Why women's volleyball is a booming as a media property
Sports Media with Richard Deitsch
Audacy
4.5 • 757 Ratings
🗓️ 6 January 2026
⏱️ 31 minutes
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Summary
Episode 578 of the Sports Media Podcast with Richard Deitsch features Courtney Thompson, an analyst for USA Network and a two-time U.S. Olympic volleyball player. Thompson will serve as the analyst for USA Network's League One Volleyball (LOVB) Game of the Week airing on Wednesdays nights from January through April. The first broadcast is Jan. 7 at 6:00 PM ET. In this podcast Thompson discusses how she approaches broadcasting volleyball; why her sport has seen growth over the last five years; why the league's six franchises -- Atlanta, Austin, Houston, Madison, Nebraska and Salt Lake City — were chosen and LOVB's plans to expand from six to nine teams beginning in 2027; the new money being invested in the sport; what makes for a good volleyball broadcast; balancing being an advocate with objectivity; the importance of the 2028 Summer Olympics in L.A. to help the product and more. You can subscribe to this podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify and more.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Welcome to the sports media podcast. |
| 0:09.0 | I'm your host, Richard Dutch. |
| 0:09.8 | My producer is Patrick Antonetti. |
| 0:11.3 | One guest this week, but a prominent figure in a sport that you've heard me talk about |
| 0:15.8 | on this podcast in terms of I was going to invest in certain sports in the future. |
| 0:21.5 | This would absolutely be one of them. |
| 0:23.3 | And it is women's volleyball, whether it's women's college volleyball or women's pro volleyball, it would be the same. |
| 0:30.0 | USA Sports will air a weekly Wednesday primetime league one volleyball game of the week. |
| 0:36.2 | It's going to be on USA Network beginning this week, Wednesday, January 7th at 6 p.m. |
| 0:42.1 | It's a rematch of the championship match between L.O.V.B. Nebraska. |
| 0:47.3 | I should just say love, right? |
| 0:48.2 | Yeah, yeah, yeah. |
| 0:48.7 | And L.O.V.B. |
| 0:50.0 | Right, right. |
| 0:50.8 | And there will be a love game of the week from January through April on Wednesday nights on USA Network. My guest is part of the broadcast team. She is Courtney Thompson, an analyst for USA Sports. She was a member of the U.S. Women's Olympic Volleyball team, won two Olympic medals in 2012 and in 2016 and also won a world championship title |
| 1:13.3 | in 2014 with Team USA. Welcome Courtney Thompson. Thank you. Fired up to be here. Yeah, thank you. |
| 1:20.8 | Easily the best volleyball player we've ever had on this podcast. So you'll take it. You'll take it. |
| 1:25.9 | Okay. So let's start here. What have you learned about the best practices of broadcasting volleyball on television? Oh, man. I, you know, people just want to have a good time. And I think it's really fun to get to curate kind of a shared experience and to celebrate athletes. And these guys, these athletes we have are some of the best |
| 1:45.9 | in the world. And so it's really fun to get to share their stories, how they got here, and just |
| 1:50.7 | talk about what they're doing in the moment. But I feel incredibly grateful to get to be a part of |
| 1:57.3 | the sport that I love that I played for a career and then get to celebrate kind of this next generation getting after it. I think there obviously will be people listening to this podcast who are not familiar with the league. So I'll give the bare bones and then I'll sort of, I'll ask you to expand on that. So the league features six franchises right now, Atlanta, Austin, Houston, Madison, Nebraska, and Salt Lake City. |
| 2:21.6 | Roughly 80% of the players in the league have played on their national teams. |
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