Reader, I was not prepared.
Officially, Volo might brand itself as a social sports league…but unofficially, it might be Denver’s largest singles meat market. On my team alone, aptly named Ballsagna (it took me way too long to figure out that pun), I’ve seen people hook up, couple up, start situationships, ghost each other, circle back and then rinse and repeat.
After a year of observing this behavior, I got to wondering – what is it about wearing matching T-shirts and playing bar games that acts like an aphrodisiac for the young adults of Denver?
"Having that outlet where sports are combined with a strong social element really gives people something to connect over,” says Michalea Larabee, associate director of Volo. “We make sure every sport has a designated sponsor bar where you can go hang out, mingle with your team and even connect with the people you just played against.”
She’s right – in a world otherwise consumed by shallow swipes and social media filters, Volo offers people in the dating pool an authentic way to forge genuine connections.
“We joke that Volo is the best dating app that there is in Denver,” says one of my teammates who met her boyfriend through kickball. “I ended up joining Volo last spring with my best friend. We both signed up kind of in an effort to get away from some prior relationships that hadn't ended so well. We were really just looking for a fresh start and new friends.”
She admits to kissing a few frogs before finally connecting with her current boyfriend, whom she’s been dating since the beginning of the year. What’s more, her best friend who joined the league with her also found a boyfriend on the team.
“Not only did we both get relationships out of Volo, but we got the relationships of our dreams because our boyfriends are best friends and love each other so much,” she adds.
I’ve seen people hook up, couple up, start situationships, ghost each other, circle back and then rinse and repeat.
Volo Sports
“You’re doing an activity together, so you don’t have to deal with all the back-and-forth messaging before actually meeting someone. Plus, it gives you a weekly activity over several weeks where you see the same people repeatedly, whether on your team or around the league after games,” Larabee continues.
There’s no shortage of ways to connect. Sometimes it starts as a spark on the field. Sometimes it's a friendly walk home that turns into something more. Sometimes it’s lust in a Granby hot tub. “When I first moved to Denver, I did Volo volleyball and met this guy and a new friend group. We went on a trip to Granby and I fucked him in the hot tub,” recalls one player.
Other times, it’s a full-blown relationship you didn’t even realize you were in. “I joined a kickball team that [my crush’s] league overlapped with, and I remember just always wanting to chat with him during flip cup. Pretty quickly, he was walking me home from kickball. Volo gave us the opportunity to get to know each other slowly through the weeks…So basically, I joined kickball to stalk him and make him fall in love with me,” another teammate tells me. (Don’t worry, readers, they’re officially dating now.)
I myself have made it to first – and, yes, maybe even second or third – base with some Volo-ers. Like the short-lived fling with a fellow teammate that now (at times, awkwardly) lingers in the dugout on Thursday nights. Or the youthfully overconfident guy who faceplanted off his scooter before he made a move. And the team trip to Aspen, where I got some après-ski action.
Larabee herself knows people who have gotten engaged and even married after meeting through Volo. “We recently had a staff member who just got engaged. At her engagement party, during a toast, she gave a shoutout to Volo for not only bringing her together with her fiancé, but also introducing her to her best friend,” Larabee explains.
The chemistry on the field isn’t just a theory – it’s by design. Volo encourages these kinds of connections, even offering players four prompts to choose from when signing up, including one that reads “looking for love,” which more than 5,000 players selected last year.
Not every Volo love story involves rings and registries, though. For every couple that finds love over a plastic cup of Montucky, there’s someone else hiding hickeys at the next game. Take this story of one teammate’s unexpected homerun as my case in point: “I sat down at a table for about thirty seconds right when I walked in, and she had already called an Uber. I said something like, ‘Oh bummer, you're leaving?!’ And she said, ‘Are you coming with?’”
“I think it really comes down to the basic human desire for connection. Since COVID, many of us have lost a lot of that, people have been hiding behind screens, feeling less motivated to go out and form real social connections,” Larabee hypothesizes. “The excitement of playing, celebrating a win with your team, that kind of shared experience naturally brings people together, whether it leads to dating or just new friendships.”
If you’re not afraid of a little competition, go get some skin in the game.
