Gophers volleyball match with Wisconsin shatters TV viewership record

Sunday's Gophers-Wisconsin volleyball match on FOX was viewed by 1.66 million households, according to data released by Nielsen, shattering viewership records for the sport.

The three-set loss for the Gophers was the first Big Ten volleyball match to air on broadcast television and it broke the previous record of 1.19 million that was set in the 2021 NCAA Championship between Wisconsin and Nebraska which aired on ESPN.

It also topped the previous regular season high, the Nebraska-Wisconsin match a week prior on the Big Ten Network, by more than 1 million viewers.

"How many times have we seen when you give opportunities to elite women's sports that they show up?" Gophers coach Keegan Cook said. "You have to have opportunity in order to meet opportunity ... elated to see the response."

While the match was viewed as a follow to the Vikings-Packers game, there was nearly an hour between the two events with FOX airing a lengthy NFL postgame show that was surprisingly short on promotion for the volleyball match.

It didn't matter.

On Sunday, Minnesota and Wisconsin drew in more viewers than Formula One racing on ABC, more than the Premier League on NBC, they topped the Sunday morning Sports Center and NFL Countdown on ESPN. They beat the NBA and NHL. In the coveted age 18-49 demographic, the only league that drew in more viewers was the NFL.

"There's talks about more games happening in the future and I would say with the numbers that stuck around and watched that confirmed the direction that we're heading," Badgers coach Kelly Sheffield said.

There has been a concerted effort for years to find more traditional media coverage for college volleyball — a sport that routinely posts fantastic attendance numbers. Sheffield pointed out that you can often go to ESPNW, a site dedicated to women's sports, and not find a single story written about volleyball.

But the sport continues to show its allure, including earlier this season when Nebraska set the attendance record for a women's sporting event with 92,003 at Lincoln Memorial Stadium for a routine nonconference match against Omaha.

Cook said you can't help but look at the trajectory of the sport and be excited.

"You have Nebraska's volleyball day and other attendance records that have been broken and now this television broadcast, pretty outstanding," he said.