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Nebraska and Texas will battle for the 2023 NCAA Division I women’s volleyball championship in front of a national TV audience on Sunday, capping a breakthrough year for the sport.
Thursday’s semifinal matches at Amalie Arena, home of the NHL’s Tampa Bay Lightning, set an attendance record for indoor volleyball as 19,598 fans gathered to watch the tournament’s final four play out. The Cornhuskers swept fellow No. 1 seed Pittsburgh, and the No.2 Longhorns defeated No. 1 Wisconsin, 3-1. Nebraska-Texas will take place Sunday at 3 p.m. ET on ABC.
At the start of this year’s season, Nebraska set the all-time record for any women’s sport by packing 90,003 fans into the school’s football stadium for Volleyball Day on Aug. 30.
Bump, Set, Spike
Next fall, the sport will have another new national stage to promote itself.
Fox Sports is backing a new two-day volleyball event on Labor Day Weekend at Fiserv Forum, home of the Milwaukee Bucks. The showcase will bring together the Wisconsin, Texas, Stanford, and Minnesota women’s volleyball teams, and also has the support of Intersport, a Chicago-based agency that has worked with the PGA Tour and Under Armour. The main Fox broadcast channel will carry two of the four matches, while the other two will be on FS1.
No financial terms of the event’s creation have been made available, but future editions will see the annual event rotate teams and locations. Organizers told Front Office Sports there has been interest from many top volleyball programs like Nebraska and others.
