VOLLEYBALL — we are talking women’s volleyball, not the men’s which is still a work in progress — is crushing the box office, smashing old attendance records and getting national attention like no sport has in the past 10 years. The eruption was first felt around the time arch rivals Ateneo and La Salle were fighting for the UAAP women’s volleyball championship, La Salle had a thrice-to-beat advantage, and Ateneo went home with the prize following the heroics of team captain Alyssa Valdez.
Today, what is striking is that fans come in droves for both collegiate and professional volleyball. It’s not easy to understand why. We can only guess that it’s the intensity, the velocity of court action, the team rivalry, and the star-quality athletes who play with heart and spirit.
READ: PVL, UAAP games draw close to 37,000 fans
And whether the game has bearing or not, for as long it features a popular team, stadiums rock. Fans dance and holler and wave placards. They exhibit delirious mass behavior. It is a behavior now standard in tournaments, whether these be under the UAAP or the Philippine Volleyball League.
Take last week’s slam-bang semifinals happening at the same time: the UAAP at the Mall of Asia Arena and the PVL at the Smart Araneta Coliseum. The venues, seating more than 15,000 each, were filled up. Outside, hours before the game, lines were long and the atmosphere electric. Inside, it was pandemonium.
At the MOA, where University of Santo Tomas battled La Salle in the men’s and women’s Final Four, 19,505 fans shrieked with every dig and kill, cheering and shouting over each contested point.
The same scene was duplicated at the Araneta Coliseum in the 2024 PVL All-Filipino Conference where 17,834 descended to watch Creamline and Choco Mucho battle each other. Mind you, the two are sister teams. (Yes, they play for one owner.)
In this mind-bending weekend, that makes a total of 36,889 volleyball fans watching! And that’s just for a semifinal. Imagine what the scene would be like when the finals come around in the next days.
VOLLEYBALL VS. BASKETBALL
Meantime, last Sunday the PBA held a double-header at the Ninoy Aquino Stadium in Manila that featured Barangay Ginebra, labelled the people’s team and the most popular in the country.
Reporters counted about 4,000 fans. Not shabby, but nowhere in the same league as the UAAP and the PVL. Interestingly, the PBA never releases attendance figures, unless it is breaking the box office.
The PBA must be watching the volleyball scene with envy. Basketball, after all, has long been the country’s go-to sports entertainment, the staple of Pinoy conversation, the topic of heated debates, and the source of national pride following exploits and victories in FIBA and the Asian Games.
So, has basketball lost its luster? Its relevance? Has it been unseated by volleyball as the new sport of choice and entertainment?
If not yet, then volleyball looks to be on its way there.
I commiserate with the PBA. There are observers now saying its basketball has become stale, much like beer bottle left open overnight. Or dry and anemic. Or, worse, predictable.
Take a look at the current roster of the Philippine Cup quarterfinals. In it are eight teams: three are owned by the RSA group (San Miguel, Ginebra, Magnolia); three owned by the MVP group (TNT, NLEX, Meralco); and two are the so-called independents (Rain or Shine, Terrafirma.)
Now guess: Who do you think will make it to the semifinals and the finals? Not difficult to answer. If Rain or Shine or Terrafirma survive the quarters, that may actually need an investigation.
Over the last 14 years, or since 2010, only three teams outside of the RSA (Ramon S. Ang) and MVP (Manny V. Pangilinan) contingents have won championships: Rain or Shine twice and Alaska once. All other victories went to the two titans of Philippine basketball: 23 to RSA and 7 to MVP.
This makes the rise of volleyball almost a godsend to local sports. Suddenly, there is variety. Suddenly, there are two sporting events to entertain the crowds: basketball and volleyball. But, and this is where volleyball can enshrine itself as The Next Big Thing, it must get out of its nice, comfortable space and risk leaving its mark somewhere far bigger.
It must go international. It must win games against the reputed giants in the region — first in the SEA Games and then in the Asian Games. If Philippine volleyball can do that, then the sport has truly arrived.
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