Meet Sean Hardy, Chief Growth Officer - Clubs at League One Volleyball (LOVB)
After 31 years killing it as a premier youth sports planner, Sean Hardy is now setting up volleyball clubs and tournaments for success. It’s a fitting new chapter for a legend in the industry.
Hardy’s official title is Chief Growth Officer, Clubs at League One Volleyball (LOVB), a role he’s had for almost two years since departing Triple Crown Sports, the organization he was synonymous with. LOVB, which is pronounced Love (the B is silent), has gained prominence for its professional volleyball league, which debuted in 2025 and now has 10 teams and hopes to expand in 2027. “It’s one of the only pro sports that hasn’t followed a men’s league,” he notes.
The pro league serves as an aspirational place to play for elite women athletes who typically had to give up sports after college. It’s also a chance to showcase the sport to future generations of volleyball players. That’s where Hardy comes in. He’s an expert guiding the 98 club teams LOVB owns in 111 regions across the country. More than 2,800 teams, totaling more than 27,500 players, participate.
He helps the teams become more efficient and successful, from finding referees and renting facilities to handling insurance, equipment, and other tournament logistics. “I want to make sure there’s access for anyone who wants to play,” Hardy says of his ultimate goal at LOVB.
Hardy sees MATCH Indoor as a major component of that mission. While he can regularly speak to other volleyball event operators, MATCH Indoor promises to spark innovation across sports, he says. As a longtime tournament operator himself, Hardy can vouch for the need to create direct contacts with vendors and suppliers. The chance to make the connections at one event is a huge time saver — one he compares to “ChatGPT.”
We chatted with Hardy about LOVB and MATCH Indoor’s vital role in the sports marketplace.
What brought you to League One Volleyball after so many years at Triple Crown?
I had reached a different point in my life where I had become an empty nester and started thinking about what I wanted the next part of my career to look like. I started asking myself, “Can I take that experience and use it to help grow more tournaments, help more clubs and help more people?” I wasn't necessarily looking for another job. I was looking for a new way to take what I'd learned and give it back to the industry.
What makes the LOVB model different from a traditional youth sports organization?
We're trying to build an ecosystem that goes from youth volleyball all the way through professional volleyball. We have roughly 100 youth clubs around the country, and we have 10 professional teams, with potentially more coming. We also have tournaments, camps, clinics and other programming. The opportunity is to figure out how all those pieces can work together instead of operating independently.
What do you hope to contribute to volleyball beyond running tournaments?
I want to help create more avenues for people to participate in the sport. It's not just about the person who wants to go play professionally or make the Olympics. I want there to be an opportunity for the kid who just wants to try volleyball, the player who wants to play recreationally, the intermediate player and the person who wants to see how far they can take it. I hope to see access for anybody who would like to play.
Why did MATCH Indoor catch your attention?
I've been attending industry conferences for 33 years, so I've seen a lot of different conferences and different models. What interests me about MATCH is that I think there's an opportunity to do something a little different. Instead of just connecting sports organizations with destinations, I see MATCH as a way to connect indoor sports operators with the vendors and services they actually need to run their events.
There are so many pieces that go into an indoor event — buses, lodging, concessions, equipment, forklifts, transportation, facilities and all kinds of other services. A lot of times, when you go into a new market, you have to find all of those resources yourself. You're starting from scratch. I'm interested in the idea of having a network where those connections already exist.
Why does that matter to someone like you?
LOVB runs roughly 500 tournaments around the country. So the time savings for us as an event operator to not have to go source all of that every single time could be significant. If we're going into a market and there is already a network of trusted contacts, that's incredibly valuable. Instead of starting from zero, you have somewhere to go.
Why is the cross-sport aspect important?
I spend most of my time talking to people in volleyball. There's only so much exposure I get to what other sports are doing. At MATCH, I might be talking to somebody from basketball, roller hockey, dodgeball or another indoor sport. They may have developed a solution to a problem that I have in volleyball, but I would never have encountered it because I don't normally spend time in their world. That's exciting to me.
What's the biggest opportunity for indoor sports right now?
I think it's building stronger connections among all the people and businesses that make events happen. There's an incredible amount of expertise and infrastructure already out there. The challenge is that operators don't always know where to find it. If MATCH can help connect those dots, I think that's a significant opportunity.