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.

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.”