Captains, hello. PVF is here. Are you not entertained?

On the pod this week, we give our thoughts on the league overall so far. From the production and announcers to the starting lineups and team performance analysis of every team, we’ve got plenty of thoughts on week one. A few highlights: Ian has the vision, with Indy turning it around and finishing off Orlando in their opener. Kelly thinks it’s really fun to see all these players in new jerseys! Nikki needs the PVF swirling logo to take less time between the reply and the live feed.

See you in the YouTube chat!

Follow us on Instagram for our commentary and updates: @courtcaptainspod
Got a question or comment? Email us at: [email protected]

Hey Captains! For the first time in PVF history, the second season is about to begin!!!

Our season preview is all about the talent! We update you on the latest that’s happened with the league since the draft, and then chat through our top two players of each position in the league that you should keep an eye on during opening week. Then we speculate on who’s making the big bucks, which rookies we think will be able to make an impact this year, and our biggest question marks for what we’re curious to see this season.

Finally, we give you our predictions for who will come in at the top of the table this season - but of course, we reserve the right to cheer for every team and support anyone who makes it happen.

Follow us on Instagram for our commentary and updates: @courtcaptainspod

Got a question or comment? Email us at: [email protected]

Welcome to Court Captains! We’re happy you’re here.

If you’ve heard about women’s pro volleyball in the United States and you want to learn more, you’re in the right place. We’re here to provide a breakdown of the pro leagues in the US as of the 2025 season. We’ll tell you how each league operates, how many teams and players each league has, as well as league roster rules. We share information that we have on salaries, how the season goes in terms of regular play, tournament play, and playoffs - plus, where you can watch these matches. We also go into the founders of each league and the investment/business structure, so you can learn more about how these leagues came about.

Who are we and what do we know? Two of us played volleyball in college and one of us is a volley newbie who loves all the sports. Between us, we’ve been in the volleyball world (playing youth club volleyball, NCAA, coaching club, and playing adult USAV) for over 4 decades. We are a weekly PVF podcast - so we can’t say we’re completely unbiased, but these are our honest opinions of these leagues after months of research!

We hope you’ll tune in for our weekly episodes and stay up to date with all the PVF action this season!

Follow us on Instagram for our commentary and updates: @courtcaptainspod

Got a question or comment? Email us at: [email protected]

SEASON TWO IS UPON US, CAPTAINS.

With the draft coming up on Monday 11/25, we’re coming to you with everything we know about the draft rules and what to expect. NCAA athletes do NOT declare for this draft - so anything can happen!

We chat through quick reminders on what each team is working with given the summer signing period: total roster numbers, number of returners, PVF transfers, and new faces. Which rosters are we excited about? Concerned about? Intrigued by? Confused by? Then, friend of the pod Jay Markle joins us to talk about college athletes he’s been keeping an eye on for this draft! We need him, because fall is our off-season, and we do not watch much college volleyball anymore (Kelly and Nikki are LONG retired, can you blame us?)

Thanks so much to Jay for educating us and speculating with us! You can find his substack with draft prospects and player interviews at https://pvfdrafthub.substack.com

Get your refresh on current signings via our Watch List: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1YA5wXBUKuG0nPnBxEJVCX4Y12FXHwIUCOmIhqr49JDs/edit?usp=share_link

Follow us on Instagram for our commentary and updates: @courtcaptainspod
Got a question or comment? Email us at: [email protected]

Our fourth and final guest of the 2024 off-season is Morgan Lewis! A southern California native, Morgan started playing volleyball at 9 and dreamed of playing professionally. She played college volleyball as an Oregon Duck, and was happy to be drafted her rookie year by Coach Haneef-Park - to play in her hometown for the San Diego Mojo in the inaugural PVF season.

Morgan talks with us about her excitement to play for the Columbus Fury in 2025, what went into her decision to transfer, and tells us about her current hyper fixation meal that proves to us she’s ready to feel at home in Ohio. We also chatted with Morgan about her pre-game routines (someone get this girl an Alani deal), her on-court jewelry preferences, and her earliest volleyball memory (it’s the cutest story ever).

Hope you enjoyed our interview series! Now let’s get ready for season two 🙂

Keep track of PVF 2025 signings with us on our Google Sheet: PVF '25 Commitments Watch List - by Court Captains

Follow us on Instagram for our commentary and updates: @courtcaptainspod

Got a question or a reaction to the signing period? Email us at: [email protected]

Looking to support making volleyball more equitable? Consider donating to Lights Out Volleyball https://www.lightsoutvolleyball.org/

Our third guest is M’Kaela White of the Orlando Valkyries! Born just outside of Washington DC, M’Kaela started her volleyball journey at the age of 16. Since then, she’s filled that journey with both natural talent and plenty of extra hours of hard work - after playing her college career at JMU, she went on to play pro overseas in Finland, Italy, and Romania. We talk about the cultures of those places and what it was like to navigate agents and the pro world.

M’Kaela tells us about her first year with the Valkyries, how she got connected to Amy Pauly, and confirmed for us that the vibes of ORL were immaculate - both in team chemistry and in accessibility of quality Puerto Rican food. We loved hearing MK talk about her love of music and clarinet, her family dynamics, and their natural triple threat status! Hope you enjoy this interview as much as we did 🙂

Keep track of PVF 2025 signings with us on our Google Sheet:PVF '25 Commitments Watch List - by Court Captains

Follow us on Instagram for our commentary and updates: @courtcaptainspod

Got a question or a reaction to the signing period? Email us at: [email protected]

Looking to support making volleyball more equitable? Consider donating to Lights Out Volleyball https://www.lightsoutvolleyball.org/

And for our second guest: Hannah Maddux of the Vegas Thrill! Hannah hails from San Antonio, Texas, and yes, she has seen Wemby in the flesh. A University of South Alabama Jaguar, we talk with Hannah about her experience getting that “you’ve been drafted” call upon graduating from a mid-major league school and her rookie season that followed.

From playing with Mother to remembering her first ever match in Omaha’s crowded-but-not-heckler-filled arena, her experience with the Thrill left her excited to head back to Vegas for the PVF’s second season. We loved hearing about her big break into the volleyball announcing world, and of course, her favorite musicals.

Keep track of PVF 2025 signings with us on our Google Sheet: PVF '25 Commitments Watch List - by Court Captains

Follow us on Instagram for our commentary and updates: @courtcaptainspod

Got a question or a reaction to the signing period? Email us at: [email protected]

Looking to support making volleyball more equitable? Consider donating to Lights Out Volleyball https://www.lightsoutvolleyball.org/

Captains… we’re in our interview era.

We’re so excited to have August Raskie as our first guest! Raskie, a Colorado native, is an Oregon grad and five-year pro who began her PVF career with the San Diego Mojo. We talk about her pro experience so far, her reactions to the inaugural PVF season, and her excitement to join the Grand Rapids Rise next year.

August also chatted with us about her life as a lefty and her thoughts on service routines, as well as her life off-court pursuing art, painting, drawing comics, and writing (we love her as the resident PVF Bob Ross). Finally, we ask August about her mantra “Oh to be human” and what being human means to her <3

Keep track of PVF 2025 signings with us on our Google Sheet:PVF '25 Commitments Watch List - by Court Captains

Follow us on Instagram for our commentary and updates: @courtcaptainspod

Got a question or a reaction to the signing period? Email us at: [email protected]

Looking to support making volleyball more equitable? Consider donating to Lights Out Volleyball https://www.lightsoutvolleyball.org/

Hey Captains, it’s nice to see ya again!

We had to jump back on the mics to talk through Signing Day / Signing Week / Signing period updates and reactions - our FIRST PVF offseason! Since all players in the league signed on for 1-year contracts in 2024, the signing period is chaos and we’re here for it. Happy to see some of these players sign on for bigger salaries in 2025 (of course, we don’t know who’s being paid what… yet… But we expect a good number of these intraleague transfers are for increased salaries and/or playing time, so get your money, athletes!)

We talk through the confusingly disparate marketing tactics for these teams’ announcements, as well as PVF’s cute little non-announcement announcement that we’ll only see 8 teams in 2025, rather than the previously promised 10. Excited for Indy to get going, and hoping for some good news from Dallas and Kansas City for 2026.

During this episode we talk about an organization that we love - LOV! You can find more about them to get involved or donate at: lightsoutvolleyball.org

Keep track of PVF 2025 signings with us on our Google Sheet, which you cannot edit because you don’t have permissions, but if you could, we’d advise that you not edit them on your phones: PVF '25 Commitments Watch List - by Court Captains

Follow us on Instagram for our commentary and updates: @courtcaptainspod

Got a question or a reaction to the signing period? Email us at: [email protected]

Hey, Captains! It’s the FINAL week of the FIRST regular season of the PVF.

First we talk about what we can expect in the next few weeks in terms of free agency and re-signing timelines. We’ve also got some other-league tea to spill. Then we do our final match analysis from week 16 - a handful of teams got their full rosters in during their last games, which we love.

Finally, we have playoff previews! We talk about our predictions for the semi-final matches, past stats on these teams from their regular season head-to-heads, and what we think each team needs to do to get to the final. Thanks for hanging out with us this season :)  

JOIN OUR WATCHALONG! We’ll be live-streaming our reactions to the playoffs on our YouTube channel, so join the conversation (new YT chat alert!) at youtube.com/@CourtCaptainsPod

Into data? We love this stats sheet courtesy of r/pvf!

Follow us on Instagram for our commentary and updates: @courtcaptainspod

Got a question? Email us at: [email protected]

And, if you prefer to listen to us via YouTube, all our episodes will be uploaded there as well!