Alexis Ohanian\u2019s latest sports venture, LOVB Los Angeles, will play its inaugural season at Intuit Dome in Inglewood, Calif., the company announced Wednesday. The $2 billion arena, which opened in 2024 as the home of the NBA\u2019s Los Angeles Clippers, will be one of the highest-profile homes in professional women\u2019s sports.<\/p>\n
The move puts professional women\u2019s volleyball inside one of the newest major-league arenas in the country as the franchise attempts to establish itself in Los Angeles\u2019 crowded sports market.<\/p>\n
\u201cIntuit Dome is the best new arena in sports, full stop,\u201d Ohanian told The Athletic. \u201cIf we\u2019re serious about building women\u2019s volleyball into a major professional sport in LA, our athletes and fans deserve an iconic home. This is exactly the kind of stage we want for LOVB LA.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt raises the ceiling for the entire business. You\u2019re giving sponsors a premium platform, giving fans a destination they\u2019re excited to come to, and giving our athletes an environment that reflects the caliber of the product. It sends a very clear signal about our ambition for this franchise and for women\u2019s sports in LA.\u201d<\/p>\n
Ohanian, founder of Seven Seven Six investment firm, was a founding investor in NWSL club Angel City FC and later became the controlling owner of Athlos, the women\u2019s track competition. His investment in LOVB extends that portfolio into volleyball at a time when women\u2019s professional volleyball is growing exponentially.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe fundamentals are impossible to ignore,\u201d Ohanian said as a response to why he invested in volleyball in the first place. \u201cVolleyball has a massive participation base, an enormous young and female audience, and some of the best athletes in the world, but the professional opportunity in the U.S. hasn\u2019t matched that demand. I\u2019ve seen what happens when you properly invest in women\u2019s sports. The fans were already here. The talent was already here. The opportunity is to build the product and platform they deserve. I remember how excited I was to launch Angel City FC because of all the energy around women\u2019s soccer in 2019 and women\u2019s volleyball right now feels 100x more inevitable.\u201d<\/p>\n
LOVB launched its professional competition in 2024 with six teams in Austin, Atlanta, Houston, Madison, Omaha and Salt Lake City. The professional league sits atop a larger volleyball organization that stretches from youth clubs and grassroots programs to the professional level. LOVB LA is its seventh franchise. Earlier this year, LOVB hired sports investment bank Inner Circle Sports, which previously advised the NWSL on its expansion process, to advise on its next phase of expansion and long-term growth.<\/p>\n
The Los Angeles franchise has already signaled that it intends to operate at the top end of that ecosystem. It recently announced a high-profile roster and hired Brazilian coaching legend Jos\u00e9 \u201cZ\u00e9 Roberto\u201d Guimar\u00e3es, one of volleyball\u2019s most decorated coaches. Guimar\u00e3es has won three Olympic gold medals as a head coach: one with Brazil\u2019s men and two with its women.<\/p>\n
Southern California has one of the country\u2019s deepest volleyball cultures, producing elite indoor and beach players and supporting major collegiate programs. Los Angeles will become an even bigger focal point for the sport over the next two years as the city prepares to host the 2028 Olympics. Intuit Dome will host the official 5\u00d75 basketball tournaments during the LA28 Olympic Games.<\/p>\n
Emerging professional leagues have historically faced a difficult arena equation: Smaller buildings are easier to fill and less expensive to operate, but they can also limit ticket inventory, premium hospitality, sponsorship opportunities and the perception of the product. Intuit Dome gives LOVB LA the opposite proposition. Rather than starting small and trying to graduate into a major arena, the franchise is beginning in a building designed for one of the NBA\u2019s most valuable markets.<\/p>\n
LOVB LA will begin introducing itself to that market before its inaugural season begins in January 2027. The franchise will formally unveil its team brand, logo, colors and visual identity during an event at Intuit Dome on Sept. 25.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ve worked closely with the Intuit Dome team to build LOVB LA into the venue calendar alongside the Clippers and other events,\u201d Ohanian said. \u201cThis is about much more than putting a volleyball court on the floor. We want LOVB LA to feel at home there, with real opportunities for branding, merchandise and creating a distinct experience for our fans and welcome Clippers fans to join us on this journey.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Alexis Ohanian\u2019s latest sports venture, LOVB Los Angeles, will play its inaugural season at Intuit Dome in Inglewood,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":443987,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[48,52,51,47,50,49,12902],"class_list":["post-443986","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-los-angeles","tag-la","tag-la-headlines","tag-la-news","tag-los-angeles","tag-los-angeles-headlines","tag-los-angeles-news","tag-sports-business"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/443986","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=443986"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/443986\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/443987"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=443986"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=443986"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=443986"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}