How big is Nebraska volleyball?
We'll know the answer to that question a little better this fall when the Husker volleyball team plays one of its regular-season matches outdoors at the 85,000-seat Memorial Stadium and sees just how many people show up.
Nebraska will play Omaha on Aug. 30 at 7 p.m. That’s a Wednesday night, and after initially thinking about how great that scene will be, the mind wanders. How big of a crowd will the Huskers get? 30,000? 40,000? More?
When Nebraska coach John Cook travels the state to give speeches, fans tell him how they wish they could get tickets to attend a match. But they’re hard to get, even after the move from the NU Coliseum to the Devaney Sports Center. Now everyone who wants a ticket should be able to get one.
Through these gates.
— Husker Volleyball (@Huskervball)
8 . 30 . 23
And while events such as the Husker football Spring Game happen every year, this may be a one-time occasion.
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The match will be the night before the Nebraska football team opens the season on the road at Minnesota, and about 2½ weeks before the Huskers' first home football game. It will come during the second week of the volleyball season.
The Memorial Stadium match will include more than just the Huskers, and will be called “Volleyball Day in Nebraska.â€
At 4:30 p.m., Nebraska-Kearney and Wayne State will play an exhibition match (Aug. 30 falls before the NCAA Division II regular season begins).
And after NU’s match, there will be a concert featuring a national recording artist. That artist hasn’t been announced. If approved by the NU Board of Regents, there will be alcohol sales, similar to the Garth Brooks concert at the stadium in 2021.
The match was announced Friday morning, and later in the day came a news conference at Memorial Stadium that included Nebraska Gov. Jim Pillen and NU athletic director Trev Alberts.
Ticket sales begin April 25 for Nebraska volleyball season ticket holders, with general public sales one day later. Tickets will be $25 for adults and $5 for high school age and under (concert included).
The Husker match will be televised on Big Ten Network.
Attendance will likely be the largest ever for an NCAA volleyball match, potentially topping the current mark of 18,755 when Nebraska and Wisconsin played in the 2021 national championship match in Columbus, Ohio.
NU does not currently hold the NCAA record for regular-season attendance. Wisconsin got that in 2022 with 16,833 for a match that it moved to its basketball arena.
Cook anticipates a “special day for the sport of volleyball.â€
“At Nebraska, we’re always aiming to ‘Dream Big’ and raise the bar, and there can’t be a much bigger way to do that than to play a match outdoors in a 90,000-seat football stadium,†he said.
The coach hasn’t spent a lot of time thinking about what the attendance will be, but assistant coach Jaylen Reyes has. And now Cook is thinking it could get really big.
Cook told Reyes that he didn’t know if NU should play a stadium match.
“He said, ‘Coach, you have no idea. This is going to be huge,’†Cook said. “So I said, ‘You really think we can get 20,000? He goes, ‘Oh, coach, we’re going to get 40,000-plus.’
"Trev and I didn’t talk about (numbers). We just thought Husker Nation is going to step up.â€
Alberts wants to celebrate women’s sports. And the three other participating schools will get $50,000 apiece, which can really help in supporting those programs.
It’s also clear that when Wisconsin claimed the attendance record last fall, Alberts became determined to pull off a stadium match.
“We’re going to do this once,†Alberts said. “And I want to hope that the number is large enough that nobody dares even try to attack our all-time record.â€
Nebraska’s regular court will be placed on top of the football field. On a rendering that gives an idea of how the stadium will look that day, the court is near the north end zone. But as more tickets sell the court may shift to make it more accessible to fans seated in different corners of the stadium.
“My hope and goal is that we get to keep moving that court a little bit to the south end zone,†Alberts said.
Cook has big dreams for Husker volleyball. He felt the same thing from Alberts in the past few months.
“He’s like, ‘We’re going to the stadium,’†Cook said.
All of the metrics indicate Nebraska should draw a huge crowd.
NU has led the nation in attendance each season since moving to the Devaney Center, averaging 8,190 fans per match last season. And 13 of the 14 largest crowds for a regular-season NCAA volleyball match have come in the state of Nebraska — at Omaha’s arena or the Devaney Center before the renovation.
Of the seven highest-attended NCAA championship matches — each more than 16,900 — six came when the Final Four was held in Omaha or the Huskers were in the final.
What’s more, Nebraska also draws sellouts for its fall scrimmage and spring exhibition matches.
And interest in Husker volleyball goes beyond those who can regularly attend a match. Nebraska’s match against Wisconsin last November had 587,000 TV viewers, which is the most ever for a volleyball match on Big Ten Network. NU’s last national championship match appearance drew 1.19 million viewers.
Cook was admittedly hesitant about playing in the stadium. He likes routine and structure when it comes to a volleyball season, and this isn’t that. So Alberts went to work on Cook’s concerns. The football field is uneven, so NU will build a platform for the court. Officials set the start time so the sun shouldn’t cause major problems.
On the field, there’ll be some seating near the court, just like at Devaney.
“I think it will be like a prize fight,†Cook said. “They’ll have the courtside seating down there on the field. It will be pretty cool.â€
If there is severe weather, the match will move to Devaney.
The schedule worked out well because the Husker football team, the stadium's regular tenant, starts the season on the road. With the setup involved, the football team won’t have access to the stadium floor for about six days. The volleyball team will get to practice in the stadium the day before the match.
Omaha, Nebraska’s opponent in the stadium match, had a 20-11 record last season. NU played Omaha in 2021, with the Mavs putting a scare into the Huskers before Nebraska won in five sets. The Omaha roster has several players from the state, including Lincoln Lutheran product Marriah Buss.
Alberts led the Omaha Athletic Department for 12 years — he hired Mavericks coach Matt Buttermore — before coming to Lincoln in 2021.
In his 27 years at Nebraska, Cook has spent many nights inside Memorial Stadium. If his team has an afternoon match, he can take in a night football game from near the Husker sideline.
Now he’ll be watching from the bench as the Huskers play under the lights.
“The vision in my head was Garth Brooks a couple of years ago," Cook said. "That was a beautiful night, and a great concert. And people were fired up.â€