Is ESPN "Holding Back" NCAA Volleyball?

The 2020-21 NCAA Volleyball season was really weird. No crowds for most of the matches, naturally. Only four conferences – the ACC, Big 12, SEC and Sun Belt – actually played in the fall, with the rest waiting until January to start play.

The tournament was also weird. It was the time of pandemic "bubbles," and the Volleyball Tournament was played at the CHI Health Center Omaha, with a convention center and arena all in one place.

It would've been even weirder if ESPN had its way. See, Bristol planned to stream the first two rounds of the tournament without any announcers. Don't recognize all the players? Or notice all the officials' calls? Sorry, camera shots and graphics would have to do.

Of course, there was outrage. Rightly so. Among the many calling out ESPN was Wisconsin volleyball head coach Kelly Sheffield, who called it "stunning" and "lazy" that "you’re just going to be looking at silence while watching NCAA tournament games."

ESPN reversed course and cobbled together some broadcasters. The Tournament went on with announcers (most of them working remotely) for every match. Bullying can work!

Sheffield was back at it again on Wednesday, quote-tweeting a post about the first two rounds of the NCAA Volleyball tournament being streaming-only on ESPN+ and saying...

Sheffield's tweet has been retweeted by the volleyball head coaches at Kentucky, Butler, Georgetown and by Pitt's associate head coach Kellen Petrone. As we know from many a Twitter bio, "Retweets are not endorsements," but I'll safely assume that those coaches would echo Sheffield's sentiments.

What's Holding Volleyball Back?

I get where they're coming from, and it's understandable that these coaches are advocating for their sport and their athletes. But I don't think it's ESPN holding back the sport in this instance. I think it's the reality that the first round of the NCAA Volleyball tournament is... not all that entertaining.

While the first two full days of March Madness make for fantastic viewing, the 12-over-5 upset is not as common on the volleyball court, nor any other real upset for that matter. The early rounds of the tournament have more chalk than your parents' elementary school.

Over the last three seasons, a 1-through-6 seed beat the underdog 94.4% of the time, and 76.4% of those matchups ended in the favorite sweeping in three sets. The general public doesn't have much interest in Pitt making mincemeat of Colgate, Coppin State and Morehead State (even though I personally enjoy it).

There is still enjoyment to be had in some of the early-round matches, and ESPN has done an effective job at covering them with a RedZone Channel-esque whip-around show called The 5th Set. A studio crew hops around to the matches of interest and provides analysis during the downtime. And it'll be back again for this year's tournament:

• Thursday, December 4 - 5:00-7:00 PM and 9:00-11:00 PM (ESPNU)
• Friday, December 5 - 5:30-7:00 PM and 9:00-11:00 PM (ESPN2)
• Saturday, December 6 - 6:00-10:00 PM (ESPNU)

Those two-hour breaks in the broadcasts on Thursday and Friday? They're for basketball – a Clemson-Alabama women's hoops game on Thursday and a Gonzaga-Kentucky men's hoops game on Friday.

And therein lies the biggest roadblock to greater TV coverage for the opening rounds of the volleyball tournament: basketball.

ESPN really turns up the heat on its college basketball coverage beginning in mid-November with Feast Week events, then the first week of December presents a prime opportunity with the college football regular season wrapped up. Bristol has made the business choice that hoops would be a better draw than a parade of first-round volleyball sweeps, and they're probably right.

I am more than happy to call out ESPN when they screw up, like leaving a Top 5 Pitt-Stanford match to wither on streaming when there was an open TV slot. But there are only a handful of schools – Nebraska, Texas and Wisconsin among them – that could drum up a big audience for their volleyball team to smack down the East Tennessee States of the world. In this case, I think having The 5th Set on linear TV is a worthy compromise, rather than trying to find 32 slots for first-round matches.

It's in the second round where I think progress can be made. Those matches are generally closer and more entertaining (remember Louisville fighting off multiple match points last December to stave off an upset by Northern Iowa?). In future years the NCAA could adjust the opening weekend schedule so that there are second-round matches on Saturday and Sunday and thus more opportunities to get tournament matches onto ESPN, ESPN2 and ESPNU.

What We Will Have on TV

Coverage starts to get better – MUCH better – starting with Regionals:

Thursday, December 11 (Sweet 16)
1 PM on ESPN2
3:30 PM on ESPN2
7 PM on ESPN2
9:30 PM on ESPN2

Friday, December 12 (Sweet 16)
Noon on ESPN
2:30 PM on ESPN
7 PM on ESPN2
9:30 PM on ESPN2

Saturday, December 13 (Elite 8)
5 PM on ESPN2
7:30 PM on ESPN2

Sunday, December 14 (Elite 8)
3 PM on ABC
7:30 PM on ESPN

This setup, expanding to four days of action from two, was implemented last year, and it's great. Previous years were full of overlapping matches and way too much on ESPNU, without as much on ESPN and ESPN2.

The improvements were reflected in the ratings, with Regional Rounds viewership up 98% compared to 2023 and providing the largest source of growth for the 41% boost in total tournament viewership.

That's where volleyball will ultimately succeed: not by begging, but by viewership forcing ESPN to go where there's attention to be grabbed. Whether Kelly Sheffield and other coaches like it or not, ESPN has the rights to the volleyball championships through 2031. The Worldwide Leader has been slowly but surely giving college volleyball more publicity and better coverage. My advice? Let Bristol cook.

P.S. If you're a fan interested in watching the entire tournament, it's as easy as tossing ESPN $30 for a month of their ESPN Unlimited package (or $13 for ESPN Select if you already have cable or a cable-like service). Compare that to what cord-cutting baseball fans had to cobble together for the MLB Playoffs or the eight different services they'll likely need in order to catch every game in 2026.