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The NCAA News - News and FeaturesThe NCAA News -- November 9, 1998 SEEKING EXPOSURE
BY HEATHER YOST
Since the adoption of Title IX and the emergence of women's intercollegiate athletics, volleyball has been one of the top two women's sports according to sponsorship. In 1997, women's volleyball was sponsored by almost 95 percent of institutions. But just being among the top in numbers hasn't necessarily produced the kinds of benefits that promoters of the sport have come to expect. So representatives of the NCAA, USA Volleyball and the American Volleyball Coaches of America (AVCA) conducted a summit in August to establish relationships and an action plan to help volleyball get to -- and stay at -- the top. "Basically, we are looking to enhance the game of volleyball at every level," said Marcia L. Saneholtz, senior associate director of athletics at Washington State University and chair of the Division I Women's Volleyball Committee. "I see it as a many-pronged problem that can't just be addressed by any one of the organizations involved." Saneholtz helped organize the volleyball summit, conducted at the United States Olympic Committee Training Center in Colorado Springs, Colorado, in hopes of developing a more active partnership. "The biggest thing we accomplished in the meeting was a better understanding about what the others are doing," said Sandra L. Vivas, executive director of the AVCA. "Now that we have talked about it and know each other's roles in the sport, we have a better understanding of how we can help each other." With ambitions of addressing issues of how to increase public awareness of volleyball on all levels, providing premier athletes with post-collegiate opportunities and giving youth more exposure to the sport at an earlier age, shared information and resources was the first step. "I thought we took a tremendous step forward," said Kerry Klostermann, executive director of USA Volleyball. "We have talked about it and gone beyond the mission statement with an action plan. It just can't end here. We need to make sure this is the first step of many, and I think we have a commitment to make sure it goes forward. We want to make volleyball the sport of choice." A future in volleyball Making volleyball the sport of choice for elite female athletes may become an increasingly uphill battle as the opportunities for women to play professional basketball increase. "By the numbers, there are more opportunities to play basketball on a post-collegiate level," Saneholtz said. "There have been some attempts at professional leagues and beach volleyball, but none have proven successful. It is a tremendous challenge to compete with basketball for some high-caliber athletes because of it." Post-collegiate volleyball opportunities are available through the U.S. National Team. According to Saneholtz, showing prospective volleyball players the possibilities of international competition and examining ways of making the national team's program more enticing may be long-term goals for the group. For now, though, the action plan born from the volleyball summit will focus on marketing the current national team to enhance awareness of the team and its players. Stars no coincidence Although attendance at college volleyball events is on the rise, public awareness of America's best volleyball players at the collegiate and national levels has not been realized. "If you were to ask high-school players to name their favorite player on the national team, I would be impressed if they could even name one of them," Saneholtz said. "We have to create athlete and coaching stars. "Stars don't just happen. They aren't born. They need to be created -- we need to create them." In pooling their efforts to create stars, the organizations will be using the 1999 NCAA Division I championship to feature the U.S. National Team for autograph sessions as an initial forum. NCAA Welcome Centers at the championship also will feature a booth for each organization to distribute volleyball-specific information. The group also will look to enhance the ability to attract enthusiasts to volleyball scores and other information by promoting Web sites that have the most up-to-date information and cooperating on dates and promotions during each other's events. For instance, future Division I championship sites will target areas where pilot grass-roots programs could be started. Such efforts could build anticipation for the championship and utilize AVCA and USA Volleyball programs to promote the sport on all levels. Beyond shared communication, though, Vivas said marketing will be a challenge for the sport since volleyball doesn't attract the amount of media other sports of similar numerical popularity receive, such as basketball, football or baseball. "Our players can't pick up a paper and read about each other or read about their opponents every day like players from those other sports can," Vivas said. The AVCA and USA Volleyball will be looking to enhance the sport to a national television audience. The AVCA will investigate conference television packages, while USA Volleyball will look to produce public service announcements for collegiate television broadcasts. Vivas said those kinds of television initiatives weren't developed during the sport's formative years. "I think changes of that nature need to come from the NCAA," she said. "The Association helped promote women's basketball by helping them be on the air in those early days. I can't say that volleyball, softball or soccer have been given the same help. It isn't just a volleyball issue necessarily." The attendees at the volleyball summit also will look for avenues to attract joint corporate sponsors in the future. "Volleyball is the number two sport in terms of participation," Vivas said. "Perhaps the marketing plan has to be a little different than it is for other sports. Maybe we don't draw the sponsors with the ability to pay hundreds of millions of dollars. Maybe we need to aim for the sponsors with hundreds of thousands of dollars. Either way it needs to be discussed. Volleyball and women's sports need marketing." Youth as a target market Marketing stars also is a way to help boost interest in grass-roots volleyball programs nationally. The threat of losing prospective volleyball players to the lure of post-collegiate basketball is rivaled only by the growing popularity of alternative youth sports. Soccer has become the fastest growing sport for youth in America, and softball and women's ice hockey are growing on the collegiate level. Volleyball also lost exposure to the those sports when the national team failed to garner the same success in the international spotlight of the 1996 Olympics. "Volleyball wasn't able to capitalize on the Olympic hype like some of the sports that had outstanding performances. That hurt volleyball on a lot of different levels. Our concern is to prevent the sport from losing prominence in the long run." Although volleyball tends to be introduced to youth at a later stage than basketball and soccer, efforts are being made to teach the fundamentals at an earlier age. NCAA Youth Education through Sports (YES) clinics and the Volleyvan, which travels around the country giving volleyball instruction to various groups, are programs targeted to attract youth to the sport. "The proof is in the pudding as they say," Saneholtz said. "We need to follow up with the action plan and do more brainstorming. I think we are in a better position now to utilize each other's events and resources to help the game go forward. That is really the point." Sponsorship History ALL DIVISIONS
Women's Basketball Women's Volleyball
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If indeed it is easier to get to the top than to stay there, proponents of women's volleyball are taking steps to defy the adage.