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Post by canda on Nov 22, 2015 14:50:52 GMT -5
When you consider the amount of charismatic players that have come through the collegiate ranks in recent years, like Hancock, Carlini, Hooker, Santanna, et al, I have to believe American fans would like to see more of them, and would travel to see them, and watch them on TV.
I would be happy to finance it. Unfortunately, I was a Billionaire, but spent it all on candy.
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Post by Deleted on Nov 22, 2015 19:22:22 GMT -5
The issue is that you won't be able to get good players. The top women's players are making 100+ and some making significantly more than that. How are you going to convince them to stay here at play for 20k? If you're paying players 20k a year, you're going to get a level lower than Big 10 or Pac 12 play. You're absolutely correct. Very difficult obstacle, unless you schedule the season to be different here that in other wealthier countries. I think some players would be willing to take a pay cut, though, to stay in the US.
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Post by Deleted on Nov 22, 2015 19:25:44 GMT -5
What you need is one of the big sports channels, like ESPN or FOX to create a channel dedicated to women's sports, all sports. Then you could target advertising dollars better. TV deals/$$ are what allow the leagues to grow their respective sports. There is a market out there for women's sports, you just need to get some TV executives to take a risk/buy into it.
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Post by seymour8 on Nov 23, 2015 11:30:18 GMT -5
Is anybody on this board a billionaire? Anybody know a billionaire? Wouldn't it be nice if one of these billionaires trying to buy the White House would use a few pennies and start a volleyball league in the U.S.?? I mean, you could have a whole league for the cost of a half dozen major league baseball salaries. What got me thinking was Megan Courtney's remarks on the BTN special last night -- she would love to keep playing after graduation, and would have opportunities in Europe, but she doesn't really want to go to Europe. She likes it here, wants to stay close to home. Almost got the sense she was prepared to give up playing and move on. Which is really sad. And I was thinking, wow, I would buy tickets and drive hours to see a women's VB league that had players like Megan Courtney. So waddaya say Volleytalk? Let's do this. I'm about to semi-retire. I will have some free time available. What can I do to make this happen? I'm calling all my billionaire friends to talk up the idea. Yes, it is sad we don't have 10-12 cities in America where 12 woman could play for 3-4 months out of the year. For all the $$ there is still in America, this could happen.
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Post by bc1900 on Nov 23, 2015 12:04:16 GMT -5
The issue is that you won't be able to get good players. The top women's players are making 100+ and some making significantly more than that. How are you going to convince them to stay here at play for 20k? If you're paying players 20k a year, you're going to get a level lower than Big 10 or Pac 12 play. True, but it would be a start. As another poster pointed out, MLS is a good analogy. The salaries and quality of play are not comparable to the top European leagues, but things are improving year by year, and eventually, perhaps in another 20 years, MLS could be at at the same level as the English Premier League. The NFL started small also. A good start would be to make the game more watchable, which means stop with all the technical violations like rotation errors that are archaic and frustrating for fans. How many times have we all sat there as the refs spend minutes huddled over the scorer's table looking at the substitution charts trying to figure out something trivial? Start building fan interest at the high school and college level; that's a big part of the success of football and basketball where we as fans track player's careers from high school to college and then the NFL or NBA.
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Post by ironhammer on Dec 15, 2015 21:50:00 GMT -5
Yes, stiff competition from the more established major sports notwithstanding, I see no insurmountable odds that will prevent a pro volleyball league in the US. The key is finding someone (or some organizations) with enough dough willing to put up with the first few years of losses before the league eventually turn around and become stable. Let's face it, during the initial start-up period, there are bound to be losses. The thing is, no one is willing to risk their money in a venture like this.
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Post by luckydawg on Dec 15, 2015 22:21:08 GMT -5
Just off the top of my head, leagues that have failed include the USFL, WFL, XFL, WHL, ABA, CBA, Pro softball, Team Tennis, and likely several others. The WNBA is still around, but bleeding large volumes of cash. And these were all well bankrolled in sports that already had large followings. How is AVP doing? And that doesn't require much in stadium/vcenue costs.
If someone were thinking about funding pro volleyball, all they would have to do is look at the number of people who actually bought tickets for the Regional matches, to be scared away.
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Post by vballgrl on Dec 15, 2015 22:57:26 GMT -5
I would like to see a televised Collegiate All Star playoff tourney immediately post season. 1 team for each region. N plays S and E plays W. Winners play each other. Could be sponsored by USAVB since these are basically the kids they want to tryout anyway. See if people watch. Give it proper promotion, host in a good location. Pay the kids that play (if they still have eligibility, put in account until after graduate) IF people come to watch and tune in to watch, then repeat the next year. If successful again, consider expanding teams and creating a mini league. To be called a 'pro' league, you would HAVE to get the best of the best. The names/faces people have already grown accustomed to watching on TV.
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Post by brickwall on Dec 15, 2015 22:58:09 GMT -5
The problem is everyone tries to figure out how to market volleyball like football or like basketball. What you need to do is market a pro volleyball league like Taylor swift or the kardashians. Commercials... Hot new music, beauty, clothes. Take those long muscular bodies and plaster then all over the social media and advertisements. Maybe the pay is minuscule at first, but the stars, if marketed properly, could make millions in endorsement deals in the USA. 90% of volleyball players with a little makeup could be cover worthy. Grow a generation of volleyball players AND fans. We already have the players, but you have to make them fans. Stop trying to market women's volleyball to men. Market to women. Cool team logos that the girls want to wear to school. Cool slogans and beautiful strong women on posters. Raise your fans, don't try to get them when they are 30, get them when they are 13. My 15 year old daughter follows some b1g players on Instagram. She follows players who are pretty and talented. They are celebrities to her. She would buy their poster, or follow their professional career if they had one. Find the fans in the clubs. Don't wait until they are adults with a million other things vying for their attention. Eventually the young girls you get with they Taylor swift approach will grow up. They'll get their husbands into it. They'll take their kids to games. The nfl wasn't the nfl overnight, neither was the nba and volleyball will take time to become big. But women are more and more into sports and fitness. There are HUGE opportunities here. Build a brand of women's athletics. You could BECOME a billionaire. Women are dying for that cool athletic brand that caters to them, they'll spend the money on it. Opportunity awaits the inventive.
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Post by brickwall on Dec 15, 2015 23:13:34 GMT -5
Ps. I am a 30 something year old woman with two teenage daughters. The fact that I've spent at least 600 dollars just in Nike Pro spandex this year, which neither can even wear as part of a uniform, speaks volumes to how much money could be made. My daughter wears the same headband her favorite player wears. Air Jordan had made billions. What about air Carlini? Lol. But seriously. A beautiful celebrity volleyball player could sell billions in female athletic apparel but she needs a stage week after week, year after year, not just every four years at the Olympics. Maybe Nike, under armour, and adidas should build some pro teams.
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Post by alarmclock on Dec 15, 2015 23:53:34 GMT -5
Ps. I am a 30 something year old woman with two teenage daughters. The fact that I've spent at least 600 dollars just in Nike Pro spandex this year, which neither can even wear as part of a uniform, speaks volumes to how much money could be made. My daughter wears the same headband her favorite player wears. Air Jordan had made billions. What about air Carlini? Lol. But seriously. A beautiful celebrity volleyball player could sell billions in female athletic apparel but she needs a stage week after week, year after year, not just every four years at the Olympics. Maybe Nike, under armour, and adidas should build some pro teams. Gabby Reece. Nike. 90's. Didn't work.
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Post by alarmclock on Dec 15, 2015 23:56:12 GMT -5
You wanna make a women's pro league in the US? Make the mega clubs across the country form pro teams from their alumni. Then they can all mash it up in a figurative penis-measuring contest for bragging rights in a pro division and settle once and for all who the best damn juniors club is in the country.
Charge an extra 100 bucks to all your club athletes for the season, that should cover the pro division salaries, seeing as how all these mega-clubs have hundreds of kids with marginal talent playing every season.
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Post by Deleted on Dec 16, 2015 0:34:13 GMT -5
I would like to see a televised Collegiate All Star playoff tourney immediately post season. 1 team for each region. N plays S and E plays W. Winners play each other. Could be sponsored by USAVB since these are basically the kids they want to tryout anyway. See if people watch. Give it proper promotion, host in a good location. Pay the kids that play (if they still have eligibility, put in account until after graduate) IF people come to watch and tune in to watch, then repeat the next year. If successful again, consider expanding teams and creating a mini league. To be called a 'pro' league, you would HAVE to get the best of the best. The names/faces people have already grown accustomed to watching on TV. It's funny you mentioned a televised Collegiate All-Star playoff tourney. I was thinking about the exact same thing the past 2 weeks. Of course, my mindset was geared towards a conference All-Star playoff, so we could settle the bragging rights conversations. However, I like your suggestion better. Starting a pro league which will actually survive and grow (i.e., with sustainability) and which will prosper (i.e., to support pro contracts) needs to happen slow and methodically - start a mini league with only 6-8 teams in the best markets. It needs the USAVB's support for sure. The colleges have so many fans, and many would love to continue seeing their stars playing after graduation. The problem is if they disappear off the continent for several years, then fans begin to forget them. I follow the NWSL Soccer league and it's a very good example. There were 2 previous pro women's soccer leagues in the US, with both failing after 3 years. This time, I feel confident that the US Soccer Federation put together a good model. They started with 8 teams 3 years ago and already have 2 expansion teams added. Contracts are low, but TV viewership, which is slowly increasing, will help with league/team profits in the future.
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Post by Deleted on Dec 16, 2015 0:43:52 GMT -5
The problem is everyone tries to figure out how to market volleyball like football or like basketball. What you need to do is market a pro volleyball league like Taylor swift or the kardashians. Commercials... Hot new music, beauty, clothes. Take those long muscular bodies and plaster then all over the social media and advertisements. Maybe the pay is minuscule at first, but the stars, if marketed properly, could make millions in endorsement deals in the USA. 90% of volleyball players with a little makeup could be cover worthy. Grow a generation of volleyball players AND fans. We already have the players, but you have to make them fans. Stop trying to market women's volleyball to men. Market to women. Cool team logos that the girls want to wear to school. Cool slogans and beautiful strong women on posters. Raise your fans, don't try to get them when they are 30, get them when they are 13. My 15 year old daughter follows some b1g players on Instagram. She follows players who are pretty and talented. They are celebrities to her. She would buy their poster, or follow their professional career if they had one. Find the fans in the clubs. Don't wait until they are adults with a million other things vying for their attention. Eventually the young girls you get with they Taylor swift approach will grow up. They'll get their husbands into it. They'll take their kids to games. The nfl wasn't the nfl overnight, neither was the nba and volleyball will take time to become big. But women are more and more into sports and fitness. There are HUGE opportunities here. Build a brand of women's athletics. You could BECOME a billionaire. Women are dying for that cool athletic brand that caters to them, they'll spend the money on it. Opportunity awaits the inventive. I believe that women's volleyball and women's soccer are 2 very viable sports markets for the US public. Would like to see a TV channel dedicated to women's sports which could help fund pro leagues. The advertisers themselves won't operate these leagues, but they will help in funding them and providing sustainability.
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Post by brickwall on Dec 16, 2015 0:43:55 GMT -5
Ps. I am a 30 something year old woman with two teenage daughters. The fact that I've spent at least 600 dollars just in Nike Pro spandex this year, which neither can even wear as part of a uniform, speaks volumes to how much money could be made. My daughter wears the same headband her favorite player wears. Air Jordan had made billions. What about air Carlini? Lol. But seriously. A beautiful celebrity volleyball player could sell billions in female athletic apparel but she needs a stage week after week, year after year, not just every four years at the Olympics. Maybe Nike, under armour, and adidas should build some pro teams. Gabby Reece. Nike. 90's. Didn't work. Says the Gabrielle Reece poster I had in my room? It did work, but volleyball wasn't the sport then that it is now. I'd never even heard of club ball and I was a big lover of the sport back then. Times they are a changin and social media and all the vball obsessed club girls make today a very different environment than the mid 90's.
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