{"id":166580,"date":"2026-02-16T11:40:14","date_gmt":"2026-02-16T11:40:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/166580\/"},"modified":"2026-02-16T11:40:14","modified_gmt":"2026-02-16T11:40:14","slug":"proposed-texas-volleyball-arena-is-a-natural-progression-of-womens-sports-growth","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/166580\/","title":{"rendered":"Proposed Texas volleyball arena is a natural progression of women\u2019s sports growth"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/a><\/p>\n

When the University of Texas volleyball team hosted fellow powerhouse Stanford last September at Moody Center, a Texas state record 10,899 fans watched. While the attendance number was nowhere near Nebraska\u2019s 92,000 fans<\/a> who saw the Cornhuskers play Omaha<\/a> at Memorial Stadium<\/a> in 2023, it further supported the notion that Texas\u2019 volleyball team, four-time NCAA national champions, justified a facility investment. <\/p>\n

Several months later, a request for proposals<\/a> was issued by the university seeking a developer for a small arena and student housing project that would be built next door to Moody Center, home of the university\u2019s basketball programs and a stout live entertainment business. The smaller venue will be home to Longhorns volleyball and designed to sustain a similarly healthy non-UT events business when it opens in spring 2029. The RFP didn\u2019t include a projected construction cost, but the arena alone would easily land in the higher eight-figure range. <\/p>\n

The university and Gensler, which designed the venue, couldn\u2019t comment because of the open RFP. But Pheba Thomas, a Gensler project director and principal based in Dallas, spoke indirectly to a critical aspect of the Texas proposal in an early February blogpost for Gensler\u2019s website. <\/p>\n

\u201cFlexibility is critical,\u201d she said. \u201cWomen\u2019s sports facilities are becoming more community-based, and cities are investing in them in new ways. Teams want spaces that can support causes, events, and programming beyond game day. That means smarter, more adaptable venues, and a bigger footprint in everyday life.\u201d <\/p>\n

The positioning of another venue directly next to Moody Center is recognition of the larger arena\u2019s success since opening in 2022<\/a>, and the live entertainment market that\u2019s still untapped. The $375 million Moody Center\u2019s gross ticket sales in 2024 topped $117 million, according to Pollstar, eighth globally among arenas and ahead of concert touring mainstays Xfinity Mobile Arena (Philadelphia), Prudential Center, State Farm Arena, The O2 (London), United Center, and Crypto.com Arena.<\/p>\n

Moody Center\u2019s concert capacity would be about three times the proposed arena\u2019s, but the smaller venue just a short walk away could fill another gap in the market for concerts and events not quite large enough for the bigger venue, while providing a worthy new home for Longhorns volleyball.<\/p>\n

Its proposed total capacity of 6,004 seats for volleyball matches would include 180 premium suite seats (spread across 10 suites), 784 club seats (with access to a 5,000-square-foot club) and 89 premium courtside seats on the floor, making 17.5% of the venue\u2019s capacity premium seating. For concerts, the premium split would rise to 20%, with the inclusion of nearly 600 floor standing tickets with access to premium spaces. <\/p>\n

According to the university\u2019s RFP, Texas will manage and control all ticketing for university events held at the arena, including premium seating. The developer will control premium seating sales for non-university events, with a cut of the proceeds going to the university. <\/p>\n

Texas volleyball has won 87% of its matches at the 96-year-old Gregory Gym, which was last renovated in 1997. The Longhorns won national titles in 1988 and 2012, and back-to-back in 2022 and 2023; have been to 15 Final Fours; and set an all-time season-ticket sales record in 2024. <\/p>\n

Presumably, volleyball ticket prices in the new venue would jump from last season\u2019s incredibly reasonable rates; courtside tickets at Gregory Gym cost just $200 per season, while general admission seats ran $129.<\/p>\n

Texas volleyball\u2019s 2024-25 revenue is unclear, but game-day expenses were just over $500,000, according to the Longhorns athletic department\u2019s most recent EADA financial disclosure. Non-basketball women\u2019s sports (nine of them, counting volleyball) collectively produced more than $7 million of revenue this past school year. <\/p>\n

Data from Learfield, Texas\u2019 multimedia rights partner, shows 89% of Texas volleyball season-ticket holders have football, men\u2019s basketball or women\u2019s basketball tickets, too, showing the crossover of Longhorns fandom and the broader ticket-buying pool that could support bigger volleyball capacity. <\/p>\n

Women\u2019s sports facilities investment in the college world has long been pushed by Title IX requirements, but the reasons for investing now are shifting. There are well-supported, annually successful programs at many major universities that could justify an investment like the proposed Texas volleyball arena. Texas rival Oklahoma agreed, pouring $43 million into Love Field<\/a>, the 3,000-seat home of its dominant softball team that opened in 2024. Fast food chain Sonic, which put its logo on Love Field\u2019s first and third base lines in a sponsorship deal, saw a 61% increase in sales afterward, according to Learfield. <\/p>\n

That tracks with broader data from the multimedia rights company, as women\u2019s sports sponsorship sales were up 25% during the 2024-25 school year. Women\u2019s sports facilities \u2014 with naming rights and field logo opportunities, and increasingly shown on TV \u2014 are an ideal canvas for those deals. <\/p>\n

\u201cI think \u201925 proved they can be revenue generators,\u201d said Kim Damron, president of Learfield\u2019s Sports Properties Division. <\/p>\n

The volleyball arena proposal includes a student-athlete housing component that would further densify Texas\u2019 athletics district, which already includes Moody Center, a basketball practice facility and Darrell K Royal-Texas Memorial Stadium. As more universities study mixed-use development options anchored around college athletics, Kristin Byrd \u2014 design director for Gensler\u2019s Austin, Texas, sports practice \u2014 thinks women\u2019s sports programs will increasingly be at the center of those plans in the next five years.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere is a huge movement in capital investment and private equity firms focusing their efforts strictly on women\u2019s sports. They know that women\u2019s sports teams are revenue drivers,\u201d Byrd said in the Gensler blog. \u201cEmbedding these teams within a district that supports their diverse and inclusive fan base can create a revenue ripple effect.\u201d <\/p>\n

Bret McCormick can be reached at bmccormick@sportsbusinessjournal.com<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"When the University of Texas volleyball team hosted fellow powerhouse Stanford last September at Moody Center, a Texas…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":166581,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[39157,27,29,28,32706,7787],"class_list":["post-166580","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-texas","tag-print","tag-texas","tag-texas-headlines","tag-texas-news","tag-the-insiders","tag-womens-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/166580","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=166580"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/166580\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/166581"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=166580"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=166580"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=166580"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}