"Volleyball Day in Nebraska" sets world record for attendance for a women's sports event
The volleyball doubleheader in the U.S. drew a crowd of 92,003 spectators to beat an earlier record set at a women's football match in 2022 in Barcelona, Spain.
Volleyball
A new benchmark in women’s sport was set in Lincoln, Nebraska on Wednesday (30 August 2023), where 92,003 people packed a stadium to watch a volleyball doubleheader.
Dubbed “Volleyball Day in Nebraska”, the event in the U.S. broke the world record for the biggest attendance for a women’s sports event. The previous record of 91,648 was set on 20 April 2022 at Camp Nou in Spain when Barcelona's women's football players hosted Wolfsburg in the UEFA Champions League semi-final.
The most attended women's sports event in the United States, until Wednesday's record breaker, was the FIFA Women's World Cup final between USA and China on 10 July 1999. It was played at the Rose Bowl in Pasadena, California in front of a crowd of 90,185 soccer fans.
"Volleyball Day in Nebraska" was held in the University of Nebraska-Lincoln's Memorial Stadium, which typically hosts college American football games in the city.
The volleyball doubledeader saw five-time North American NCAA champions Nebraska Huskers beat the Omaha Mavericks 3-0, to follow on the evening's opener where Wayne State beat Nebraska Kearney in a Division II game.
Tickets for the event cost $25 USD for adults and $5 for high school students and children. However, some tickets were sold for as much as $400 on the secondary market.
The attendance record was announced to the spectators after the second set of the Nebraska-Omaha game to wild applause from the stands.