As a five-time national champion, Nebraska volleyball has cultivated a culture built around success as one of the winningest programs in the sport. And, now, the Cornhuskers are looking to set a new standard by attempting to break the NCAA volleyball attendance record this summer.
The volleyball team will host Nebraska-Omaha as part of a historic doubleheader with Division II schools Nebraska-Kearney and Wayne State inside Memorial Stadium, the home of the Cornhuskers football team, the school announced Friday. Set to take place on Aug. 30, the matches will also mark the first in NCAA history to take place inside a football stadium, and Nebraska volleyball’s first match outdoors.
While it remains to be seen how much of Memorial Stadium’s 85,438 seats will be made available, Nebraska appears poised to swiftly eviscerate the sport’s current NCAA attendance record of 18,755 with a proper turnout. Interestingly, the Cornhuskers already have ties to the all-time mark, which was set in 2021 during their national championship loss to Wisconsin in Columbus.
“The attendance record for volleyball belongs in Nebraska,” athletic director Trev Alberts said in a press conference Friday. “I am going to implore Husker Nation, volleyball fans across the state of Nebraska to come to Memorial Stadium. We’re going to do this once and I want to hope that the number is large enough that nobody dares even try to attack our all-time record.”
To date, Nebraska has displayed an impressive ability to draw crowds on numerous occasions. The Cornhuskers have sold out an NCAA-record 303 consecutive regular-season matches at the Devaney Center, which holds a max of 7,907, while leading the nation in attendance since 2013.
As Nebraska approaches its shot at history, the program could still end up in the record books if it all falls short of the all-time mark by breaking the regular-season attendance record. The record currently belongs to Wisconsin after the Badgers hosted 16,833 fans for a match against Florida last September.
