Photo gallery: Pro volleyball team Ignite scores victory, praise at inaugural match

The Indy Ignite professional volleyball team made its debut Saturday night, scoring not only the franchise’s first victory, but also earning early praise from many who ventured into Fishers Event Center to see the team in action.

The lone 2025 expansion club for the Pro Volleyball Federation, the Ignite earned a 3-1 victory against the Orlando Valkyries in the team’s first-ever match. The team announced a sellout of 7,500 prior in the days leading up to the event, but the official statistics listed attendance at 6,089.

The Ignite, which are scheduled to play 28 games in their regular season, was co-owned by founders Jim Schumacher and Don Hutchinson. Schumacher is a principal with Indianapolis-based private equity firm GRE Capital, while Hutchinson is managing director of institutional advisory services at Indianapolis-based Goelzer Investment Management.

The crowd included Indianapolis Motor Speedway executives Doug Boles and Allison Melangton, Indiana Sports Corp. chief of staff Sarah Myer, Indianapolis Colts player Kenny Moore and league commissioner Jen Spicher.

It also included a contingent of more than 100 student volleyball fans from Ball State University, Purdue University and Indiana University who filled a standing-room space on the north end of the floor, serving as a dedicated cheer squad for the Ignite throughout the match.

Scott Croner, a sophomore at Ball State and member of the school’s Cardinal Chaos fan group,  said he is happy to see a professional volleyball team take flight in central Indiana. He was one of more than a dozen students from the school to attend the game.

“I think having a professional volleyball team is great for the state,” he said. “We have collegiate volleyball all over the across the state, but we don’t have professional, and it’s a big jump up. So, it’s been really fun to watch this.”

Ashley Brewer, who attended the game with her 7-year-old daughter Mackenzie, said the match environment was similar to what she experienced at Indiana Fever basketball games during the team’s 2024 season. She said they “absolutely” plan to return for future Ignite games.

“It’s just a really cool environment, especially for the younger girls, to see a professional volleyball match like this,” she said. “So we’ll be back.”

In addition to regular season matches for the Ignite, the Fishers Event Center also plays host to the Indy Fuel hockey team and other events, as well as the Fishers Freight, an indoor football team that will kick off in the spring. The Pro Volleyball Federation’s first all-star event will be held at the facility on Feb. 22.

Jen Spicher, commissioner of the Pro Volleyball Federation, said there’s a great deal of enthusiasm to have the Ignite as a member of the league. She said she was impressed by the support shown during the team’s first match, adding she believes it will bode well for the remainder of the season and the all-star event.

The Pro Volleyball Federation, which formed in 2022, will have eight teams this season and add expansion teams next year in the Dallas and Kansas City markets. Along with Fishers, the federation’s teams that will play this season are in Atlanta; Columbus, Ohio; Grand Rapids, Michigan; Las Vegas; Omaha, Nebraska; Orlando, Florida; and San Diego.

“This event center is perfect, and I expect these guys to crush it every single night,” she said. “It was a no brainer for us, and [the owners] and the team are willing to put the work in. It’s not easy to do an all-star event. You need both sides—the hometown crowd and the league crowd.

“This is the very first match of their inaugural season, and they’ve sold out. That’s absolutely incredible. If you look at our numbers from last year, they were good, but we never sold out an arena, and here we are selling out the first time a match is played in Indiana.”

Last year, the seven-team league drew total attendance of 376,920, for an average of 4,487 fans per game. The Omaha Supernovas led the federation with an average of 9,656 fans per game at the 17,560-seat CHI Health Center arena.

Jim Schumacher said the team will work throughout the season to create an environment that can be enjoyed by both those who are familiar with the sport and newcomers.

The team also plans to lean heavily into opportunities presented by the several youth and club tournaments hosted in Indianapolis annually—including the Nike Mideast qualifier, which draws about 30,000 visitors—to bring crowds to Fishers.

“We have tried to schedule our home games around those weekends, so we will do promotions to try and bring people in from those tournaments,” Schumacher said. “This first match is a validation that the market wants to see this product. This has always been a strong volleyball market …  so we’re going to build our community engagement, one game at a time.”