Texas A&M’s all-time volleyball attendance record may not last one calendar year if Texas volleyball coach Jerritt Elliott can help it.
Elliott told reporters Monday that he’s open to playing a non-conference game inside Moody Center — UT’s basketball arena — next season and has already had preliminary talks with Stanford and Wisconsin as opponents.
“We’re looking at some tentative dates. We at least have one right now that’s kind of set up,” Elliott said Monday. “We would like to, obviously, set the all-time attendance record in the state of Texas.
“I think we have the following now,” Elliott added. “Basically, every one of our home games is pretty much sold out. You can see the fanfare of what it’s taken to be a part of it. Now, there’s the supply and demand issue, which now obviously creates a bigger issue for people to talk about.”
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The Horns have a dynamic atmosphere and attendance track record inside 4,000-seat Gregory Gym. Playing a game inside Moody Center is the logical next step. He’s not quite ready to try and fill up Royal-Memorial Stadium the way Nebraska did its football stadium, though. Playing in a 100,000-seat football stadium presents all new challenges.
“I would rather get Moody packed. Let’s see if that’s feasible,” Elliott said.
The Aggies just set an attendance record for the largest volleyball crowd in the state of Texas when they drew 9,236 last Friday against the Longhorns. A game in Moody Center could easily shatter that.
A lower bowl configuration could hold 10,000, but if school officials open the upper deck, it could reach 16,000, Elliott believes. “That depends on my boss of what sections he's opening up,” Elliott joked.
“I know my phone’s blowing up a lot more of trying to find tickets from people that I know are people that want to be a part of the game,” Elliott said.
The Longhorns have participated in multiple attendance-record-shattering games this season. They opened the season against Wisconsin at Fiserv Forum in Milwaukee. A crowd of 14,035 made it into the NBA arena.
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The Texas-Wisconsin game also drew 584,000 TV viewers, according to Sports Media Watch. That was the most-watched volleyball match of the season until the Nebraska-Louisville game averaged 684,000.
Texas drew 6,894 fans at Stanford, which was the largest crowd in coach Kevin Hambly’s eight seasons with the Cardinal. Texas drew 3,126 fans against Baylor in Waco, which was the eighth-largest crowd in Baylor history.
Two records have fallen in the last two games. A&M fans smashed the state’s attendance record, and then an LSU-record 3,885 were in the Pete Maravich Assembly Center for Sunday’s matchup against the Tigers.
Women’s sports coverage has seen explosive growth with the Caitlyn Clark effect in the WNBA. College volleyball is also benefitting with a plethora of games on streaming networks during the week. ESPN and ABC are also committed to showing more high-profile games.
“I think for us, we're used to playing in big crowds,” Elliott said. “If you could see what it looks like after a game where there’s thousands of kids and there’s just huge rows of wanting to get pictures and autographs with our players.
“So playing in those big environments are what we want to put our team in. We want to play in those challenging environments, because we have the caliber team that can do that. But it’s also a way to grow the game and get our students ready for the Final Four and Sweet 16 matches.”
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