If not quite at last year’s levels, the NCAA women’s volleyball tournament still ended on a historically strong note.
Sunday’s Penn State-Louisville NCAA women’s volleyball national championship averaged 1.3 million viewers on ABC, down from Texas-Nebraska last year (1.6M) but still the third-largest college volleyball audience on record — behind last year’s aforementioned national championship and an NFL-adjacent regional window on FOX earlier that season.
The Nittany Lions’ four-set win, which peaked with 1.9 million viewers, was the third game of this year’s tournament to rank among the top nine. Both of this year’s semifinals also made the list, with Penn State-Nebraska ranking fourth and Louisville-Pittsburgh ninth. Overall, six of the top nine have come in the past two seasons.
Prior to last year, the national championship aired solely on cable — and usually on ESPN2. Two years ago, the final national championship to air on ESPN2 averaged shy of 800,000 viewers.
For the year, the women’s volleyball final ranks sixth among college sports national championship events behind the College Football Playoff National Championship (Michigan-Washington: 25.1M), the title games of women’s basketball (South Carolina-Iowa: 18.9M) and men’s basketball (UConn-Purdue: 14.8M), Game 3 of the Men’s College World Series (Tennessee-Texas A&M: 3.3M) and Game 2 of the Women’s College World Series (Oklahoma-Texas: 2.0M).
It comfortably outdrew the women’s gymnastics national championship on ABC in April (856K), the rain-affected men’s lacrosse title game on ESPN in May (594K), and the NCAA men’s hockey final on ESPN2 in April (458K).
Most-watched college national championship events in 2024
