Volleyball: The next Mainstream Sport
JIV Athletics Is Seeing the White Space
There is something happening in volleyball right now that feels bigger than a trend.
Volleyball is becoming culture. For years, volleyball has been one of the most widely played sports in America, particularly among women and girls, yet it has rarely received the same mainstream attention, cultural investment, or product innovation that sports like basketball, soccer, tennis, and running have enjoyed. That is changing. The sport is growing at the youth level, exploding through club volleyball, commanding a massive presence in high schools and NCAA athletics, and gaining visibility through professional leagues, beach volleyball, social media, and the Olympics.
The opportunity is enormous. And for JIV Athletics, the opportunity is even more specific. There is a white space in volleyball that has very little to do with the volleyball itself and everything to do with what women wear underneath it. Volleyball is an unusually demanding sport for women's apparel. Players dive, jump, sprint, squat, rotate, slide, serve, block, and repeatedly move through explosive, full body movements. The uniform is intentionally minimal and performance driven. For many athletes, that means small spandex shorts are part of the uniform. While those shorts are designed to maximize mobility, they can also create a series of distractions that most athletes simply should not have to think about.
Is my underwear riding up? Can you see my panty lines? Do I have a cameltoe? Why is my underwear bunching? Why do I have to adjust myself before I serve? Why am I thinking about my underwear when I should be thinking about the next point? These are not performance questions. But for female athletes, they can become performance distractions. That is precisely where JIV Athletics sees an opportunity.
JIV was created around a remarkably simple idea: women should be able to move without constantly thinking about what is happening underneath their clothes. The brand's patented technology is designed to provide coverage, breathability, moisture control, a smooth appearance under tight clothing, and protection against cameltoe. JIV also describes its products as PFAS free, tagless, roll free, moisture wicking, and designed to eliminate visible panty lines. That may sound like a small innovation. It isn't. Because when you understand volleyball, you understand just how significant that small innovation can be.
Volleyball Is Ready for Its Mainstream Moment
The case for volleyball's next chapter is compelling. At the youth and high school level, participation is already enormous. USA Volleyball recently highlighted that volleyball was the second most played girls' high school sport in the United States during the 2024 to 2025 school year, with nearly half a million participants. Boys' participation is growing as well, with nearly 96,000 athletes and more than 11 percent growth in one year.
At the collegiate level, the numbers tell a similar story. NCAA women's volleyball had 19,810 participants in 2024 to 2025, representing a 4 percent increase from the previous year and a 16 percent increase over ten years.
And then there is the cultural component.
Volleyball is incredibly visual. It is fast. It is athletic. It photographs well. It produces short form content naturally. It has personalities, rivalries, fashion, team culture, travel, beaches, collegiate traditions, and an incredibly passionate fan base. The sport also has an advantage that many emerging sports don't have. It already has an enormous grassroots infrastructure. A girl can begin playing volleyball in elementary school, move into club volleyball, play for her high school, receive a college scholarship, play NCAA volleyball, enter the professional ranks, compete internationally, or pursue beach volleyball. The pathway exists.
Now the attention is catching up. The 2024 Paris Olympics further demonstrated the global visibility of women's volleyball. Looking forward, USA Volleyball is preparing for the 2027 FIVB Women's World Championship in North America and the 2028 Los Angeles Olympic and Paralympic Games. Those events create extraordinary opportunities for the sport to become even more deeply embedded in American sports culture. That creates a perfect environment for brands to emerge around the athlete, not simply around the sport. And that distinction is important.
The White Space Isn't Another Volleyball Uniform
Volleyball already has jerseys. It already has shoes. It already has knee pads. It already has bags, socks, warmups, balls, equipment, and apparel. The white space is underneath the uniform.
Female athletes have been wearing underwear underneath performance apparel forever, but the category has historically been treated as an afterthought. Athletic companies have become incredibly sophisticated about the exterior of the athlete's uniform while the underwear underneath it has remained comparatively basic. JIV challenges that assumption.
Why should an athlete have a highly engineered shoe, a technical jersey, compression equipment, and performance shorts, but ordinary underwear? The answer is that she shouldn't. JIV turns underwear into performance equipment. The small spandex short has become almost synonymous with women's volleyball. It gives athletes the freedom of movement they need, but it also means the underwear underneath has to perform at an entirely different level.
This is where JIV's product philosophy becomes especially relevant. The goal isn't to make an athlete think about her underwear more. The goal is to make her forget about it entirely.
No cameltoe. No underwear tugging in the middle of a game. No visible panty lines. No constant readjusting. No worrying about whether something is showing. No sacrificing comfort for performance. And no unnecessary PFAS in a product that is worn directly against the body.
JIV's current products specifically emphasize cameltoe proof construction, breathable materials, moisture wicking, PFAS free certification, and no visible panty lines.
That is the difference between selling underwear and creating a performance category.
Confidence Is Part of Performance
There is another component to this opportunity that cannot be measured simply by participation numbers. Confidence. An athlete's confidence is not separate from her performance. If a player feels uncomfortable, exposed, distracted, or self conscious, some portion of her mental energy is being spent on something other than the game.
Volleyball requires extraordinary mental focus. A setter has to read the block. A hitter has to read the defense. A libero has to anticipate where the ball is going. A server has to establish a routine and execute. At the highest levels, the difference between winning and losing can come down to inches, milliseconds, and the ability to stay mentally locked in.
The last thing an athlete should be thinking about is her underwear. That is the JIV opportunity. The product doesn't make the athlete a better volleyball player. It allows her to spend less mental energy thinking about something that has nothing to do with volleyball.
And that is powerful. JIV has built its brand around helping women feel confident while moving. The company's own positioning describes its mission as creating performance underwear that helps women move without the constant underwear tugging associated with workouts and tight athletic clothing. Volleyball is simply one of the clearest places where that problem exists.
Micha Hancock Makes the Opportunity Real
Perhaps the strongest proof point is not a statistic. It is an athlete. Micha Hancock represents exactly the type of athlete JIV wants to serve. A two time Olympic medalist and elite American volleyball player, Hancock represents the highest level of performance in the sport. JIV identifies her as an Elite Athlete Ambassador and states that she wore the brand's signature cameltoe proof underwear while competing at the 2024 Paris Olympics.
That matters because an Olympian does not need another piece of clothing simply for the sake of having another piece of clothing. At that level, everything has to earn its place.
The athlete's uniform, shoes, equipment, recovery tools, nutrition, and preparation all exist for one purpose: performance. JIV fits into that ecosystem because it addresses something athletes have historically been expected to simply tolerate.
According to JIV's brand story, Hancock considers her JIV underwear her "game day undies." That description captures the product's ultimate value proposition beautifully. The goal is not for Micha to think about JIV during a match. The goal is for Micha not to think about JIV. No tugging. No adjusting. No worrying. Just volleyball. That is an incredibly powerful endorsement because it demonstrates that the product isn't merely for recreational athletes wearing leggings to the gym. It can become part of the preparation ritual of an Olympic athlete. When an athlete can put on her JIVs and mentally check one more potential distraction off the list, the product has done its job.
From High School Courts to the Olympic Stage
What makes volleyball such an attractive entry point for JIV is the depth of the athlete ecosystem. JIV doesn't have to choose between the 15 year old club volleyball player and the Olympic athlete. They can exist within the same ecosystem. The high school athlete wears JIV because she wants to feel confident in her uniform. The Division I athlete wears JIV because she wants to focus during competition. The elite athlete wears JIV because every detail of her preparation matters. The Olympian wears JIV because she doesn't want to think about anything except her performance. That creates a natural progression. A young athlete discovers JIV in high school. She takes it with her to college. Her teammates discover it. Her club teammates discover it. Her coach sees it. Her friends buy it.
Eventually, JIV becomes part of the culture of the sport. That is how brands become embedded. Not because an athlete sees an advertisement once. Because an athlete says to another athlete, "You need these."
That word of mouth potential is particularly powerful in volleyball because of how social the sport is. Teams spend enormous amounts of time together. Club athletes travel together. College teams live together, train together, compete together, and share information constantly. A product that solves a problem everyone understands can spread extremely quickly within that environment.
JIV Is Bigger Than Volleyball
The long term opportunity isn't volleyball alone. Volleyball is the beachhead. The underlying problem exists across women's athletics.
Gymnastics.
Dance.
Tennis.
Pickleball.
Running.
Track and field.
Soccer.
Softball.
Basketball.
Yoga.
Pilates.
Training.
Fitness.
Any sport where women wear tight, technical apparel creates an opportunity for performance underwear designed specifically for the female athlete. The common denominator isn't the sport. It's the woman. And that is where JIV's larger vision becomes compelling. The brand isn't simply trying to become "the volleyball underwear company."
It has the potential to become the performance underwear company for women.
Volleyball is an obvious starting point because the uniform creates such a strong and recognizable need. But once JIV earns trust among volleyball athletes, it can translate that credibility into other athletic communities. The mission remains consistent: give women the confidence to move, compete, train, and perform without worrying about what is happening underneath their clothes.
The Future Is About Removing Distractions
When I think about where JIV Athletics can go, I don't think the biggest opportunity is selling more underwear. I think the opportunity is creating a new expectation.
Women shouldn't have to accept that underwear is something they have to constantly adjust.They shouldn't have to choose between comfort and appearance. They shouldn't have to worry about panty lines beneath their athletic clothes. They shouldn't have to pull at their shorts between points. They shouldn't have to tie a sweatshirt around their waist because they are worried about what their uniform is showing. And they certainly shouldn't have to sacrifice their mental focus because of something that can be solved through better product design. JIV exists to make that expectation obsolete.
Volleyball is simply the beginning. The sport is growing. Its athletes are becoming more visible. Its stars are becoming cultural figures. Its participation numbers are strong. Its biggest global moments are still ahead. And underneath all of that growth is a female athlete who deserves products designed around the realities of her body and her sport. That is the white space.
JIV Athletics has the opportunity to own it.
The future of women's athletic apparel isn't just about what women wear on the outside.
It is about everything that allows them to feel confident underneath it. Because when an athlete isn't thinking about her underwear, she can think about the next serve.
The next dig.
The next kill.
The next point.
The next win.
And ultimately, that is what JIV Athletics wants to give women: not another thing to think about, but one less thing to think about. Volleyball may be the next mainstream sport.
JIV intends to be the brand underneath it.
