The NCAA Volleyball Championship is on fire right now, and fans can’t get enough! The excitement is at an all-time high as four powerhouse teams have made it to the Final Four—aka the NCAA Semifinals. The regional leaders—Pittsburgh Panthers, Penn State, Nebraska Huskers, and Louisville Cardinals—are all in the running. The Panthers will face the Cardinals on December 19 at the KFC Yum! Center in downtown Louisville, and with all this buzz, it’s no surprise that ESPN has just served up the most-watched NCAA Volleyball Regional Round on record!

And the numbers really speak for themselves. The regionals had an average of 401k viewers, which is a huge 98% increase from last year. The regional semifinals pulled in 311k viewers—up 101% year-over-year, marking the best average ever for that round. And don’t even get me started on the regional finals, which had an average of 594k viewers, up 90% from last year. With all this excitement, it’s no wonder people are asking questions like Amy Pauly on X, “How far off are we from having these regional finals (sweet 16 & elite 8) at neutral sites??” Interesting thought, right? But the reality is, we’re not quite there yet.

Brian Fuchs, a climatologist and faculty member at the University of Nebraska–Lincoln, recently shared some interesting insights on X. He said, “I watch a lot of volleyball, not of just my Huskers but my daughter also plays D-1. For most fan bases, they are not there unless its a top match and even then you see open seats. Nebraska is an anomaly and some top programs avg in the 100’s for attendance. Keep as it is !” It’s a pretty wild reality check, right? But while this may be true for some programs, it doesn’t mean the sport’s fanbase isn’t growing. In fact, even during legendary matches like the 2023 NCAA Division I Women’s Volleyball Championship, the sport showed just how much potential it has.

The 2023 NCAA Volleyball Championship pulled in 1.7 million viewers, a huge 115% jump from the 2022 year. It was also the first title game broadcast on ABC, showing just how much the sport is growing. On top of that, 19,727 fans packed Amalie Arena in Tampa to watch Texas beat Nebraska, setting a new attendance record. However, this time, it might be the Nebraska Huskers who can rule the NCAA women’s volleyball scene.

Nebraska Huskers and other teams made it to the final four

The regional finals are now over, and what is getting much more interesting is the fast-approaching NCAA Women’s Volleyball Final Four: Semifinals. The national semifinals are set for Thursday in Louisville, with the hometown Cardinals taking on Pitt, then Nebraska in Penn State. The national final will be played on Sunday, 22nd December, on ABC. So are you looking forward to the Louisville versus Pitt of the ACC or the Nebraska and Penn State of the Big Ten?

Getting to this point was quite dramatic. In the regular season of the NCAA, Pitt defeated Louisville twice, and Penn State had a victory over the Nebraska Huskers. Now it gets real; the true status of those regular-season records will be determined in the semifinals. Nebraska was not shy in its 3-0 dismantling of Wisconsin in the regional final—with Taylor Landfair contributing 11 kills. On the other side, Penn State struggled through to the finals from the No. 2 seed, Creighton, which took five sets to dispose of it. However, due to the home advantage, the Nittany Lions managed to overcome this by winning the fifth set 15-7.

Could this be the year a woman head coach finally wins the NCAA volleyball championship? Louisville’s Dani Busboom Kelly and Penn State’s Katie Schumacher-Cawley are both in the running, but don’t count out Nebraska’s John Cook, who’s already won four titles. Who’s your pick to take it all?