Here’s Why Nebraska’s Women’s Volleyball Team Played for Nearly 100K People
The Nebraska Women's Volleyball team are now the proud owners of a new world record. The five-time NCAA champions competed in a match in front of nearly 100,000 people on Wednesday (Aug. 30).
Why? Because they could.
Volleyball has become very popular in Nebraska, and fans regularly pack into the Devaney Center to see the Huskers play. The team has led the nation in attendance every season since 2013, and they have sold out 306 consecutive regular-season matches.
Wednesday's match was a chance to put those numbers to the test.
Husker nation poured into Memorial Stadium — the school's football venue — to watch their powerhouse squad shut out Omaha 3-0. The final tally of people in the stands was 92,003, which was not only an attendance record for the stadium, but also a new world record for women's sports.
The previous record was set in 2022 during a Champions League match between FC Barcelona and Wolfsburg.
"It's incredible. I don't have enough words to describe it," Nebraska middle blocker Andi Jackson tells ESPN. "We were walking out of the tunnel after the second set, and we heard on the speaker we had just broken the world record. Everyone was trying to stay locked in, but we were also so excited. I can't describe how grateful I am to be a part of it."
The Huskers are not strangers to breaking attendance records — they were a part of an NCAA record for a women's volleyball match in 2021. At that time, 18,755 fans showed up to watch Nebraska face off against Wisconsin in the National Championship at Nationwide Arena in Columbus, Ohio.
The Importance for Young Female Athletes
"I've been saying it's so huge for little girls to get to see a women's sport and volleyball being played on this big of a stage and having so many people invest in it," junior Lexi Rodriguez explains. "When you're little, you have big dreams and big goals. Having this to look up to is something that a lot of little girls will keep in the back of their mind when they're pursuing the sport of volleyball."
