Attendance 92,003

If you didn't see any of the videos or pictures from the women's volleyball match at Nebraska Wednesday night, then you might want to go and check it out.

The occasion was an outdoor match between Nebraska and Omaha, held in Memorial Stadium. It's long been said that on football Saturdays, Memorial Stadium becomes the third largest city in Nebraska. 

If that's the case, then on Wednesday night, women's volleyball moved into No. 3 and dropped football to No. 4. 

It's actually the case, by the way. Capacity for Nebraska football is 85,000. The third-largest city in the state is Bellevue, with a population of 67,000.

In an effort to set a world record for the largest attendance ever at a women's sporting event, Nebraska added seats on the field. The previous record was 91,648, set in 2022 during a UEFA Women's Champions League soccer semifinal between Barcelona and Wolfsburg.

The match Wednesday night drew 92,003 fans. The scenes were extraordinary. Here's the post-match video from Nebraska:

A day we’ll never forget.⁰
Be proud Husker Nation, we just did that.

Good night and Go Big Red. pic.twitter.com/AtDGH7dpdc

— Nebraska Volleyball (@HuskerVB) August 31, 2023

TigerBlog saw a bunch of videos, including one where the team was walking through the stadium tunnel and then out onto the field. The players were trying to have on their game faces, but they were failing miserable. Instead, they were all smiles.

The largest crowd for a women's volleyball match prior to Wednesday, by the way, was 18,755, between Nebraska and Wisconsin in 2021. Nebraska has an active sell-out streak of 306 straight in the Devaney Center, which seats 7,909.

TB also read that 1) all of the seats for the match Wednesday night sold out in 48 hours in April and 2) the school canceled classes for the day to encourage students to attend.

The Princeton women's volleyball team will open its season in Bucknell's tournament this weekend. Attendance in Lewisburg might not approach what it was in Lincoln, but there aren't too many better atmospheres in the Ivy League than a packed Dillon Gym for Tiger volleyball.

TB wrote all summer about how the women's soccer team would open its season the last weekend in August and then seven more Princeton teams would kick it off one week later. He wrote this each Friday for the last six or so weeks, and as always, that time flew by.

The other teams who get going this weekend are:

*  the field hockey team, who plays Louisville today at 11 and North Carolina Sunday at 10:30 at Penn.

* the men's and women's cross country teams, who are hosting the Jersey Jame

* the men's soccer team, who hosts Rutgers tonight (7) and then Duke Monday (4)

* the women's rugby team, who is at Brown tomorrow

* the men's water polo team, who hosts an invitational. The Tigers take on LIU, a second-year program, tomorrow at 12 in their first match.

There is also home women's soccer tomorrow against Army. 

Each team has its storylines for 2023. 

The women's volleyball team is trying to get back into the Ivy tournament and then into the NCAA tournament, where perhaps it could get a chance at Nebraska. The soccer teams and field hockey teams are looking to get to the NCAA tournament via the first Ivy tournaments in those sports. 

The women's rugby team is trying to take a step forward in Year 2. The men's water polo team is trying to get back to where it ended last year, in the NCAA tournament. The men's and women's cross country teams are getting off to an early start on the long grueling road that is collegiate distance running, which goes through three seasons. 

Opening day for Ivy League football is two weeks from tomorrow. Autumn begins in three weeks. Classes at Princeton start Tuesday.

It's September already. September? No month seems to go by faster than August, right? One day in August is like six days in January. 

Where did the summer go?