and the PVF are back together, just under the MLV branding.
Return To Normalcy
So now, with what amounts to little more than a rebrand, pro volleyball is essentially the same as what it was last season. There’s still two competing leagues, with LOVB still being relatively irrelevant.
The teams will be mostly the same, with the exception that a team in Dallas will be making its debut this year after being in the works since the founding of the PVF, and the Las Vegas Thrill will not be competing this season.
Unless you’re a Vegas fan, nothing changed except the logo of the league. MLV just happened to get to its rebrand in the dumbest way that professional sports fans have seen yet.
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