Three months and a week after Kentucky and Nebraska kicked things off on August 28 in Louisville, the NCAA Tournament begins Thursday.
We will continue to offer the match list here in chronological order. They can be seen (only) on ESPN+ and all times are Eastern.
3:30 — Loyola Chicago vs. BYU
4:30 — Western Kentucky vs. Minnesota
5 — UT Arlington vs. USC
5 — Texas State vs. Missouri
5:30 — Tennessee vs. Georgia Tech
5:30 — Ole Miss vs. Florida State
5:30 — South Carolina vs. Dayton
6:30 — Purdue vs. Western Michigan
6:30 — FGCU vs. Marquette
7 — Hawai’i vs. TCU
7:30 — Cleveland State vs. Kentucky
7:30 — Texas vs. Texas A&M-Corpus Christi
8 — South Dakota vs. Creigton
8 — Wichita State vs. SMU
8 — Wisconsin vs. Fairfield
8 — Wofford vs. Baylor
9:30 — High Point vs. Oregon
9:30 — Utah vs. College of Charleston
Also in this edition of Volleyball Today, ESPN does some well-deserved volleyball-ratings chest-beating, the Big Ten announced its season honors, the coaching carousel spins on, Bowling Green won the NIVC opener, and Pitt’s Olivia Babcock played water polo as a kid. Who knew?
🗣️ @NCAAVolleyball scores its best regular season EVER on ESPN platforms
🏐 Most-consumed season on record (635M total mins)
🏐 Averaged 140,000 viewers, up 21% YoY
🏐 Increased viewership YoY among women (+20%), P18-24 (+70%), P2-17 (+90)#NCAAWVB pic.twitter.com/FIKFXLX14d— ESPN PR (@ESPNPR) December 4, 2024
Boffo ESPN volleyball ratings
ESPN announced that 2024 marked the most-watch college volleyball regular season on its outlets, up 21 percent. VBM’s Larry Hamel breaks it down:
The raw number of a 21% bump in viewership for NCAA women’s volleyball across ESPN platforms during the regular season continued the trend of atypical audience growth even as traditional cable TV continues to see its subscribership decrease. This adds to the value of NCAA volleyball as a TV property.
The information does not detail how that growth is distributed across ESPN’s cable channels and its ESPN+ subscription streaming service. But since the average was 140,000, I strongly suspect only the linear cable outlets were counted. Some of that increase could be attributed to the flagship ESPN channel’s telecasting more matches since its typical viewership far outstrips…
Click Here to Read the Full Original Article at Volleyballmag.com…