Volo Sports reviews

One of the worst jobs I’ve ever experienced by far. From the full-time staff to the players—incompetence and insufferable people all around. I took this job in the summer of 2024 just to make ends meet while working my 9–5. The full-time staff would sometimes insert me to ref or host games just an hour before the event started. Most of the time, they’d call me about potentially covering someone’s shift, but there were multiple occasions when I would check my email or one of the numerous apps they told me to download and find my name listed without being informed. To make matters worse, there were times I brought my own equipment to ensure the games ran smoothly. For a while, they didn’t even provide me with the full set of necessary gear, so I had to improvise. One particular day that still gets on my nerves was when I was hosting a basketball event at Shady Hill School. The assortment of basketballs there was subpar, and since it was a championship game, I decided to use my personal basketball—a Wilson Evolution worth $100. I had informed them in advance that I had some basketballs to bring, and they gave me the okay after I pointed out that the ones stationed at the gym weren’t regulation quality. That ball ended up getting stolen. I immediately reported the theft and expressed my frustration to two full-time staff members. Both assured me that VOLO would reimburse me. However, when I brought it up a third time with someone from management, all they did was tell me to reach out to the teams who played that day and the coworkers who reffed the event—instead of offering the compensation I had been promised, both in meetings and over the phone. On top of that, when I reffed kickball, they didn’t give me all the necessary equipment until the end of the summer. That made the nights especially difficult because I didn’t have a clipboard to tally scores or an umpire tracker to manage the games. Also, the VOLO kickball rules communicated to me weren’t even consistent with how the games were actually played. Apparently, they had made changes to the officiating style before I started, but didn’t relay them properly. Before being assigned to ref, I had to shadow another referee to learn the ropes. Later, a staff member sent me a YouTube video to review, supposedly to help me prepare—but the video was outdated, with rules that no one else was using. That, combined with the lack of proper equipment, made the job needlessly confusing and frustrating. It completely soured my experience of reffing. To make matters worse, I constantly had to deal with yuppies, Karens, and adult babies. Many nights, I wanted to just walk off the field. Players would yell at me and get in my face if a call didn’t go their way, nitpicking every decision either to gain a competitive edge or simply to make my job harder. Mind you—this is kickball. I get that people want to compete and that these games are a social outlet, but at the end of the day, it’s a children’s game. The level of pettiness and hostility was off the charts. I’ve played pickup basketball all around the city and I get the competitive spirit, but never in my life have I seen so much snarkiness and entitlement from a group of adults. One time, three players from one team approached me and tried to pressure me into giving them my email—which was completely out of my comfort zone—just because they didn’t agree with a call I made. If I hadn’t been in a tough financial spot at the time, I would’ve quit that job like a bad habit. VOLO overall has a toxic culture. From the players to the full-time staff, it’s definitely not for everybody. And to be honest, I’m not even sure how much money actually gets donated to kids, despite that being the company’s main mission statement. If you’re not a typical white person, stay far away from this league. Whether you’re joining as a player or working for VOLO in any capacity, in my opinion, it’s not a welcoming environment.

As noted by others, very short shifts are many times not worth traveling any amount of distance for. This job is only really worth it if you are taking advantage of the perks you can get playing in leagues or for volo pass. Most PT staff are cool but there are a few real self important losers and people looking to ingratiate themselves with the FT staff because they lead pathetic lives or something idk what’s wrong with them. PT staff that have been there too long and wear their experience like a badge of honor are generally a huge red flag but they’re like a clique of the worst people you’ve ever known. Biggest problem is that full time staff are allergic to being held accountable and will look to blame part time staff when things go wrong rather than solving the problem in front of them. Luckily, they hire some horribly incompetent, irresponsible, and lazy part time staff that can’t be bothered to complete the most basic job duties so they can usually find someone to blame. However, if you are responsible, the nonsense that the full time staff pulls will get old real quick. I was once picking up soccer balls at a site where we would lose balls every shift. At the end of my shift the prior week, I noted that we were going to need more balls delivered to that site prior to my shift the following week. When I saw that none had been supplied, I contacted the full time staff person responsible and let him know I had requested them the prior week and they hadn’t been supplied. His initial response was that he saw that I had made note of the need for more soccer balls the prior week. Rather than solve the problem at hand, the first thing he did was check to see if he could blame me for failing to document the need for the equipment (which I did). Even if I hadn’t, blaming me doesn’t solve the problem at hand which is that I was about to start a shift and still needed the equipment. I personally had numerous interactions with FT like this to the point where the aggravation wasn’t worth it. This was just a part time gig for me to make some extra money. For the full time staff, this is supposed to be your career or at the very least, your salaried full time job for now. It would be nice if you acted like it. Admitting you made a mistake isn’t a weakness, it’s human. I have more respect for supervisors/bosses take responsibility for their actions (or inaction) and failures and had to quit working for Volo because I have no respect for the majority of the NYC full time staff. Berating PT staff for failing to complete their game or shift logs when you fail to read and respond to the concerns addressed in them isn’t the way to encourage compliance. I also heard more than one FT staff member complain about working nights/weekends. Don’t know why any of them might be under the impression that this would be a 9-5 job or that the PT staff should handle everything happening outside of business hours, when all of their programs take place. A bunch of big babies with their priorities totally out of whack. High turnover among any decent or reliable PT staff because of the aggravation of dealing with the FT staff and having to do all of the work when working with lazier PT staff.