The Gophers volleyball team exists within a conundrum.
It will open the 2022 season with its usual Big Ten title and national championship aspirations. It will start a treacherous nonconference schedule this weekend on a road trip to the Longhorn State to face Baylor, TCU and Texas. Later it will dig into Big Ten play — a weekly grind in the deepest volleyball conference in America. It will do this with a ferociously talented roster playing in front of thousands of fans for every home match at Maturi Pavilion.
While that is happening, the team will be relegated on a local and national media level to the role of niche sport.
"I keep asking, what more do we have to do to be a revenue sport?" Gophers coach Hugh McCutcheon said earlier this month.
It's a fair question.
In the decade McCutcheon has been at the U, the volleyball program has increased ticket revenue by at least 473%. Gophers ticket revenue was $120,000 in his first season (2012), and that number grew to $687,000 by 2020, the first year of the pandemic. During his tenure, the team has ranked in the top five for national attendance every season.
Ticket growth has been steady and comes at a far greater rate than with every other major revenue sport at the university, several of which show either static or declining ticket revenue over the same period.
It also makes sense. McCutcheon has won 80% of his matches, reached nine NCAA Sweet 16s and three Final Fours in 10 seasons and won two Big Ten titles.
His roster consistently produces All-Americans and they tend to stick around for four years.
So it's no wonder this program makes money in the classic sports value ascription — local fans paying to see the product in person.
On top of that, collegiate volleyball has been rising in popularity. The ESPN2 broadcast of the 2021 national championship match between Wisconsin and Nebraska drew 1.2 million viewers, a record for the sport on any ESPN network. The Gophers won three matches in that tournament and reached the Elite Eight. ESPN averaged 369,000 viewers per match overall.
Internal data from the Big Ten Network shows that volleyball viewership for 2020-21 averaged out as the fourth most watched sport behind football, men's basketball and wrestling.
But for fans of the team, or those curious about the sport, trying to watch every match can feel labyrinthine with broadcasts across several different networks and streaming sites. In a decent example of the difficulty of securing coverage, the season opener against No. 16 Baylor — a rematch of a five-set thriller in the Sweet 16 last year — will not be broadcast.
This all leaves people with a vested interest in Gophers volleyball wondering: how can one of the best teams in one of the fastest growing sports in the nation gain visibility?
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Minnesota's athletic department and the Big Ten are aware they have an emerging sport on their hands and are looking to create revenue off it.
Even though the Big Ten recently signed a historic media rights package over seven years worth over $7 billion, that deal does not have any direct revenue or coverage impact on Olympic sports like volleyball.
The conference hosted its first ever media days for volleyball this summer in Chicago and announced a global broadcasting partnership with Volleyball World to air around 50 matches internationally — which will provide a new source of revenue for the conference's volleyball teams. A record-setting 55 matches will air on television this season.
Michael Calderon, the senior vice president for programming and digital media at BTN, said it took the company eight years after launching in 2007 to get a decent understanding of its viewership demographics. When it did, volleyball jumped out.
"It is our highest rated women's sport. It is our youngest sport from a demographic perspective, and that is saying something in a pay TV world where generally speaking the audience skews older," Calderon said. "I think there is really strong momentum."
He also said momentum takes time to manifest. Stakeholders have to see that investment in the sport can make money.
So while the network has ramped up visibility for volleyball, fans have to pay extra to see all of the action this season. B1G+, the conference's pay streaming service, is currently scheduled to show 13 of the Gophers' 28 matches.
As deputy athletics director for the University of Minnesota, Julie Manning is pragmatic but passionate about the fact that this program is likely undervalued.
"It has always been that the last phenomenon is how do we get more access?" she said. "Generally speaking the access is in the newspapers, the radio and television, and those major marketing pieces are the last piece."
The athletic department is considering every option for internal revenue growth from increasing ticket prices to increasing capacity, but the crucial element is figured out — the program.
"The thing we have now is the product," Manning said. "You have to figure out how people are going to consume it more."
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The product figures to be among the best in the country again this season.
The Gophers lost one of the best players in program history in Stephanie Samedy, but the sentiment coming from the team is this could be one of the most complete rosters in years.
They open the season ranked No. 5 and return five of their most experienced players from last season in outside hitter Jenna Wenaas, setter Melani Shaffmaster, liberos Rachel Kilkelly and CC McGraw and middle blocker Ellie Husemann. They've bolstered their interior defense by adding Naya Gros (Michigan State) and Arica Davis (Ohio State) from the transfer portal and bringing in freshman Carter Booth. Freshmen outside hitters Mckenna Wucherer and Julia Hanson have explosive talent.
As important as any addition is the return of Taylor Landfair, the redshirt sophomore hitter who missed the bulk of last season after making First Team All-Big Ten as a freshman.
"I think it's next level this year," Kilkelly said.
That next level will create extreme competition, but players across the board said they were building towards a greater collective.
Gros, a four-year starter at Michigan State, summed up the mentality.
"Obviously I would love to play, but if that's not my role that Hugh sees for me, then I'm going to have to play my role and be OK with it," she said. "If I'm not able to get the job done, I know my teammates have my back. That's a comforting feeling, not having the weight of the world on your shoulders."
That fits with a refrain you hear all around Maturi Pavilion: focus on what you can control.
This extends away from the court, too.
"Minnesota has always appreciated our volleyball team," McGraw said. "When you ... compare it to football and all those other things, it's difficult. Regardless of how much we grow I think we'll always be the tier down. I think that's just society."
Luckily, society is wrong all the time. It affords Minnesotans who are unaware of this team a special opportunity: discovering Gophers volleyball. Even if, for the time being, it takes a little extra effort.
