Los Angeles’ women’s professional volleyball team will conduct its fan fest Saturday at the Intuit Dome, one day after announcing its nickname will be Orbit.
The fan fest will run from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. with fans have the opportunity to purchase team apparel, meet players, play volleyball, have their vertical leap measured and select the locations for their season tickets. There will also be food, drinks and a DJ playing music.
On Friday, the League One Volleyball team announced its nickname will be Orbit, aligning with its slogan, “Everything Revolves Around Her.”
“Everything we are building starts with her,” team President Ana Mendy said. “The athlete on the court, the girl watching from the stands, the teammate beside her and every fan who believes in this team.
“Orbit is about that pull toward something bigger than yourself. We want Los Angeles Orbit to be a place where women and girls are not on the sidelines of the experience, but at the center of it.”
The nickname was announced in an approximately 70-second video narrated by Emmy-nominated actress and producer Issa Rae, one of the team’s investors. It included an appearance by Zhuri James, the 11-year-old daughter of Savannah James, another team investor.
Savannah James is the wife of basketball star LeBron James.
The team is owned by tech entrepreneur and venture capitalist Alexis Ohanian, the husband of tennis star Serena Williams.
“Los Angeles is a place where sports, culture, technology and entertainment come together, and that makes it an incredible place to build something new in women’s sports,” Ohanian said. “Los Angeles Orbit is the beginning of something much bigger than a team, it’s the beginning of a movement.”
The nickname announcement at the Intuit Dome included a conversation with Ohanian, Rae and Nobel Peace Prize-winning activist Malala Yousafzai about championing women.
The Orbit’s roster includes Olympic gold medalists Annie Drews Schumacher and Haleigh Washington, silver medalist Kathryn Boden and bronze medalist Carli Lloyd. The team will be coached by Zé Roberto, who coached Brazil’s women’s volleyball team to Olympic gold medals in 2008 and 2012, a silver medal in 2021 and a bronze medal in 2024.
The Orbit is among the four expansion teams in League One Volleyball, known as LOVB and pronounced love, that will begin play in December in the league’s third season. It had six teams in each of its first two seasons.
The league describes its mission as reimagining the future of volleyball. LOVB also has an extensive network of youth volleyball clubs.