The PVF warmed up for the new season with media deals with CBS, Fox and Roku.Pro Volleyball Federation “[PVF has] a year of league play under their belt, and that was important to us,” Franzetta said. “The opportunity to work with a league that was established, up and running, but of course, still nascent and […]
The PVF warmed up for the new season with media deals with CBS, Fox and Roku.Pro Volleyball Federation“[PVF has] a year of league play under their belt, and that was important to us,” Franzetta said. “The opportunity to work with a league that was established, up and running, but of course, still nascent and still looking for the excitement and the distribution and the opportunity to put the product in front of more people.”
In just 90 days, the Pro Volleyball Federation signed deals with CBS, Fox and Roku, bringing 45 nationally televised matches to the three providers. It’s the type of dealmaking that has PVF stakeholders enthusiastic about the league’s second season.
The 2025 PVF season started Jan. 9. PVF consists of eight teams across the country, with 24 regular-season matches across CBS, CBS Sports Network, FS1 and FS2. The first All-Star Match in PVF history will air on CBS, giving major exposure to the upstart league. Armato predicts the league will expand to 10 teams by next year.
“PVF has a model,” said Armato. “Our exposure is dramatically, significantly more than those two. Ours is a traditional American sports model where you have owners in a community that are entrenched in the community and own their franchise.”
Besides select matches carried by CBS in the inaugural season, most matches were shown on the PVF’s YouTube channel.
Leonard Armato, founder, chairman and CEO of Management Plus Enterprises and former AVP Pro Beach Volleyball commissioner, coordinated the two-year Roku deal with Roku’s content acquisitions team and Joe Franzetta, Roku Media head of sports. The deal, announced last week, marks the first time the platform has entered a live rights deal with a women’s sports property.
Added DeVos: “We want to continue to grow this thing; whether that’s adding the right franchises with the right people, we want to make sure that we have the right people involved, and continue to spread the game of volleyball.”
“It’s exciting to be partners with a challenger league who is really looking for an opportunity to show the world what they have, the talent of their players, the quality of their product,” said Franzetta. “[Roku], CBS and Fox all see the same opportunity and are all partnering with PVF to bring this to life. It’s very exciting, and it helps us build on the momentum that we created in 2024.”
The DeVos family — of the NBA’s Orlando Magic, AHL’s Grand Rapids Griffins and Wakestream Holdings — is the majority owner of the Grand Rapids Rise team, based in Michigan.
The PVF is among three professional volleyball league in the U.S., including the five-week Athletes Unlimited and newly launched LOVB, though Armato is adamant PVF will differentiate itself.
“Our family believes in women’s sports, and we really think it’s not an accident that it’s really on the rise,” said Cole DeVos, director of strategic investments at the family’s DP Fox Ventures. “We believe in the sport of volleyball. We thought it was a tremendous opportunity, once it was presented to us, to be able to help bring [volleyball] back to United States and make sure that these [women] can play in front of friends and family, and honestly for people to understand how incredible these athletes are.”
In addition to the 20 PVF matches it will stream, Roku now has the rights to live sports properties including the NBA’s G League, Sunday Major League Baseball and most recently the X Games.
