Volleyball was first created in 1895 by William Morgan in Holyoke Massachusetts (USA) and was known as ‘Mintonette’. It referred to a game that could be used to pass time both indoors and outdoors. The sport name was changed to ‘volleyball’ after Alfred Halstead noticed the volleying nature of the sport in 1896 at its first exhibition match. The international YMCA Training School modified the rules of the game and it later became a popular sport around the country to various YMCA’s.
Despite the game being played and enjoyed by millions, the interest in Volleyball appears to have been decreasing over the last 15 years, see the graph below. In this article we take a look at the popularity of volleyball over the years.
The graph suggests that the interest in Volleyball has decreased over the last 15 years
Source: Google Trends
According to our data the interest in Volleyball was at its highest in August 2004. Since then peoples interest in the sport appears to have decreased apart from spikes of interest in the summer of 2008 and 2012. The sudden increase was likely due to the summer Volleyball Olympics. So why is the interest in Volleyball decreasing?
At a first glance, it appeared that less people were concerned with volleyball. However, data looking at the interest in volleyball by region of time actually reveals that the popularity of the sport has actually evolved greatly since 2004.
In 2004, the interest in volleyball mainly came from North Canada, USA and Mexico. Given that http://www.volleyball.com/volleyball_history“>volleyball originates from the USA this is not that surprising.
In early 2005 there was an increased concern with Volleyball in Australia and a slight rise in interest in the UK. Towards the end of 2005, there was a slight increase of interest in France; where as the interest in Volleyball in the Philippines rose drastically.
From December 2006 till June 2007 research indicates that whilst the interest in Volleyball was still greatest in Canada and the USA, the interest started to spread south, with Brazilians taking a shine to the game. The popularity of Volleyball also started to rise in India. However, the interest failed to increase in India likely due to the lack of funding available from the Volley Federation of India.
Philippines continued to dominate Volleyball in 2008. However, Swedish and New Zealand citizens took a strong interest in Volleyball the same year, with millions of people signing up to play the sport.
The interest in Volleyball remained much the same from 2009 to 2012; the only main difference was the sudden increase in Volleyball interest from Thailand.
2012/2013 saw a lot of countries become interested in Volleyball, including Iran, Belarus, South Africa, Kenya and Saudi Arabia. Moreover, those interested and participating in volleyball betting became significantly high in 2013 and 2015.
So when you view the data showing an interest in Volleyball overtime, at an initial glance it appears that people’s interest has decreased. However, data that represents regional interest in the sport actually shows that its popularity has evolved over the years. So it’s likely that the number of people interested in the sport overall may be decreasing but it’s popularity by region is actually expanding steadily. More countries are starting to enjoy participating in, watching and betting on Volleyball. It’s only a matter of time before the volume of people that are interested per region increases. Do not fear Volleyball fans the sport isn’t going to die out anytime soon!
