Volleyball on network television used to be rare. Nebraska has made it record-breaking

Fans in Nebraska have seen the potential for women’s college volleyball.

The best example is Volleyball Day in Nebraska, which drew 92,000 fans to Memorial Stadium two years ago.

But in recent years, college volleyball has forged a path onto network television, too. Streaming services and cable channels are upping the ante on women’s college volleyball.

And by no one’s surprise, Nebraska keeps pushing the boundaries of volleyball coverage on TV.

‘Bigger, better windows’

College volleyball has come a long way in recent years. Husker head coach Dani Busboom Kelly has had a prominent seat at the TV negotiations table.

“[It] wasn't too long ago we were begging for this as a coaching group and trying to set up meetings with ESPN and all these big networks [asking], ‘What do we have to do to get on more?’” Busboom Kelly recalled. “And now there's almost like arguments over who has rights to this game and who doesn't.”

This fall, ESPN will televise and stream more than 2,600 women’s college volleyball matches by season's end. That’s the company’s most extensive volleyball lineup ever, according to an August press release.

Nick Dawson, senior vice president for college sports programming at ESPN, said he’s watched women’s volleyball balloon in popularity.

“Women's college volleyball, for multiple years now, has been on a growth trajectory,” Dawson said. “So for us, that typically translates to, ‘Hey, let's find ways to either do more and or provide better, bigger windows of exposure for the content we do have in that sport category.’”

That includes utilizing ABC, a Disney-owned brand like ESPN.

ABC has aired just two regular season volleyball matches all-time. Both included Nebraska, and both set viewership records. In 2024, Nebraska swept Louisville, setting the sports network’s regular season volleyball record with an average of 684,000 viewers.

That regular season benchmark wouldn’t stand long.

Less than a year later on Aug. 31, the Cornhuskers came back from two sets down to win against the Kentucky Wildcats. The thrilling match drew an average TV audience of 1.2 million people.

In total, the Huskers have been on network television three times this season, once on ABC and twice on Fox. Last season, two regular season matches were broadcast on network TV for Big Red fans, one each on ABC and NBC. In 2023, not a single regular season NU volleyball game aired on the four major networks.

The shift to volleyball hitting network television airwaves was aided by the 2023 national title match on ABC, Dawson said. The network aired the national title match for the first time that season.

Texas knocked off Nebraska, with an average of 1.7 million people tuning in to ABC. That match still holds the TV audience record for NCAA women’s volleyball.

“If we needed a light bulb moment, that was probably the moment where we kind of looked at ourselves internally and said, ‘Hey, there's some real upside here with this sport,’” Dawson said.

The 2023 championship was the second time a game topped one million viewers on ESPN’s platforms, Dawson said. The other was the 2021 title game between NU and Wisconsin.

That data, combined with his own thoughts, convinced Dawson that ESPN needed to do more.

“Personally speaking as well, just the more I continue to watch the sport, the more excited I get about its appeal for television,” Dawson said. “The pace of the sport, the energy in the buildings, it just is great TV.”

People want to watch the Bob Devaney Sports Center sold out and rocking, former Nebraska volleyball coach turned broadcaster John Cook said.

“That's why you're seeing this explosion in TV coverage,” Cook said.

When a volleyball matchup follows a football game with the same schools competing, that can help grow the fanbase, too, Cook said.

Another reason for the TV expansion is the pace of the game.

“First of all, it goes fast,” Cook said. “I mean, you don't even have time to take a potty break.”

Volleyball has the benefit of constantly demanding the viewer’s attention, in an age when people have more distractions than ever, he said. For example, the game is drastically different from soccer where a team might not score for hours in real time.

“There’s a point every time the ball is served,” the four-time national champion coach said.

Athletes are taking notice of the increased TV demand.

Andi Jackson, a junior middle blocker for the Huskers, said, “I feel like every single game that's streamed I'm seeing another post about how we broke another viewer record. ... It's huge for women's volleyball. It's huge for women's sports."

Those viewership accomplishments are not lost on the Big Red faithful, either.

Neil Grubaugh graduated from UNL and said his alma mater rallies new fans to the sport.

“I'd say the casual fan who may be only primarily focused on the big sports, like basketball and football, probably has watched more [volleyball] in recent years,” Grubaugh said, “especially with the network television presence.”

This season’s matchup with Kentucky was played in downtown Nashville, an event organized by ESPN. Grubaugh said he expects viewership and attendance to snowball, if ESPN and other networks continue to come up with similar ideas.

“If you build it around these arenas with great locations downtown and [near] hotels, people are going to come,” Grubaugh said. “There's going to be excitement, certainly if they're high-profile matches, more worthy of TV. I don't expect it to stop.”

What’s next?

Lincolnite Sara Boothe has watched and played volleyball since she was 5 years old.

Nebraska is probably “the driving factor of making college volleyball more popular in the entire country,” Boothe said. Having professional teams in the United States, name, image and likeness money in college and social media has all raised the sport’s profile.

With more channels to choose from, Boothe said more young people might be watching.

“But it's still maybe not as readily accessible. But I think that goes for a lot of sports on TV in general,” Boothe said. “A lot of younger people don't watch it as much, because they don't pay for that program. My parents do, but I don’t.”

Despite those challenges, the sport is wildly popular in Nebraska and is boosting its profile nationally. The next phase of growth could include the sport getting more nationally relevant teams.

ESPN’s Nashville event that included Nebraska vs. Kentucky – No. 1 and No. 2 in this week’s coaches’ poll – was a no-brainer for the sports media company.

“That's an easy one. If we can get the Huskers, we know that the fans will show up,” Dawson said.

So Nebraska fans show out. Nothing new there.

But what’s next for the sport is getting more teams closer to the Cornhuskers’ level, Dawson said. And more TV attention can help with that, in the long run.

“All that sort of fuels more exposure, more eyeballs, more girls watching the game, wanting to play the game as they grow up,” Dawson said, “which hopefully then results in a deeper pool of great teams across the country, right?”

Going from about 10 schools that garner a national audience to 25 or 30 schools would be a huge step forward, Dawson said.

Especially during March Madness, basketball still leads the way in the women’s sports space, Dawson said. Recent spikes in attention for basketball were sparked by the stardom of Caitlin Clark, a former Iowa Hawkeye who is now with the WNBA’s Indiana Fever.

There will always be a barrier to individual stardom in volleyball, Cook said.

“One of the reasons it's hard to get a Caitlin Clark, though, is because volleyball is more of a team game than basketball,” the former Husker coach said.

Nebraska star outside hitter Harper Murray needs good passing and setting to score, Cook said. Meanwhile, Caitlin Clark can drill tons of 3-pointers without her teammates contributing nearly as much.

But Cook and Husker fan Austin Hinz agree: NU volleyball players are already superstars across the state and in the volleyball world.

“I almost feel like every single one of them could be a hero,” Hinz said, “because they're always changing out players in the lineup throughout the whole game.”

Besides building individual star power and an audience for more schools, mid-season TV ratings are also a challenge moving forward. ESPN enjoys robust ratings for early season showdowns and during the postseason, but the crowded fall sports calendar makes viewership tougher in between, Dawson said.

“Where I think we need to focus now is sort of like mid-October through the end of November,” Dawson said.

Through the peaks and valleys of viewership, he said volleyball is one of ESPN’s “tent poles.”

“And that’s where we continue to invest the most resources,” Dawson said. “Volleyball is front and center there for us in terms of being a priority.”

The good news for volleyball fans? This is just the beginning.

“So that, to me, is what I'm excited about. It's a foundation that we think we can continue to build on year over year,” Dawson said, “as long as we do our part and continue to try to find ways to sort of increase exposure, broaden reach.”

At least one former coach agrees.

“I think this is the start of something really, really big,” Cook said.

Cook said it’s OK to look back, too. With the sport bursting onto the national stage, fans can enjoy games on the weekends or in primetime slots today.

“We used to get weird times and no good times,” the longtime coach said. “But now, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday you could see a volleyball match on TV.”

“It’s great for the sport, and people want to watch volleyball,” Cook said, adding that Nebraska is the “epicenter” of that movement.

No matter where it goes from here, the networks, fans, coaches and players agree the Huskers have played a crucial role in evolving how women’s college volleyball is covered. And they think it should keep forging ahead.

Volleyball and other women’s sports are always running at sports bars and restaurants, Jackson said. That investment should continue, the first-team All-American said.

“If it's on, people are going to watch it,” she said. “So, I think it should be on more.”