- Twelve Black women created Team Dream to compete in the USA Volleyball Open National Championship.
- The team's diversity broke barriers in a sport historically dominated by white players.
- Team Dream's story celebrates the power of Black women's resilience, joy, and unity.
OWN is bringing #BlackGirlMagic center stage with a new documentary spotlighting 12 sporty standouts who served, spiked, and shattered barriers on the volleyball court.
BOSSIP can exclusively confirm that the network is premiering We Belong Here: The Story of Team Dream, an OWN Spotlight documentary about the all-Black women’s professional volleyball team that competed in the USA Volleyball Open National Championship, premiering Saturday, Sept. 26, at 9 p.m. ET/PT.
Directed by Bianca Barnes-Williams and produced by Bunim/Murray Productions, a Banijay Americas company, the documentary follows the women of Team Dream as they recount making history while navigating a sport where Black representation remained limited.
We Belong Here: The Story Of Team Dream Celebrates Black Women Making Volleyball History
A press release reports that Team Dream’s story began in 2018, when 12 Black women came together with limited practice and an unwavering belief in one another to compete in the USA Volleyball Open National Championship.
In the trailer, the players recall how what began as a simple plan to compete became something much bigger.
“Every year, USA Volleyball does an adult national championship. We wanted to compete, and so we created a team,” Haley Eckerman says. “We said, ‘Let’s go and ball out.’ We’re like, ‘Let’s just have fun.’ So, we just started naming our friends.”
Before long, she realized that their team looked considerably different from the rest.
“Probably after about five or six people, I’m like, ‘This is all Black folks,’” she recalls. “This is gonna piss everybody off.”
The moment’s significance becomes even clearer as the women reflect on their own experiences playing volleyball and rarely seeing athletes who looked like them.
“For years, volleyball in America was seen as a predominantly white sport because it was created by predominantly white people,” one player says in the trailer. “We don’t see a lot of color at all in our sport.”
Led by NCAA champion Haley Eckerman and featuring professional players including Khat Bell and Kaz Brown, Team Dream ultimately turned that shared experience into a history-making moment as the first all-Black women’s professional volleyball team.
Still, the players knew their decision to compete together would draw attention—and not all of it would be positive.
“Once people got wind of what we were doing, we knew there was going to be criticism,” one of the women says in the trailer.
Told entirely through the voices of the athletes themselves with no external narrator, We Belong Here explores that scrutiny alongside their love of volleyball and the systemic challenges they encountered while pursuing the sport professionally.
The documentary also celebrates the resilience, joy, humor, friendship and pride that bonded the women as they broke barriers together.
“Team Dream’s origin story is a powerful reminder of what happens when Black women step into their strength together,” said Tina Perry, president of OWN, in a statement. “The way these women united shows their power, their joy, and their unwavering belief in one another, which embodies the spirit of OWN Spotlight.”
“We can’t wait for audiences to hear their story in their own words as we celebrate the legacy they started and continue to build,” she added.
Check out the trailer for Team Dream’s history-making story below.
We Belong Here: The Story of Team Dream premieres Saturday, Sept. 26, at 9 p.m. ET/PT on OWN.
