ABC will air its third NCAA championship event for a women’s sport of 2023 this weekend with the women’s volleyball final.
And while ESPNU ran into trouble with broadcast windows for the quarterfinal round last weekend, the semifinals on ESPN and the championship game on ABC are sure to draw a huge audience after a massive year for the sport.
On Thursday, ESPN coordinating producer Ericka Galbraith explained how the worldwide leader is keeping up with the surge of interest around women’s volleyball in an interview with Lindsay Gibbs of Power Plays.
“Throughout the course of the season, I think there were 20 matches that were upgraded to higher-profile windows,” Galbraith explained. “And as we were putting different broadcasts in these higher-profile windows, what we’re seeing is there’s just an increase of audience. The audience viewing is is there!”
Earlier this year, a Nebraska women’s volleyball match outdrew Nebraska football on the Big Ten Network. And on Fox, a women’s volleyball match with an NFL lead-in drew 1.7 million viewers.
“So I think from a programming perspective, that team worked really hard to say, ‘Hey, if the audience is there, then it’s a safe bet and a very good one to put this on ABC,'” Galbraith told Gibbs. “So again, we couldn’t be more excited. I think it’s tremendous for the sport. And we’re ready to go.”
ESPN has also produced tertiary content for women’s volleyball plans including a whiparound show on ESPN+ and narrative social content.
Galbraith believes the sport is growing and generating a broader audience even though it can be difficult to analyze ratings versus other sports and window.
“While it’s tricky to navigate our coverage against NFL and college football, it’s a really good alternative viewing experience,” Galbraith added. “Fox has showed that, Big Ten has showed that, and certainly ESPN and ABC want to show it as well.”
Last weekend, ESPN botched its broadcast windows for the quarterfinals. The network scheduled two-hour windows for each match, causing delays and channel changes throughout the tournament. This weekend, ESPN has a chance to redeem itself for volleyball heads.
Nebraska, Pitt, Wisconsin and Texas face off for the national championship at the University of South Florida in primetime on Friday night on ESPN (with 2.5 hours between matches) before the final on Sunday at 3 p.m. ET on ABC.
About Brendon Kleen
Brendon is a Media Commentary staff writer at Awful Announcing. He has also covered basketball and sports business at Front Office Sports, SB Nation, Uproxx and more.