What a thrilling quarterfinal match in women’s volleyball between the U.S. and Italy. The Americans were down 2 sets to 1 after losing the third set badly, 25-19, but they stormed back to win the fourth set and crushed the defending World Cup champions in the tiebreaker, 15-6. The star was Lindsey Berg, who substituted in late and sparked the Americans on their come-from-behind run. One question for volleyballers: Why are the first four sets played to 25 points, but the crucial fifth set is played to only 15? Seems odd to me.
By Cyd Zeigler jr.
1 response so far ↓
1 volleyballer // Aug 20, 2008 at 7:34 am
The abbreviated 5th set tiebreaker has been a work in progress since the early 1990s.
Pre-1990s matches were best 3 of 5 where all sets were sideout scoring (a team scores only when serving) to 15 points. These matches, especially on the men’s side, could go on for more than 3 hours. The FIVB wanted to make matches more appealing and appropriate for television and more exciting for a wider audience and started looking for other scoring systems: (1) Best 3 of 5 timed games (15 minutes), (2) Timed games with a secondary scoring system (2 points for winning a timed game & 4 points for the highest overall game score sum, where the highest secondary score won the match) and a few others I can’t remember.
U.S. women’s college teams tried a few of these scoring systems. I remember a couple of Big Ten women’s matches where the scores were something like 16-9, 21-17, 4-9, 11-10, which confused just about everyone.
In the late 80s, the FIVB declared that all 5th sets would be played using rally scoring to 15 in an attempt to make final games more exciting. U.S. college volleyballers bitched and moaned and refused but finally relented and adopted the same scoring system.
In the early 90s, international matches were still too long to televise and new fans found the first four sideout scoring games too boring. So, all games were then played using rally scoring with the first 4 played to 25 while the tiebreaker game was frozen at 15. On the beach, scoring was changed from 2 of 3 games to 25 points (3rd to 15 points) to 2 of 3 games to 21 points (3rd to 15 points) for the same reasons: shorter matches, more excitement.
All of the scoring changes were intended to make volleyball more appealing for fans around the world. FIVB ex-prez Ruben Acosta was big on the “exictement factor” and instituted a number of changes for that reason: new scoring systems, tight-fitting uniforms and bikinis for women’s indoor & beach players, shorter shorts for men’s players, noisemakers and whistles sold at indoor venues and the entire ‘party’ atmosphere at international beach events, even at the usually staid Olympics.
Better for television, a new fan base and greater sponsorship revenue. Now, if only we could do something about those men’s beach uniforms…
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