A spike in numbers: college volleyball is becoming more popular, it’s about time
Texas volleyball's history of success has now spanned decades under the steady leadership of head coach Jerritt Elliott.
Since joining the program 24 years ago, Elliott has brought back a positive culture, winning three national championships in his tenure, including two consecutive ones in the past two seasons.
Elliott believes with success comes attention, and the more successful Texas volleyball continues to be over the years, the greater the audience for the Longhorns. Since 2022, Texas volleyball holds a record of 71–11 alongside its two national championship victories, and has held a streak of 38 straight sellout games at Gregory Gymnasium, 10 of which have come this season.
Volleyball is growing in popularity, especially amongst the student body at Texas. In 2017, the average attendance of a volleyball match at Gregory Gym was 3,540 fans. Today, that average has jumped significantly, standing at 4,545 fans a match.
Every year since 2017, except in 2021, the season following the COVID-19 pandemic, the average fan attendance grew from the previous season.
It's not just in-home matches that have increasing audiences but also matches across the country.
When facing Auburn and Alabama, Texas played in front of a crowd of 3,940 and 3,800 fans respectively. Though a smaller attendance than Texas is used to, these were both record crowds for Auburn and Alabama. Texas also played in front of record crowds when traveling to Florida and Texas A&M. Against Florida, Texas played in front of 9,255 fans, and when traveling to A&M, Texas saw a crowd of 9,236.
When discussing the Texas A&M matchup earlier this season, Elliott reflected on the difference in fan attendance from the two teams' last regular season matchup in 2011 to now.
"At that point in time, we were probably averaging about 1,500 fans, and now we're selling out every game," Elliott said. "It's just the development of it all. It's been fun to see it, and it's needed for our sport."
The popularity of women's sports over the past couple of years has begun to grow with big names like Caitlin Clark and Angel Reese in women's basketball and Texas' own Madisen Skinner expanding the reach of the game. In the most recent volleyball championship between Texas and Nebraska, an audience of 1.7 million viewers tuned in for the match, a 115% increase from the previous year.
Another major reason for the increase in popularity of women's volleyball is the increased coverage the sport receives from major networks. Last season Texas volleyball had only three matches on ESPN and ABC while other matches were relegated to secondary channels such as ESPN2 or the Longhorn Network. This season, the team has already had five matches on ESPN's main channel and a match on FOX's main broadcast.
As volleyball gains popularity, especially amongst Longhorns, the game will continue to grow.
As of right now though, the details are still being sorted. There have been discussions of Texas volleyball hosting a match at Moody Center next season. Moody Center currently has a capacity of 10,000 seats for basketball games.
