The Nebraska volleyball team has played in a stadium and in arenas built for pro sports. But it has never tackled anything like what’s on tap over the next 11 days.
The season-opening road show starts Thursday at AT&T Stadium, home of the Dallas Cowboys. Spikes Under the Lights, an exhibition event, will pit the No. 1 Huskers against No. 17 Florida in a best-of-three-set semifinal at 8 p.m. ET on TNT, followed by Penn State-SMU and then a championship between the winners, all in one night.
At stake is $1 million in NIL money. The winning team will receive $400,000.
Nebraska then faces UNLV on Saturday and No. 2 Texas on Sunday in the inaugural Players Era Volleyball Showcase, part of the regular season at T-Mobile Arena, home of the Vegas Golden Knights. On Sept. 6, Wrigley Field beckons. Nebraska and Missouri are scheduled to meet in the second game of a Fox volleyball doubleheader as part of the Big Ten/SEC Challenge at the home of the Chicago Cubs.
“To be honest, I take it one day at a time,” Nebraska middle blocker Manaia Ogbechie said.
Probably a good idea.
Since Nebraska played volleyball at its football stadium three years ago and attracted a crowd of 92,003, the race to break new boundaries has intensified.
Coach Dani Busboom Kelly said the school turned down invitations to other attractive events to make the 2026 schedule work.
“There’s a lot of options,” she said.
But when the opportunities now in front of them were presented — a jet-setting tour of NFL, NHL and MLB venues — Busboom Kelly felt a pull to say “yes” to all of them.
The Huskers are cornerstones of an effort by the sport’s leaders and their media partners to capitalize on surging U.S. interest in volleyball, from the youth to professional levels.
Seven matches from Friday through Monday were televised nationally by Fox and ESPN as part of the Jeep AVCA First Serve. The State Farm College Volleyball Showcase begins Friday with a Purdue-Creighton and Minnesota-Arizona State doubleheader on Fox.
Between the marquee events, Nebraska will also play road matches Wednesday at South Dakota State and Sept. 4 at DePaul.
“It’s pretty heavy,” Busboom Kelly said. “Heavier than I would have liked. But at the end of the day, it’s going to be good for us and get us out of our comfort zone.”
Even within the Nebraska volleyball worldview, this is new ground.
“I appreciate Dani being aggressive and wanting to showcase the sport, wanting to showcase their team,” Nebraska athletic director Troy Dannen said.
The Huskers do not open at home until Sept. 10 as renovations wrap at the Devaney Center to expand its seating capacity from 8,309 to more than 10,000. Largely because of a ticketing reseat, Dannen said he expects the volleyball program to double its revenue this year compared to 2025-26.
For 2024-25, the year with the most recently released data, volleyball generated $5.65 million in revenue and spent slightly more than $7 million. Both figures led the nation.
Nebraska has sold out 352 consecutive home matches, dating to 2001. It made money on volleyball regularly over the past decade. A return to profitability is ahead.
This month, the school used a lottery system to allow fans access to purchase 300 tickets per home match. More than 17,000 entries were submitted in less than a week.
Beyond the sport’s growth and the financial upside for the university and the players, the Cornhuskers also stand to benefit competitively from the early-season blitz.
The team’s likelihood of encountering discomfort over the next two weeks appeals to Busboom Kelly.
Nebraska has started three of the past five seasons at No. 1 and finished unbeaten in the 2025 regular season, losing just one set in 20 Big Ten matches.
But the Huskers last won a national championship in 2017. In each of the past three years, they were knocked out of the tournament by the eventual national champions — Texas A&M in a regional final last year, and Penn State and Texas in the 2024 and 2023 Final Four, respectively.
“We have a chip on our shoulder,” said setter Bergen Reilly, the returning Big Ten Player of the Year, “but we can’t let that weigh us down.”
For Reilly and the rest of Nebraska’s decorated senior class, these two weeks are about maintaining focus through distractions. When Reilly saw the Huskers’ No. 1 ranking two weeks ago, she pushed it out of her mind and urged teammates to do the same.
“We don’t want that,” she said. “We don’t want to see that.”
For Ogbechie, unprecedented exposure at the start of a season fulfills her calling to spread positivity.
“Not just in our sport,” Ogbechie said, “but with all of the athletes looking up to us. This is perfect. It’s exactly the type of opportunity that I was looking for to make an impact.”
And for Virginia Adriano, a sophomore opposite hitter from Turin, Italy, it’s a chance to learn more about American sports culture. She’s not up on the iconic football and baseball brands synonymous with AT&T Stadium and Wrigley Field.
“But with anybody I talk to,” she said, “people are like, ‘Oh my God, who are you? What are you guys doing?’”
They’re pushing limits in a sport that has yet to find its ceiling.
This article originally appeared in The Athletic.
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