If you love volleyball, why not let your favorite sport help bump up your bank account?
You don’t have to be a professional player or even a star athlete to make money from volleyball. Parents, former players, coaches, college students, recreational players, and enthusiastic fans can all find ways to turn their knowledge of the sport into extra income.
Whether you’re looking for a seasonal weekend gig or a side hustle you can grow into a small business, here are some volleyball side hustle ideas worth serving up.
1. Referee Volleyball Games
Becoming a volleyball referee is one of the most straightforward ways to make extra money from the sport.
Schools, recreational leagues, club tournaments, and youth organizations need officials throughout volleyball season. Depending on the organization, you may need to complete training, pass an exam, or become certified before officiating games.
The nice thing about refereeing is that games are often held during evenings and weekends, making it easier to work around a traditional job.
Start by contacting local schools, volleyball clubs, recreation departments, and athletic associations to find out what qualifications are required in your area.
2. Become a Volleyball Line Judge or Scorekeeper
Not ready to referee an entire match? There are other paid positions at volleyball games and tournaments.
Tournament organizers may need people to work as line judges, scorekeepers, scoreboard operators, or event staff. Some positions require volleyball knowledge, while others are relatively easy to learn.
These jobs can be especially attractive for high school and college students looking for occasional extra income.
3. Coach a Youth Volleyball Team
If you have playing or coaching experience, consider becoming a youth volleyball coach.
Club teams, recreation programs, schools, camps, and community organizations may hire coaches or assistant coaches. Some positions last an entire season, while others involve only a few practices, clinics, or tournaments.
Coaching can also lead to other income opportunities, including private lessons and volleyball camps.
4. Give Private Volleyball Lessons
Players and parents are often willing to pay for one-on-one instruction that can help improve specific skills.
You could offer private lessons covering areas such as serving, passing, setting, hitting, blocking, footwork, or overall fundamentals.
Lessons can be held at a gym, recreation center, park, sand court, or other appropriate facility. Just make sure you have permission to conduct paid lessons at the location.
If you’re particularly skilled at one position, such as setter or libero, you could specialize your lessons and market yourself to players who want position-specific training.
5. Host Volleyball Clinics
Instead of teaching one athlete at a time, increase your earning potential by teaching several.
For example, you could organize a two-hour serving clinic and charge each participant an admission fee. Other possibilities include beginner clinics, setter clinics, defensive workshops, hitting clinics, or pre-tryout training sessions.
You’ll need to factor gym rental, insurance, equipment, and other expenses into your pricing, but group instruction can potentially earn more per hour than individual lessons.
6. Offer Volleyball Tryout Prep
Tryouts can be stressful, particularly for younger athletes hoping to make a school or club team.
If you understand what coaches typically look for, offer private or small-group volleyball tryout preparation.
You can help players practice common drills, improve fundamentals, understand court positioning, and become more comfortable with the tryout process.
This side hustle may be especially popular during the weeks leading up to school and club volleyball tryouts.
7. Sell Volleyball-Themed Products
Creative volleyball fans can make and sell products inspired by the sport.
Ideas might include volleyball shirts, sweatshirts, stickers, water bottles, keychains, bag tags, jewelry, hair accessories, personalized team gifts, or senior-night items.
You can sell locally to volleyball families or online through marketplaces and your own website.
Be careful when using team names, logos, mascots, tournament branding, or other protected intellectual property. Creating your own original volleyball designs is generally the safer route.
8. Start a Print-on-Demand Volleyball Shop
Don’t want boxes of T-shirts taking over your spare bedroom? Print-on-demand may be a better option.
With print-on-demand, you create the designs while another company prints and ships products when customers order.
Volleyball niches could include funny setter shirts, volleyball mom apparel, libero sayings, coach gifts, tournament shirts, or generic volleyball designs.
Because you don’t have to purchase large quantities of inventory upfront, print-on-demand can be a relatively inexpensive side hustle to test.
9. Flip Volleyball Gear
Reselling is another way volleyball fans can make extra money.
Look for discounted or secondhand volleyball shoes, nets, training equipment, backpacks, apparel, knee pads, balls, and other gear that can be resold for a profit.
Potential sourcing locations include thrift stores, garage sales, clearance sections, liquidation stores, sporting-goods stores, and online marketplaces.
Before buying something specifically to resell, check completed or sold listings online. The price someone is asking isn’t nearly as useful as knowing what buyers are actually paying.
10. Sell Used Volleyball Equipment
Your first resale inventory might already be sitting in your house.
Kids grow out of shoes and uniforms. Players change clubs. Equipment gets replaced even though the old gear still has plenty of life left.
Go through unused volleyball equipment and consider listing it on platforms such as Facebook Marketplace, eBay, Poshmark, Whatnot, or other resale sites.
After selling your own items, you could potentially turn the idea into a larger flipping side hustle.
11. Create Volleyball Content
Know enough about volleyball that your friends are tired of hearing about rotations? The internet might appreciate your expertise more.
Start a blog, YouTube channel, podcast, TikTok account, Instagram page, or other content platform devoted to volleyball.
Possible topics include training tips, volleyball drills, tournament travel, equipment reviews, volleyball parenting, recruiting, college volleyball, professional volleyball, or funny observations about volleyball culture.
Once you’ve built an audience, potential income sources include advertising, sponsorships, affiliate marketing, digital products, and merchandise.
12. Become a Volleyball Affiliate Marketer
You don’t necessarily have to manufacture or stock products to make money recommending them.
Affiliate marketers earn commissions when readers or followers purchase products through their tracking links.
A volleyball website or social media account could recommend shoes, knee pads, volleyballs, training aids, nets, backpacks, apparel, books, and other products.
The key is creating genuinely useful content rather than simply dropping affiliate links everywhere. Product comparisons, gift guides, equipment reviews, and beginner gear guides can all provide value while creating opportunities to earn commissions.
Remember to clearly disclose affiliate relationships.
13. Photograph Volleyball Games
Sports photography can become a profitable side hustle if you have the right equipment and know how to capture fast-moving action.
Parents may purchase digital images or prints of their athletes, while teams and clubs may hire photographers for tournaments, senior nights, promotional photos, or social media content.
Indoor volleyball photography can be challenging because of lighting and movement, so there’s a learning curve. But becoming skilled at a difficult type of photography can also help distinguish you from casual photographers.
14. Create Volleyball Highlight Videos
Players pursuing college volleyball opportunities may need video footage showing their skills.
If you’re comfortable with video editing, you could offer highlight-reel services. Parents or athletes provide footage, and you turn the best clips into a polished video.
You could charge separately for filming games if you have the necessary camera equipment.
15. Manage Social Media for Volleyball Clubs
Many small sports organizations are run by busy coaches and volunteers who don’t have much time to post on social media.
Offer to manage social accounts for local volleyball clubs, camps, tournaments, trainers, or leagues.
Services could include creating graphics, posting schedules, sharing scores, highlighting players, promoting registration, and publishing tournament photos.
A single client might provide modest monthly income, but managing accounts for several organizations could turn this into a more substantial side business.
16. Work Volleyball Tournaments
Large volleyball tournaments can require a small army of temporary workers.
Depending on the event, opportunities could include admissions, registration, concessions, merchandise sales, setup, cleanup, court monitoring, ticket scanning, or general event assistance.
These gigs are usually concentrated around weekends, which makes them convenient for people with weekday jobs.
Check tournament websites, local clubs, convention centers, sports complexes, and event staffing companies for opportunities.
17. Sell Snacks at Volleyball Events
Volleyball tournaments can last all day, which creates one very predictable phenomenon: hungry people.
Depending on venue rules, you may be able to operate concessions, sell packaged snacks, run a food booth, or partner with tournament organizers.
Another possibility is creating preordered snack packs for teams or parents.
Always check local food regulations and venue requirements before selling food.
18. Make Personalized Team Gifts
Volleyball teams generate plenty of gift-giving occasions: senior night, tournaments, championships, coach appreciation, birthdays, and end-of-season celebrations.
If you own a Cricut, sublimation printer, embroidery machine, laser engraver, or similar equipment, you could create personalized volleyball gifts.
Team orders are particularly attractive because one customer may purchase items for an entire roster rather than just one product.
19. Run a Volleyball Camp
Experienced players and coaches can take things a step beyond individual lessons by organizing a volleyball camp.
You might offer a summer youth camp, beginner camp, position-specific camp, or school-break clinic.
Running a camp involves more responsibility than giving a private lesson. You’ll need to consider facilities, insurance, waivers, staffing, equipment, safety procedures, and local requirements.
However, a successful camp can also produce significantly more revenue than hourly coaching.
20. Start a Recreational Volleyball League
If your community doesn’t have enough opportunities for adults to play, create your own.
You could organize indoor, sand, coed, women’s, men’s, or recreational leagues and charge teams a registration fee.
Your expenses may include facility or court rental, referees, equipment, insurance, prizes, and administration.
Start small. A four- or six-team league is much easier to manage than attempting to build the Olympics of Tuesday-night volleyball on your first try.
21. Rent Out Volleyball Equipment
If you already own portable nets, volleyballs, training equipment, ball carts, or other gear, consider renting it to other players, coaches, parties, camps, or recreational groups.
Portable volleyball setups can be particularly useful for backyard parties, family reunions, corporate events, and community gatherings.
Just make sure your rental price accounts for wear, damage, cleaning, replacement costs, and your time coordinating pickup and returns.
22. Become a Volleyball Recruiting Consultant
Former coaches and experienced volleyball parents may be able to help families understand the recruiting process.
Services might include helping athletes organize recruiting information, researching programs, preparing questions for coaches, creating recruiting profiles, or developing outreach plans.
Be careful not to guarantee scholarships or recruitment results. You’re providing guidance and organizational help, not controlling a coach’s decision.
23. Create Digital Volleyball Products
Digital products can be created once and sold repeatedly.
Ideas include practice planners, coaching worksheets, stat sheets, tournament packing lists, recruiting trackers, volleyball journals, team planners, printable score sheets, or workout calendars.
You could sell downloads through your own website or online marketplaces that allow digital products.
Once the product is created, there are no physical products to package or ship, giving this side hustle particularly attractive margins.
24. Offer Volleyball Travel Planning
Club volleyball families know that tournaments can involve a surprising amount of travel.
If you’re good at researching deals, you could offer travel-planning assistance to teams or families. You might help research hotels, transportation, restaurants, attractions, or group activities surrounding tournaments.
You could also build a volleyball travel website and monetize destination guides through advertising and affiliate partnerships.
25. Start a Volleyball Newsletter
You don’t necessarily need a massive social media following to build an audience.
Consider starting an email newsletter covering local volleyball, college volleyball, youth tournaments, coaching tips, recruiting information, or volleyball deals.
As readership grows, you could potentially monetize through sponsorships, advertising, affiliate links, paid subscriptions, or your own products.
Which Volleyball Side Hustle Is Best?
The best choice depends on your experience, available time, and whether you’d rather be on the court or behind a computer.
Current and former players may be best suited for coaching, lessons, camps, and officiating. Creative fans might prefer merchandise, photography, video editing, or digital products. Bargain hunters can try reselling volleyball gear, while people who enjoy writing or social media may gravitate toward content creation and affiliate marketing.
You also don’t have to choose only one.
A volleyball coach could give private lessons, run summer clinics, create downloadable training plans, and earn affiliate commissions recommending equipment. A volleyball photographer could add highlight-video editing. A reseller could build social media content around volleyball gear and eventually monetize the audience.
The most promising side hustles often grow by stacking related income streams.
Final Thoughts
Volleyball doesn’t have to cost you money in tournament fees, travel, equipment, and new shoes every season. With a little creativity, it can become a source of extra income too.
Start with something that matches the skills and resources you already have. You don’t need to launch a full-fledged business immediately. Referee a few games, sell unused equipment, teach a couple of lessons, or create your first digital product.
If it works, keep serving. Your volleyball side hustle might eventually score you a surprisingly useful second income.
