Future: Basketball or Volleyball?

[RetroVol]

Why Pro Athlete's Daughters Are Playing Volleyball

Interesting article. My wife just finished watching the All SEC National Championship volleyball match between Kentucky and Texas A&M. (She watches way more sports than I do -- golf, tennis, College World Series, etc.)

Is volleyball going to gain on basketball in popularity? I note that one advantage it has is that men's volleyball isn't nearly as big. Thus, women volleyball players don't run up as much against the criticism I've heard of women's basketball -- "I can go down to the Y any afternoon and see better." True or not, there are thousands upon thousands of guys who played basketball in HS who watch the women's game and are turned off by what they see. It was the reason Caitlin Clark had such an impact. Those thousands of guys couldn't do what she does, hadn't seen it much before, and found it spectacular and fun to watch. A "big" rebounding her own miss to shoot another layup at the rim just doesn't do it for them, even if it wins games. I'm not saying it's right; I'm just saying that is the thinking, and telling people what they should enjoy rarely works.

From the article:

Youth volleyball doesn’t get the same level of attention that the youth game does in sports like basketball or soccer, but there is a travel circuit that is absolutely massive. Calvin Booth described convention centers that hold over 100 courts with action from dawn till dusk. “There’s games going on from 8 am till 8 pm,” he said. “The amount of girls playing the sport is probably mind-blowing if you’re not really familiar with it.”

“It all starts at the grassroots,” Spears said. “If you came to one of these USAV volleyball tournaments and saw how many young women and girls are playing the game, and how invested the parents are, people would understand more why the game is starting to generate what it’s generating. You can go to a convention center and see 6,000 girls playing volleyball, whereas with a basketball tournament it’s probably 800.”

Girls who played volleyball, their parents and family members are likely to watch volleyball. $ chase eyeballs. Athletic departments chase $. What do things look like in 20-30 years?

 

[MAD]

Why Pro Athlete's Daughters Are Playing Volleyball

Interesting article. My wife just finished watching the All SEC National Championship volleyball match between Kentucky and Texas A&M. (She watches way more sports than I do -- golf, tennis, College World Series, etc.)

Is volleyball going to gain on basketball in popularity? I note that one advantage it has is that men's volleyball isn't nearly as big. Thus, women volleyball players don't run up as much against the criticism I've heard of women's basketball -- "I can go down to the Y any afternoon and see better." True or not, there are thousands upon thousands of guys who played basketball in HS who watch the women's game and are turned off by what they see. It was the reason Caitlin Clark had such an impact. Those thousands of guys couldn't do what she does, hadn't seen it much before, and found it spectacular and fun to watch. A "big" rebounding her own miss to shoot another layup at the rim just doesn't do it for them, even if it wins games. I'm not saying it's right; I'm just saying that is the thinking, and telling people what they should enjoy rarely works.

From the article:



Girls who played volleyball, their parents and family members are likely to watch volleyball. $ chase eyeballs. Athletic departments chase $. What do things look like in 20-30 years?

If you look at it based on women’s professional sports in the United States, I’d say volleyball is a very distant 4th after basketball, soccer and tennis. Is there a pro volleyball league?

But in college the big draw is still basketball followed by softball, volleyball and gymnastics.

 

[kell7517]

Why Pro Athlete's Daughters Are Playing Volleyball

Interesting article. My wife just finished watching the All SEC National Championship volleyball match between Kentucky and Texas A&M. (She watches way more sports than I do -- golf, tennis, College World Series, etc.)

Is volleyball going to gain on basketball in popularity? I note that one advantage it has is that men's volleyball isn't nearly as big. Thus, women volleyball players don't run up as much against the criticism I've heard of women's basketball -- "I can go down to the Y any afternoon and see better." True or not, there are thousands upon thousands of guys who played basketball in HS who watch the women's game and are turned off by what they see. It was the reason Caitlin Clark had such an impact. Those thousands of guys couldn't do what she does, hadn't seen it much before, and found it spectacular and fun to watch. A "big" rebounding her own miss to shoot another layup at the rim just doesn't do it for them, even if it wins games. I'm not saying it's right; I'm just saying that is the thinking, and telling people what they should enjoy rarely works.

From the article:



Girls who played volleyball, their parents and family members are likely to watch volleyball. $ chase eyeballs. Athletic departments chase $. What do things look like in 20-30 years?

How did she watch the National Championship when it’s not until Sunday? If that’s the case. Can she tell Me who won the CFP championship? I could use a few dollars.

 

[RetroVol]

How did she watch the National Championship when it’s not until Sunday? If that’s the case. Can she tell Me who won the CFP championship? I could use a few dollars.

Oops! I should have know better. She watches almost every thing after recording it to skip commercials. She watched Kentucky beat Wisconsin to set up the All SEC final. Wish I could blame this one on AI hallucinations!

 

[rickyyrs]

Catlin Clark is a once in a life time player. The WNBA is too dumb to market her, all they want to do is take her out. She could be the Michael Jordan of the WNBA. But you got a lot of jealous players that do not like her. I do believe Volleyball for women is fast growing. I never watched Volleyball until the last couple years. Two years ago when the Lady Vols went far in the tourney.

 

[vol94]

Catlin Clark is a once in a life time player. The WNBA is too dumb to market her, all they want to do is take her out. She could be the Michael Jordan of the WNBA. But you got a lot of jealous players that do not like her. I do believe Volleyball for women is fast growing. I never watched Volleyball until the last couple years. Two years ago when the Lady Vols went far in the tourney.

This. I don’t understand it. The commish is ignorant as she antagonized Clark with her petty comments. Instead she rather embrace Reese who often plays the race card.

 

[RetroVol]

If you look at it based on women’s professional sports in the United States, I’d say volleyball is a very distant 4th after basketball, soccer and tennis. Is there a pro volleyball league?

But in college the big draw is still basketball followed by softball, volleyball and gymnastics.

I was curious, so I gave this to the big 4 AIs and 3 of the four put volleyball as 2nd behind basketball, with two noting that Nebraska's volleyball program is the only women's program in the country operating at a profit. Gymnastics isn't at all that many schools, but it's huge where it is and individual athletes (Livy Dunne) generate major NIL income. Gemini gave this chart:

Rank	Sport	Est. Avg Revenue	Key Revenue Driver
1	Basketball	$233,900	TV Rights & March Madness
2	Volleyball	$103,900	Ticket Sales & Arena Attendance
3	Gymnastics	$91,300	Ticket Sales & Niche Popularity
4	Softball	$83,500	World Series TV Ratings
5	Soccer	$58,800	Volume of games

 

[MAD]

I was curious, so I gave this to the big 4 AIs and 3 of the four put volleyball as 2nd behind basketball, with two noting that Nebraska's volleyball program is the only women's program in the country operating at a profit. Gymnastics isn't at all that many schools, but it's huge where it is and individual athletes (Livy Dunne) generate major NIL income. Gemini gave this chart:

Rank	Sport	Est. Avg Revenue	Key Revenue Driver
1	Basketball	$233,900	TV Rights & March Madness
2	Volleyball	$103,900	Ticket Sales & Arena Attendance
3	Gymnastics	$91,300	Ticket Sales & Niche Popularity
4	Softball	$83,500	World Series TV Ratings
5	Soccer	$58,800	Volume of games

That’s good info.

 

[HerdLVol]

My granddaughter plays on a National travel team 17u. The money involved is astounding. There’s a fee to join. Sometimes quite high. There are private lessons/@ additional cost. The biggest cost is the travel as one can imagine. And yes she has played in tournaments where hundreds of courts were involved. Sometimes involving multiple venues at the same time . It’s a big deal. Thousands of girls involved. I don’t have any experience with travel basketball. But I imagine it’s similar. Big $ involved.

 

[livefaith]

Quick story here. In 1985 as a strapping 21yo Moc headed toward graduation, my older married siblings invited me to The Cayman Islands for some SCUBA for a week. One evening we bought Tix to a giant open air catamaran dinner cruise of about 50-75 people. Perfect evening. It was adults only and 95% older couples. Except for a handful of young adults ... to be exact, 1 male and about 6 college female co-eds who were there representing the Texas A&M volleyball team extremely well. After dinner and sundown and music and flowing liquid, the cruise atmosphere went from slightly stodgy to quite raucous. Being the lone collegiate male on board suddenly became extremely demanding in the interest and attention of each of the lady Aggies. Let's just say that I have had a very special and warm place in my heart for that team for the past 40 years. Go Aggies!

 

[Rooster1]

Quick story here. In 1985 as a strapping 21yo Moc headed toward graduation, my older married siblings invited me to The Cayman Islands for some SCUBA for a week. One evening we bought Tix to a giant open air catamaran dinner cruise of about 50-75 people. Perfect evening. It was adults only and 95% older couples. Except for a handful of young adults ... to be exact, 1 male and about 6 college female co-eds who were there representing the Texas A&M volleyball team extremely well. After dinner and sundown and music and flowing liquid, the cruise atmosphere went from slightly stodgy to quite raucous. Being the lone collegiate male on board suddenly became extremely demanding in the interest and attention of each of the lady Aggies. Let's just say that I have had a very special and warm place in my heart for that team for the past 40 years. Go Aggies!

You know the rule, pics or it didn’t happen………

 

[rickyyrs]

This. I don’t understand it. The commish is ignorant as she antagonized Clark with her petty comments. Instead she rather embrace Reese who often plays the race card.

I agree 100% I do not understand it. Reese thinks she is the best player. She shoots bricks from 5 feet. They talk about her rebounding, but most of her rebounds are her missed shots.