Women's Volleyball Rules!

As the major networks try to convince viewers that watching football bowl games is interesting, the NCAA volleyball playoffs have been offering up some outstanding matches that have packed gyms all over the country. The final four is set with Pitt making its fifth straight appearance, newcomer Texas A&M, and consistent powerhouse programs Kentucky and Wisconsin rounding out the field.

Volleyball is one of the few Olympic sports that has outperformed expectations in the NIL era, and schools are starting to invest. Texas recently announced plans to build a new 6,000 seat volleyball arena. The success of volleyball is not about lucrative TV contracts. It’s because volleyball creates an engaged fanbase by consistently providing great experiences. Athletic programs and major brands have already noticed. In the revenue-sharing era, return on investment is critical to success, and volleyball is clearly the best value on campus.

This is a recipe that translates across divisions. Schools don’t need massive stadiums and deep booster pockets to build a loyal fanbase. For D2 and D3 schools, you can recruit locally and grow your program without breaking the bank.

For both the school and the athletes, businesses love getting behind programs with loyal fans. Loyalty is one of the strongest drivers of buying behavior, and when fans see a post by their favorite player, or a banner at a match, the odds are higher that they will convert into real sales for the business. This type of support is the most sustainable, since it doesn’t rely on major national or global brands to fund the program.

Admittedly, there are still plenty of headwinds for Olympic sports like volleyball. The blackhole that is football is still sucking in the majority of NIL or revenue-sharing dollars. But a the price of a star quarterback keeps going up, schools will have to find different ways to generate revenue, and volleyball is the perfect longterm way to do it.

Volleyball is no longer waiting its turn. The sport has momentum, audiences and institutional support that would have seemed aspirational a decade ago. Popularity, however, is not a strategy. It is an opportunity, and opportunities still require decisions.

The first advantage volleyball players have is clarity. The sport is easy to understand, easy to watch, and easy to explain. Matches move quickly. Roles are visible. Storylines form naturally. That makes volleyball athletes accessible in a way many Olympic sports are not.

Accessibility and visibility do not automatically convert to value. As an athlete, you have to accept that visibility is just the beginning of the process. The good news is, volleyball audiences are unusually loyal. Fans show up and are invested in the athletes and programs. The combination of accessibility, visibility, and loyalty is the perfect recipe to generate value for potential NIL partners and schools.

The athletes who benefit most understand that they are not competing with football or basketball. They are building something adjacent to it. Their value lies in engagement, consistency and presence, not spectacle.

Content is where this advantage compounds. Volleyball training is visual, instructional and shareable. Practices look like preparation rather than chaos. Skill development is understandable even to casual viewers. Players who show their process give audiences a reason to stay.

There is also a timing advantage that should not be wasted. Volleyball’s growth is still being shaped, which means standards are not yet fixed. Athletes have room to define what leadership, professionalism and influence look like in the sport. Early adopters set expectations that later athletes inherit.

None of this requires becoming an influencer in the caricatured sense of the word. It requires intention, consistency and a basic understanding of what makes people care.

Volleyball is having a moment. The players who treat it like a platform, not a peak, will be the ones still standing when the moment becomes something more permanent.

Volleyball may be enjoying a surge in attention, but most Olympic sports are still operating in familiar conditions. The NIL era did not eliminate old problems. It made them easier to see.

The most persistent challenge is visibility. Many Olympic sports produce elite performances in environments where few people are watching and fewer are listening. Success happens, records are broken and seasons end with little trace outside the sport’s inner circle.

Structure does not help. Seasons overlap. Championships arrive in clusters. Events are difficult to follow unless the audience already understands what it is seeing. Sports that require explanation rarely receive the space to explain themselves.

Olympic sports also struggle with coherence. They are often collections of events rather than unified products. What feels like depth to insiders can feel fragmented to outsiders. For brands and casual fans, fragmentation is a barrier.

Unlike volleyball, which benefits from a clear youth pipeline and an identifiable fan culture, many Olympic sports lack a consistent audience that travels with athletes from grassroots to college. Interest appears episodically, usually around championships or Olympic cycles, then fades.

Financial pressure adds another layer. As athletic departments reassess budgets and roster sizes, Olympic sports are increasingly asked to justify their place in terms that prioritize immediate return. History and tradition are offered as evidence. They are rarely persuasive in budget meetings.

The NIL marketplace has reinforced these gaps. Olympic sport athletes are often strong representatives, but they are asked to build brands in ecosystems that provide little support. Media coverage is limited. Content infrastructure is thin. The responsibility falls almost entirely on the athlete.

None of this reflects a lack of value. Olympic sports develop discipline, global relevance and long-term engagement. They produce Olympians, coaches and community leaders. They simply operate in a system that measures success narrowly.

The challenges facing Olympic sports are not new. What is new is the expectation that they solve them on their own.

Olympic athletes are not short on value. They are short on systems that make that value obvious. In the NIL era, success often comes down to how clearly an athlete can explain who they are and why anyone should care.

The first step is accepting responsibility for visibility. Waiting for coverage is usually a losing strategy. Meets, matches and competitions rarely deliver sustained attention, which means athletes must create continuity themselves. That does not require constant posting. It requires consistency and intention.

Storytelling matters more than performance summaries. Results speak loudly inside the sport and quietly everywhere else. Training, preparation, setbacks and routines give context to results and make them understandable to people who are not experts. If an audience cannot follow the story, it will not follow the athlete.

Clarity of identity helps. Many Olympic athletes define themselves solely by event or discipline. That narrows opportunity. A stronger approach leads with purpose, interests or values and lets the sport support the story rather than limit it. Brands partner with people before they partner with performances.

Community connection remains an advantage. Olympic sports are deeply tied to youth development, instruction and mentorship. Athletes who lean into those roles build credibility that translates well in NIL partnerships. Trust grows faster in person than online, even in a digital economy.

Consistency is more valuable than reach. A small audience that engages regularly is more attractive than a large audience that does not. NIL rewards familiarity. Athletes who show up predictably and communicate clearly tend to outpace those chasing occasional spikes.

Planning beyond college also matters. Olympic sport careers rarely follow a straight line. NIL offers a way to build something durable alongside competition, whether in coaching, education, fitness, advocacy or entrepreneurship. Athletes who think in terms of trajectory rather than season gain leverage earlier.

None of this removes the challenges facing Olympic sports. It simply gives athletes agency within them.

In a system that does not default to visibility, the athletes who succeed are the ones who choose it.