Split Zone Duo launches volleyball podcast ‘Six Zone Duo’

Split Zone Duo, the popular college football outlet headed by Alex Kirshner and Richard Johnson, is expanding into volleyball.

On Wednesday, Split Zone Duo announced the debut of Six Zone Duo, a new volleyball podcast featuring Erin Sorensen of the popular Nebraska athletics Substack Counter Read, and Amie Just, a Nebraska sports columnist for the Lincoln Journal Star. The duo, both based in what is essentially the epicenter of women’s volleyball in this country, Nebraska, will cover the biggest storylines in both the college and professional game as it continues to soar in popularity.

The debut episode of Six Zone Duo was released today.

In an announcement about the new venture, Johnson highlighted why Split Zone Duo was intrigued by the proposition of launching a volleyball podcast, citing the dearth of coverage the sport receives outside of the matches themselves.

“We started to dig into the dynamics of a sport that was exploding with viewership and it was easy to see why,” Johnson wrote. “One night last December I couldn’t sleep and turned on some highlights of the NCAA tournament. The matches are fast-paced, and the athleticism of the women on the court is unreal. We dug into the dynamics of the burgeoning pro leagues, LOVB and MLV. Pretty much everyone we talked to in the sports business world and college athletics acknowledged that the sport has all the ingredients to boom. But one thing kept coming up: it’s not really being covered in a lot of places beyond the matches, and there really isn’t a good reason why.”

Sorensen expanded on the origins of the podcast in a post on Counter Read.

“When Split Zone Duo approached me about helping launch a national women’s volleyball podcast, I could not say no,” she wrote. “The sport is having such an interesting, exciting moment, and I do not mean that in a vague ‘women’s sports are growing’ kind of way, even though they absolutely are. I mean, you can feel it.

“You can feel it in the arenas. You can feel it in the TV numbers. You can feel it in the way people talk about the players now. You can feel it in the fact that college volleyball has become appointment viewing for more people and that professional volleyball is getting more investment, more attention and more room to grow.

“The audience is already here. The coverage should be here, too.”

Six Zone Duo will air weekly, and the duo of Sorensen and Just will travel across the country to the biggest games — both pro and college — throughout the season.

Given the attention television networks seem to be giving the sport, with bigger and better broadcast windows, TV deals for burgeoning pro leagues, and record-setting viewership, it only makes sense for a company to try its hand at a podcast dedicated to covering the sport at the highest levels. Six Zone Duo appears to be doing just that.