Nebraska’s fight song begins, “There is no place like Nebraska.” When it comes to volleyball, those words never rang more true than Wednesday night.

The Cornhuskers laid claim to the world record for largest attendance at a women’s sporting event with 92,003 filling Memorial Stadium for their volleyball match against Omaha.

The university took aim at the record last spring when it announced it would hold a daylong celebration of a sport that enjoys immense popularity in this state of fewer than 2 million.

“We took a chance by playing in Memorial Stadium, and to go for the record and break it. … I don’t think anybody could have envisioned that when this whole thing started,” Nebraska coach John Cook said. “It feels like a great accomplishment for this sport called volleyball played by women. It’s a state treasure. We proved it.”

  • darganon@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    5
    ·
    1 year ago

    Volleyball is an incredible sport, and needs to be more popular in the US than it currently is. Nebraska is doing their part, it seems.

  • Flying Squid@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    5
    arrow-down
    10
    ·
    1 year ago

    Intentionally trying to break a record is not as impressive as people just really liking the sport. I doubt they’ll even get 10% of this crowd the next time they play. I’m not saying people shouldn’t like women’s volleyball. I like it in the olympics. I’m just saying most people don’t give a shit about it.

    • QHC@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      12
      ·
      edit-2
      1 year ago

      Am Nebraskan, can confirm we just really like volleyball. Look up sellout streaks for both football and volleyball if you don’t want to take my word on that.

      We didn’t set out to break the record, that only became the narrative the last week or so when it became clear it might happen.

      Good chance we do this again and still get 90k people to attend!

      • Flying Squid@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        3
        arrow-down
        3
        ·
        1 year ago

        I literally said I liked it and watched it in the Olympics. How is that shitting on the sport or not finding it interesting?