Nebraska women's volleyball played in front of the largest crowd for a women's sporting event
The GIST: Somebody call Guinness because we have a new world record. ICYMI: Nebraska women’s volleyball played in front of a rowdy crowd of 92,003 people on Wednesday, the largest attendance ever for a women’s sporting event.
How it happened: Innovation and sheer pettiness…no, seriously. After the Wisconsin Badgers’ (the Cornhuskers’ longtime rival) stole away the NCAA volleyball attendance record by staging a match for 16,833 people at their basketball arena in 2022, Nebraska’s athletic director devised a plan to reclaim it in a big way: Set up court in the school’s football stadium. The rest is literally history.
What’s next: In addition to other NCAA women’s sports squads now thinking outside of the box, we’ll likely see even more growth for the game. Volleyball already rallied to an incredible 2022, pulling in record viewership numbers and, in turn, investment.
- That rapid rise has also translated at the youth level, where participation in girls high school volleyball increased 15% in the U.S. since 2002, usurping basketball as the second-most popular sport.
- As for the pros, Athletes Unlimited became the first-ever U.S. pro volleyball league when it launched on the courts in 2020, but it’ll be quite crowded at the net soon: Three new leagues are expected to join the fold by 2024. Bump, set, slay.
