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Four Teams Play for $1 Million Thursday
Nebraska, Penn State, Florida and SMU meet in Arlington on TNT. It is an exhibition, so nothing that happens moves a record.
Nebraska, Penn State, Florida and SMU play three matches at AT&T Stadium on Thursday night for a prize pool of $1 million, and none of the results will count toward anybody's record.
It is the first women's collegiate sporting event the building has staged. Doors open at 7 p.m. Central, the first match starts at 7:06 and the championship is scheduled for 9:45, inside a three-hour television window on TNT.
AT&T Stadium seats roughly 100,000 people for football. Nobody involved has published what the volleyball configuration holds or what they expect through the doors.
The Money Is Real and the Record Is Not
Nebraska will not play a countable match until Saturday, when UNLV comes to Lincoln. Penn State is 0-0 as well. SMU's schedule page carries Thursday with an exhibition tag on it.
The exhibition exists because of a rule change. The NCAA's stated rationale for permitting one extra scrimmage is that tournament-format preseason events promote the growth of women's volleyball, a line Greg Pickel quoted at On3 in May.
AT&T Stadium and Nebraska both describe the $1 million as the largest prize pool ever awarded in women's college sports. How that million gets divided depends entirely on who is describing it.
The Athletic's Mitch Sherman wrote in May that $800,000 is split among the four programs, with a further $200,000 going to the two teams that reach the final.
The Associated Press reported in July that each team collects a $200,000 appearance fee and that a further $200,000 is weighted toward the winner. The Big Ten said on Saturday that the semifinal winners play for an extra $200,000.
NCAA.com's explainer says the $1 million goes to the championship winner. No other account of the four reads that way. The schools decide what reaches the players.
Dani Busboom Kelly coaches Nebraska and said this when the event was announced in May, four months before the calendar put it behind her season opener rather than in front of it.
We are excited and honored to be part of this historic event that showcases the continued growth of women's volleyball. This will be a great opportunity to face some talented teams in an iconic setting as we ramp up to the start of the season. It should be an awesome night and hopefully a lot of Husker fans will be able to experience it with us in Dallas.
Nobody Agrees on the Semifinal Pairings
AT&T Stadium's event page, updated Monday, lists Florida against Nebraska at 7:06 and Penn State against SMU at 8:18. Nebraska's own schedule page says Florida. SMU's says Penn State, and both schools said the same in July.
NCAA.com's 19 August explainer says Nebraska plays SMU and Penn State plays Florida, and it had not been changed by Tuesday morning. It is the newer account, and the only account here that no rights holder published.
We are not going to print a bracket that five press releases and the NCAA's own website cannot agree on.
First serve is 7:06 p.m. Central on Thursday. Whoever walks out across the net from Nebraska at that moment settles an argument that four schools, a stadium and the NCAA have been having in public since July.
