Volleyball more popular than Women's Basketball?

[vu72]

It would seem so.  Both sports sell tickets for $10 so there is no inherent advantage to one being free and the other not. 

I just checked the attendance for the just concluded Volleyball season and compared it to last year's Women's basketball attendance.  What I found was that 4,173 people attended Volleyball matches and 7,093 folks saw a Women's game last year.  The difference is all about the number of games played with Volleyball hosting 9 and WB hosting 16.

On AVERAGE, Volleyball drew better at 464 people per match versus 443 for Women's Basketball. 

I enjoy both and if you haven't had the chance to watch Volleyball I would encourage you to do so.  It is fast, exciting and, we have a pretty good team!

[vu84v2]

I really enjoy women's volleyball. It is unique in that I feel that it is better to watch than men's volleyball. The women are great athletes and the game relies on great team play and depth, but most importantly the nature of the women's game is that the rallies tend to be much longer and exciting.

A few other comments on women's volleyball:
-Take a look at attendance for women's volleyball in regions where the sport is very popular (e.g., Nebraska). Schools like Nebraska, Creighton, Texas and Minnesota average higher attendance than most mid-majors get for men's basketball.
-Like many women's sports, there tends to be enormous variance between the talent levels of the very top teams and the very good teams, and then between the very good teams and the rest of D1 teams. Part of this is the nature of volleyball - your best hitters are only in the front position for a little more than 50% of a game, so the teams that get the best AND more talent dominate. It is far more likely that a mid-major makes a run in the NCAA tournament in basketball than in women's volleyball. Northern Iowa has one of the best mid-major programs in the country. They were 0-6 against ranked teams this year, but have pulled off big wins against top teams in prior years. However, they are the exception among mid-major programs in women's volleyball.