Over 90,000 fans are expected at Memorial Stadium to watch the match between the Cornhuskers and Omaha
Published 03:39, 29 Aug 2023
Memorial Stadium will host the most-attended match in women's volleyball history in the United States (Photo: Nebraska)
Big Ten members Nebraska are set to make history in the American collegiate sports system on Wednesday when they expect over 90,000 people in attendance during their non-conference match against Omaha at Memorial Stadium, in Lincoln.
The encounter, set to start at 19:00 local time (00:00 UTC, Thursday), will be streamed live for VBTV subscribers located outside North America – subscribers anywhere in the world will be able to watch it 24 hours later.
The match between Nebraska and Ohama will be part of the festivities for the ‘Volleyball Day in Nebraska’, an event held to celebrate the popularity of the sport in the state and that will also count on an exhibition match between Nebraska-Kearney and Wayne State and a music concert at the stadium that’s typically used by the college’s American football team. A volleyball court was set up on the field and the matches will be played outdoors.
“I think it's going to be an amazing opportunity and experience,” said Nebraska junior libero Lexi Rodriguez. “I'm so honored that I'm still in college to be a part of it because it's going to be something that I'll remember for the rest of my life. And for not just volleyball, but women's sports in general, I think this is a huge monument for where we need to go in the right direction, and I'm just super excited to be a part of it.”
Tickets were put on sale in April and in just over 48 hours, nearly 83,000 had been sold. That number of fans would already be more than enough to set a new attendance record for National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) volleyball matches, vastly overcoming the 18,755 registered in the championship game of the 2021 season, between Big Ten members Nebraska and Wisconsin, but there’s potential for more.
If Nebraska's expectations of having nearly 95,000 people inside the stadium are met (more than 90,000 tickets had been sold by the beginning of August), the match would set attendance records for women’s sports events both inside the United States – surpassing the 90,185 crowd that watched the 1999 soccer World Cup Final in California – and internationally – overcoming the 91,648-attendance registered in a soccer European Champions League match in Barcelona, Spain, last April.
“It's a really hard thing to grasp that so many people are going to be there watching us, but at the end of the day we're very grateful that Husker Nation is as strong as it is and that we even have the ability to play in the football stadium,” junior outside hitter Merritt Beason commented. “It's huge for not only volleyball, but women's sports in general, so for us to be a part of it is really special. It'll be history in the making, and for us to be a part of it and to play in it, is really cool. Not many people get to say that they did.”
— Nebraska Volleyball (@Huskervball) August 28, 2023
