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A champion won’t be crowned inside the T-Mobile Center until Sunday, but with the 2025 NCAA Division I Volleyball Championship and the American Volleyball Coaches Association convention in town, Kansas City’s already a big winner this week.
“This is one of the signature Division I championships you can host,” Kathy Nelson, the president and CEO of the Kansas City Sports Commission and Visit KC, said. “It is a premier championship, and the great thing about volleyball is it comes with a convention.”
The tournament, featuring semifinals Thursday and the title game Sunday, and the coaches’ convention at the Kansas City Convention Center will pump an estimated $15.5 million into the local economy, according to Nelson.
“We're not only welcoming fans into T-Mobile Center, we are filling to capacity the Convention Center,” Nelson said. “That’s great for our hotels, that’s great for our restaurants, it’s great for transportation.”
The Final Four field — Texas A&M faces Pittsburgh at 5:30 p,m. Thursday before Wisconsin battles Kentucky — was set last weekend. The winners meet three days later for the NCAA crown.
“There is nothing like championship night,” NCAA Director of Championships and Alliances Kristin Fasbender said. “I’m not going to lie. First serve on championship night — the arena’s loud, the music’s great, the intros. You can just feel the energy. ... At the end of the day, handing the national-championship trophy to the winning team — it’s an experience that never gets old, and I’ve been doing this job for 27 years.”
Behind the College Football Playoff and March Madness, volleyball has become one of the NCAA’s marquee championships, so expect a spike in interest around town in the coming days.
“There definitely is,” said Megan Mengelkoch, a member service and event specialist for Heart of America Volleyball in Kansas City, Kansas. “We here at Heart of America Volleyball, we’re obviously big volleyball nerds, so we’ve been talking about it all week.”
A&M’s stunning five-set upset against previously undefeated Nebraska was the talk of the office Monday.
“There’s a huge buzz,” Mengelkoch said. “We host a lot of volleyball tournaments here and we host some really big tournaments every year. I know those girls who compete in those tournaments are really excited to see these college kids come in and play some volleyball.”
The bid process for volleyball is among the most competitive for any NCAA championships.
“A lot of people want to have this event,” Fasbender said. “A lot of people see how it is growing, how people are embracing it and want to be a part of it.”
That doesn’t shock Mengelkoch.
“Volleyball is one of the fastest-growing sports for girls right now in the U.S., so I’m not surprised at all,” she said. “But I'm very excited for the sport.”
Kansas City previously hosted the D-I Volleyball Final Four in 2010 and 2017, when the T-Mobile Center set a since-broken attendance record for the tournament.
“We’ve all been excited to get here, get our Final Four teams and start play,” NCAA Division I Volleyball Oversight Committee Chair Jennifer Saxon said. “Between the (Kansas City) Sports Commission and Visit KC, they lay out the red carpet for us ... and I think a large part of that is the way that they have chosen to embrace women’s sports in the city.”
Despite the upset of the Cornhuskers — who traveled in droves to the 2017 tourney and snapped up a lot of tickets when they initially went on sale, creating an opportunity for fans to get tickets this week on the secondary market — there should be plenty of love for volleyball downtown the remainder of the week.
“Nebraska not being here might be a bummer for some of those kids, but it’s still a great opportunity,” Mengelkoch said. “To watch these incredible female athletes, it’s so awesome.”
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