Husker’s volleyball team breaks attendance records
Lauren Ceballos / Sports Editor
The University of Nebraska- Lincoln Women’s Volleyball team filled their football stadium for a home game with over 92,000 fans in the crowd. On Aug. 30, the Cornhuskers, or Huskers for short, swept University of Nebraska Omaha, the Mavericks, in three sets with scores of 25-14, 25-14 and 25-13. The state called it “Volleyball Day,” and the attendance numbers show the eagerness of the Husker fandom. The tickets went on sale in April and the team sold around 89,000 tickets within the first three days of being on sale.
According to Sports Illustrated, the Cornhusker fandom has a deep-rooted history, as the men’s football team has a 60- year sellout streak for their games. Moreover, their women’s volleyball team has sold out their 8,000-seat stadium the last 306 games with a streak of qualifying for the NCAA tournament every year since 1982 and has acquired five national championship titles.
The website shared the enormous number of attendees:
“A crowd of that size would be not just the largest in NCAA volleyball history and not just the largest for a women’s sporting event in the United States. It would break the world record for attendance at a women’s sporting event. The U.S. record attendance at a women’s athletic event is 90,185 for the 1999 Women’s World Cup [for soccer] final at the Rose Bowl. The world record is 91,648 for the Barcelona vs. Wolfsburg Women’s Champions League semifinal in April 2022.”
“The previous attendance record for the sport [of volleyball] also belonged to Nebraska, but it came by way of a loss to Wisconsin in the 2021 national championship match in Columbus, Ohio, which 18,755 people attended,” The New York Times reported. “Motivated by that defeat, [against Wisconsin] and boosted by a loyal fan base and even the state’s governor, Jim Pillen, the school made a plan to break not just the N.C.A.A. volleyball attendance mark, but the record for all women’s sports globally.”
Santul Nerkar, a writer and editor for FiveThirtyEight, shared beliefs on why this might
have been possible in an article entitled, “A Record Crowd Shows Buildup of Nebraska Volleyball and Women’s Sports.”
“Not every Division I school has the same set of circumstances that would allow it to conjure what Nebraska has with its volleyball team. The state has no major professional sports teams, and the football program for its flagship university enjoys a near-monopoly on college sports fandom.”
USD junior Paulina Gaitan related this to USD volleyball as well as women’s sports in general.
“I think that it’s very interesting when noting the distinction between women’s sports and male sports, how there is not that big of an audience in female sports as it is with men’s sports, and that is a historic fact. But in recent years, and even here at the university, I know last year the women’s volleyball team was final four and students were getting really excited about it, but it’s just a little shocking to me how women have to be the very best at it for everyone else to notice, so noticing this very high turnout with the Nebraska game is very exciting to know,” Gaitan said.
After the game, there was a firework show followed by a performance by country singer Scotty McCreery.
The record-breaking game filled social media, providing excitement for women in the world of sports.
USD junior Valeria Rodriguez shared an opinion on the event.
“I think it’s interesting that a lot of women in sports are getting that much attention, mostly because it’s always been men in sports and how it’s soccer, it’s football, everything else… We don’t see that a lot anymore unless you’re looking for it, it’s not brought up to our attention… Here, [Frank Warren’s lounge] you see all these TVs are full of just guys,” Rodriguez said.
Photo courtesy of @huskervb/Instagram
Chloe Pavlech, former basketball player for University of Maryland and current assistant coach at Baylor University, took a video at the game of a little girl watching wide-eyed and cheering, upon the entrance of the Cornhuskers.
The post stated, “She will grow up in a world where she expects more. She will grow up in a world where men watch women’s sports. She will grow up in a world where women’s sports sell out football stadiums. She will grow up in a world where men support women. She will grow up in a world where she doesn’t thank the media for coming. She will grow up in a world where the boys want to be like the Nebraska Volleyball Players.”
Earvin Magic Johnson, or Magic Johnson, a former athlete in the NBA, made a tweet about volleyball during circulation of the news.
“There are so many people dressed in all red on the Big Ten Network. I’m blown away! Shoutout to all the Husker fans that showed their support for women’s athletics and the Nebraska Volleyball team. @HuskerVB,” the post read.
Ultimately, the University of Nebraska Lincoln not only broke the record for most NCAA in-person attendees in a day but also for women’s sports in general. The excitement which manifested itself on social media, publications and through the Cornhusker fandom. While Nebraska is celebrating a high, children are growing up in a world where over 92,000 people went to watch a women’s volleyball game.
The USD Vista 
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