• Blunt Insights
  • Posts
  • SKIMS x LOVB: When Loungewear Meets League Building

SKIMS x LOVB: When Loungewear Meets League Building

A billion-dollar collision between women’s fashion, youth sports, and next-gen league creation

Author

Samuel Rogers
November 14, 2025

⚡️ Executive Summary

Kim Kardashian’s SKIMS just became the official loungewear, intimates, and sleepwear partner of League One Volleyball (LOVB) — the U.S.’s newest professional women’s volleyball league.

This isn’t just another celebrity-backed collab.
This is a data-backed business bet on what could become America’s next breakout sports league — and SKIMS wants in early.

💼 SKIMS’ Strategic Play:

From shapewear to share-of-market in women’s performance wear

SKIMS is shifting from loungewear darling to full-blown lifestyle performance brand — going head-to-head with Lululemon and Alo Yoga in the culture-sport apparel war.

LOVB offers SKIMS:

  • Cultural cachet: A sport dominated by women, exploding in grassroots popularity

  • Authenticity: Ground-floor partnership with a league building from youth to pro

  • Market synergy: Aligns with SKIMS' February 2025 Nike partnership and its broader pivot to sports-performance crossover wear

Blunt Insight: SKIMS doesn’t just want athletes wearing its gear — it wants to own the platform where culture plays out.

📊 The Volleyball Boom: Data That Speaks Volumes

📈 Metric

🧠 Insight

92,003 fans

Attended Nebraska vs. Omaha (2023) — world record for a women’s sports event

1.3B+ minutes

Watched during the 2024 NCAA Women’s Volleyball Tournament on ESPN

38% ↑

Youth volleyball participation growth (2016–2024)

#1

LOVB now runs the largest youth volleyball network in the U.S.

70% of fans

Are Gen Z or Millennial, highly brand-conscious

$750M

Estimated 2023 SKIMS revenue, with projections aiming toward $1B+

Backed by

Kevin Durant & Rich Kleiman (35V), Candace Parker, Lindsey Vonn

Volleyball isn’t niche — it’s the sleeping giant of women’s sports. High engagement, scalable infrastructure, and mass media upside.

🧠 LOVB's Vertical Strategy: The UFC Playbook — But Female

LOVB is not just a league. It’s building a vertically integrated ecosystem:

  • Controls youth-to-pro development

  • Owns athlete data and pipeline

  • Packages media rights + lifestyle IP

  • Built for streaming, not legacy TV

Its business model:

  • Develop athletes early → Own fan journeys

  • Host events + build narratives → Monetize community

  • Partner with brands early → SKIMS is first-mover

Blunt Insight: LOVB is building what the WNBA never had — full ownership of the development-to-pro pipeline with a fashion-forward brand on board.

👟 SKIMS x Sports: The Apparel Land Grab

SKIMS has pivoted to the performance lane in 2025.
Strategic goals:

  • Compete with Lululemon on function + fashion

  • Build mindshare with Gen Z female athletes

  • Embed early in new sports IP, not just attach to legacy leagues

Why LOVB?

  • Early-stage league with brand control

  • Youth-driven sport with retention runway

  • Cultural momentum without legacy baggage

Add in SKIMS’ Nike tie-in, and this is not just a branding play.
It’s vertical apparel-market capture — from amateur to elite.

🔁 Cultural Virality: The SKIMS Multiplier Effect

  • Kim Kardashian = 364M+ social reach

  • Women’s volleyball = hyper-shareable highlight content

  • LOVB = built to go viral with branded, creator-first media

SKIMS now has:

  • Exclusive rights to create loungewear collabs

  • Integration across athlete-led campaigns

  • Ownership of a new cultural category: performancewear volleyball

This is culture manufacturing at scale.

📣 What You Should Be Watching (or Doing)

For Brands:
This is your chance to own whitespace before it fills in. Women’s sports is scaling, and LOVB is unclaimed real estate.

For Investors:
This is a vertically integrated league in a high-growth category — with clear monetization via media rights, IP, and grassroots retention.

For Builders:
LOVB is the blueprint. Build bottom-up, own the journey, and scale with culture. SKIMS didn’t wait. Neither should you.

Volleyball is not a “women’s niche sport.”
It’s a top-tier, high-growth asset class.
SKIMS sees it. Durant sees it. Nike sees it. Do you?