NCAA Volleyball’s Growing Popularity Crushes Men’s College Basketball’s Average Viewership Reveals Recent Stats

At Paris 2024, Team USA's women's volleyball team set the tone, reaching the finals in Paris. While they landed just short of gold against Italy, it was a sign of things to come. Now, with the 2024-25 NCAA volleyball season underway, women's volleyball is breaking new ground. Last night's match between #5 Nebraska and #2 Stanford showed the rising popularity of the sport.

Last night's game between the two teams garnered 325,000 peak views at 7 pm CT on BTN. Meanwhile, another match-up between Louisville and Kentucky also crossed the 300k mark, reaching a 318,000 peak on ESPN at 6 pm CT. A third game between Texas and Baylor narrowly missed the mark with 296,000 viewers at 8 pm on ESPN, according to Avid on X . James Santelli put things into perspective. "Men's college basketball averages 299K viewers on ESPN2 and 248K viewers on BTN," he wrote on X.