Team Tampa Bay's Take with Joey Johnston - A Volleyball Season of Historic Proportions

By Joey Johnston

When the Road 2 Tampa Bay Volleyball Invitational is staged Friday and Saturday night at downtown Tampa’s Amalie Arena and USF’s Yuengling Center — bringing together the No. 8-ranked Penn State Nittany Lions, the No. 11 Florida Gators, the No. 20 Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets and the home-standing USF Bulls — the college volleyball season will officially begin.

And it’s a season of historic proportions.

Next Wednesday, it’s “Volleyball Day in Nebraska,’’ an outdoor double-header held by the powerhouse Nebraska Cornhuskers at Memorial Stadium, along with in-state teams Omaha, Nebraska-Kearney and Wayne State. Nearly 83,000 tickets were sold — in three days — and it will mark the second-largest attendance for a women’s sporting event in U.S. history (there were 90,185 fans at the Rose Bowl Stadium for the 1999 Women’s World Cup final when the U.S. defeated China on Brandi Chastain’s clinching penalty kick).

When the season concludes in Tampa during the NCAA Volleyball Final Four at Amalie Arena, ABC-TV will telecast the championship match for the first time (on Dec. 17, a Sunday afternoon instead of the traditional Saturday night window). The Thursday night semifinals are on ESPN.

“Adding ABC to the lineup will enhance our efforts to grow a sport with incredible talent and an already extremely loyal fanbase,’’ said ESPN senior director of programming and acquisitions Dan Margulis, who added more than 2,500 NCAA Division I women’s volleyball matches will be shown this season on ESPN platforms, including the streaming ESPN-Plus service.

For NCAA volleyball coaches, the ABC presence represents a major step forward.

“I think everyone who closely follows this sport would agree, ‘It’s about damn time.’ This is really important,’’ Wisconsin coach Kelly Sheffield told Lee Feinswog, the publisher and editor of VolleyballMag.com. “I have no concerns about people staying an extra day for the finals … it’s the championship!

“The increase in the number of households this will reach who previously couldn’t access it will be huge. If it’s promoted the right way, I wouldn’t be surprised to see two or three times more viewers than we’ve ever had.’’

The move is similar to moving last spring’s NCAA women’s basketball championship game to a Sunday afternoon ABC window. The LSU-Iowa game averaged 9.9-million viewers, up 103-percent from the previous season’s South Carolina-UConn game (4.85-million viewers on ESPN), making it the most-watched women’s basketball title game.

Additionally, Tampa Bay Sports Commission executive director Rob Higgins said his hosting organization is “laser-focused’’ on setting an NCAA Volleyball championship match attendance record for Amalie Arena (surpassing the 18,755 in 2021 when Wisconsin defeated Nebraska in Columbus, Ohio).

“We love the college volleyball trajectory and this season should be a remarkable journey,’’ Higgins said. “For our community to be the backdrop for the start and finish of the season, it’s truly phenomenal.’’

And well-deserved, according to the coaches and players.

“This is what every girl before us dreamed of for so many years — and we get to live it out,’’ Penn State middle blocker Taylor Trammell said. “I can’t even believe what’s going to happen in Nebraska. And by being on ABC, I think it shows that this sport is here to stay.’’

“I think we’re living in the best time for women’s volleyball,’’ Florida coach Mary Wise said. “The number of eyes watching us both in person and on TV, it has never been this high. We’re a niche sport and we have built this on the backs of … no one. That’s what I believe volleyball coaches are the most proud of, how we got to where we are today. We built this.’’