The University of Nebraska laid claim to the world record for largest attendance at a women's sporting event with 92,003 filling Memorial Stadium in Lincoln on Wednesday night for the Cornhuskers' 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, the AP reports. The Nebraska Volleyball Day event began with an exhibition between in-state Division II powers Nebraska-Kearney and Wayne State and was followed by the Huskers' regular-season match. Country artist Scotty McCreery performed afterward.
The Cornhuskers swept Omaha 25-14, 25-14, 25-13, per the Daily Nebraskan. The previous attendance record for a women's sporting event was 91,648, set during a UEFA Women's Champions League soccer match when Barcelona defeated Real Madrid 5-2 at the Camp Nou Stadium in 2022. Memorial Stadium's official capacity is just over 85,000 for football, but the number was higher for this event because there were seats and standing room on the field. The event smashed the previous NCAA Volleyball attendance record of 18,755.
Volleyball has surpassed basketball as the No. 1 girls high school team sport in the United States. It's long been No. 1 in Nebraska. High school teams from across the state were excused from classes to attend the game Wednesday. "The women's team here is a national contender pretty much every year and women's volleyball is exploding," NCAA president Charlie Baker told the AP, "so you put all those things together and it's a seminal event, it's a great moment." The American record attendance for a women's sporting event had been 90,185 for the 1999 World Cup soccer final between the United States and China at the Rose Bowl in Pasadena, California.
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