NCAA beach volleyball championship

NCAA beach volleyball championship
Current season, competition or edition:; 2026 NCAA Beach Volleyball Championship
Sport	College beach volleyball
Founded	2016
No. of teams	16
Country	United States
Most recent; champion	UCLA (3)
Most titles	USC (6)
Broadcasters	ESPN (current) and truTV, TBS (former)
Website	https://www.ncaa.com/sports/beach-volleyball

The NCAA Beach Volleyball Championship is an NCAA-sanctioned tournament to determine the national champions of collegiate women's beach volleyball. It is a National Collegiate Championship featuring teams from Division I, Division II and Division III, and is became the 90th NCAA championship event.^[1]^[2]

It was the first new NCAA championship to be created since the NCAA Division III Men's Volleyball Championship in 2012, and the first for women since the NCAA Bowling Championship in 2004.

USC have been the most successful program, with six national titles.

History

The championship was approved by the NCAA Convention during the fall of 2015, and a committee was selected to determine the tournament's organizational structure. Before 2015, sand volleyball had been part of the NCAA Emerging Sports for Women program (which included women's ice hockey, bowling, rowing, and water polo in the past). As such, a separate championship had been contested annually, since 2012, by the American Volleyball Coaches Association. Before 2012 several championships were televised by Collegiate Nationals. As of 2015, over 50 schools (from Divisions I, II, and III) had sponsored sand volleyball, ten more than the total number of required programs.

The sport's name was changed from "sand volleyball" to the more usual "beach volleyball" in June 2015, and the committee overseeing the sport is now named the NCAA Beach Volleyball Committee.^[3]

Structure

2016–2021

The championship is held each May. From 2016 through 2021, eight teams participated, in a double-elimination style tournament with a single-elimination final, under standard beach volleyball rules. All duals consist of five matches, with each team needing to win three matches to advance.

The NCAA does not add automatic qualifiers until two championship seasons have passed; but in 2016, the top 3 teams from the east and west were given automatic bids with 2 additional teams invited at-large.

As of fall 2019, seven conferences sponsored beach volleyball, all with at least six members — the minimum number for a conference to qualify for an automatic bid to other NCAA championship tournaments. Five of these conferences were represented in the inaugural tournament; the exceptions were the Ohio Valley Conference and Southland Conference, both of which began beach volleyball sponsorship in the 2020 season.

ASUN Conference (7 members)
Big West Conference (7 members)
Coastal Collegiate Sports Association (12 members)
Ohio Valley Conference (6 members)
Pac-12 Conference (9 members)
Southland Conference (9 members)
West Coast Conference (7 members)

2022, 2025-present

From 2022 onwards, the championship tournament was expanded to 16 teams. In 2025 the number of conferences eligible for an Automatic Bid returned to 8 and the Tournament returned to 16 teams.

Additionally, two teams from the East Region and two teams from the West Region will be given bids by the NCAA beach volleyball committee, while the final four teams will be selected at large.^[4]

2023–2024

Starting in 2023, the tournament switched to a standard single elimination bracket from the partial double elimination bracket system used before.^[5] The field was also expanded to 17 teams to allow for nine automatic qualifiers.^[6]

Results

NCAA Beach Volleyball Championship
Year	Site (Host)	Host Venue	Final			Semifinalists
Year	Site (Host)	Host Venue	Winner	Score	Runner-up	Third Place	Fourth Place
2016 Details	Gulf Shores, AL (UAB)	Gulf Shores Public Beach	USC	3–0	Florida State	UCLA	Hawaii
2017 Details			USC (2)	3–2	Pepperdine	Hawaii	Florida State
2018 Details			UCLA	3-1	Florida State	Hawaii	USC
2019 Details			UCLA (2)	3-0	USC	LSU	Hawaii
2020	Canceled due to the COVID-19 pandemic
2021 Details	Gulf Shores, AL (UAB)	Gulf Shores Public Beach	USC (3)	3–1	UCLA	Loyola Marymount	LSU
2022 Details			USC (4)	3–1	Florida State	UCLA	Loyola Marymount
2023 Details			USC (5)	3–2	UCLA	Florida State/TCU
2024 Details			USC (6)	3–0	UCLA	Cal Poly/LSU
2025 Details			TCU	3–2	Loyola Marymount	Cal Poly/UCLA
2026 Details			UCLA (3)	3–0	Stanford	Florida State/Texas
2027 Details
2028 Details
2029 Details
2030 Details
2031 Details

Summary

Team Titles

Team	#	Years
USC	6	2016, 2017, 2021, 2022, 2023, 2024
UCLA	3	2018, 2019, 2026
TCU	1	2025

Result by school and by year

Twenty-eight teams have appeared in the NCAA Tournament in at least one year starting with 2016. The results for all years are shown below. The code in each cell represents the furthest the team made it in the respective tournament. Each team's seed in the tournament is shown in superscript to the right of the team's result.

CH National Champion
RU National Runner-up

2016 to 2022: double elimination format

3 3rd place
4 4th place
5 Tied for 5th place
7 Tied for 7th place
✖ Round of 16 (2022 only)

2023 to present: single elimination format

SF Semifinals
QF Quarterfinals
✖ Round of 16
P Play-in Round (2023 & 2024 only)

School	Conference	#	T8	T4	T2	CH	16	17	18	19	21	22	23	24	25	26
School	Conference
USC	MPSF	10	10	8	7	6	²CH	¹CH	⁵4	¹RU	²CH	¹CH	³CH	¹CH	⁵QF	⁴QF
UCLA	MPSF	10	10	9	6	3	⁴3	²5	¹CH	²CH	¹RU	³3	¹RU	²RU	¹SF	³CH
TCU	Big 12	6	4	2	1	1					⁸7	²7	²SF	⁶✖	²CH	¹⁰✖
Florida State	Big 12	10	10	6	3	-	¹RU	⁴4	⁴RU	³5	³5	⁵RU	⁴SF	⁴QF	⁸QF	⁵SF
Loyola Marymount	West Coast	6	6	3	1	-					⁵3	⁴4	⁶QF	⁸QF	⁴RU	⁷QF
Stanford	MPSF	6	5	1	1	-					⁶7	⁹✖	¹⁰QF	³QF	³QF	¹RU
Pepperdine	West Coast	4	4	1	1	-	³5	³RU	²5	⁴7
Hawaii	Big West	7	4	4	-	-	⁵4	⁵3	³3	⁷4		¹³✖	¹¹✖	⁹✖
LSU	MPSF	8	7	3	-	-		⁷5	⁷5	⁵3	⁴4	⁶5	⁵QF	¹¹SF	¹¹✖
Cal Poly	Big West	6	5	2	-	-				⁶7	⁷5	¹²✖		⁵SF	⁶SF	⁶QF
Texas	MPSF	2	2	1	-	-									⁷QF	²SF
California	MPSF	5	3	-	-	-						¹¹✖	⁸QF	⁷QF	¹⁰✖	⁸QF
Georgia State	Sun Belt	6	2	-	-	-	⁷7					¹⁰5	¹⁴✖	¹⁴✖	¹⁵✖	¹⁵✖
Stetson	ASUN	5	2	-	-	-	⁸7			⁸5		¹⁴✖	¹⁵✖			¹²✖
South Carolina	Big 12	2	2	-	-	-		⁸7	⁶7
Long Beach State	Big West	5	1	-	-	-		⁶7					⁹✖	¹⁰✖	⁹✖	⁹✖
Florida Atlantic	CUSA	3	1	-	-	-						⁸7	¹²✖		¹³✖
FIU	CUSA	2	1	-	-	-			⁸7				¹³✖
Arizona	Big 12	1	1	-	-	-	⁶5
Texas A&M–Corpus Christi	Southland	4	-	-	-	-						¹⁵✖	¹⁷✖	¹⁵✖		¹³✖
Grand Canyon	MPSF	3	-	-	-	-						⁷✖	⁷✖			¹¹✖
Chattanooga	Ohio Valley	3	-	-	-	-								¹⁷P	¹⁶✖	¹⁶✖
UT Martin	Ohio Valley	2	-	-	-	-						¹⁶✖	¹⁶P
North Florida	ASUN	2	-	-	-	-								¹⁶✖	¹²✖
Arizona State	Big 12	1	-	-	-	-								¹²✖
Washington	MPSF	1	-	-	-	-								¹³✖
Boise State	Big 12	1	-	-	-	-									¹⁴✖
Tulane	CUSA	1	-	-	-	-										¹⁴✖

Broadcasting

Turner Sports held broadcast rights to the tournament for the first two years (2016 and 2017), with early-round coverage airing on TruTV, and the championship game broadcast on TBS.^[7]^[8] In December 2017, ESPN signed a multiyear agreement to broadcast the NCAA Women's Beach Volleyball Championship through 2022.^[9]

References

↑ "NCAA DII, DIII membership approves Sand Volleyball as 90th championship". NCAA News. NCAA.com. Retrieved May 30, 2015.
↑ "NATIONAL COLLEGIATE BEACH VOLLEYBALL CHAMPIONSHIP RECORDS BOOK" (PDF). ncaa.org. NCAA. Retrieved 20 January 2025.
↑ "NCAA's newest championship will be called beach volleyball". NCAA. June 30, 2015. Retrieved July 2, 2015.
↑ Feinswog, Lee (April 19, 2022). "Postseason possibilities as NCAA beach volleyball teams eye bids to Gulf Shores". volleyballmag.com. Retrieved April 27, 2022.
↑ "Beach volleyball championship format to change in 2023".
↑ Fasbender, Kristin W.; Cribbs, Julie (February 6, 2023). "Memorandum" (PDF). National Collegiate Athletic Association. p. 1. Archived (PDF) from the original on April 26, 2023. Retrieved May 1, 2023.
↑ "Culver column: FSU beach volleyball could be a part of NCAA history". Tallahassee Democrat. Retrieved 8 May 2016.
↑ "Turner Sports Reaches Multi-Year Agreement to Present NCAA National Collegiate Beach Volleyball Championship". NCAA. 26 April 2016. Retrieved 27 April 2016.
↑ "NCAA awards ESPN beach volleyball rights". ncaa.com. December 20, 2017. Retrieved March 13, 2018.

External links

[1] "NCAA DII, DIII membership approves Sand Volleyball as 90th championship". NCAA News. NCAA.com. Retrieved May 30, 2015.

[2] "NATIONAL COLLEGIATE BEACH VOLLEYBALL CHAMPIONSHIP RECORDS BOOK" (PDF). ncaa.org. NCAA. Retrieved 20 January 2025.

[3] "NCAA's newest championship will be called beach volleyball". NCAA. June 30, 2015. Retrieved July 2, 2015.

[vballmag1-4] Feinswog, Lee (April 19, 2022). "Postseason possibilities as NCAA beach volleyball teams eye bids to Gulf Shores". volleyballmag.com. Retrieved April 27, 2022.

[5] "Beach volleyball championship format to change in 2023".

[6] Fasbender, Kristin W.; Cribbs, Julie (February 6, 2023). "Memorandum" (PDF). National Collegiate Athletic Association. p. 1. Archived (PDF) from the original on April 26, 2023. Retrieved May 1, 2023.

[thdmc-ncaavolleyball-7] "Culver column: FSU beach volleyball could be a part of NCAA history". Tallahassee Democrat. Retrieved 8 May 2016.

[8] "Turner Sports Reaches Multi-Year Agreement to Present NCAA National Collegiate Beach Volleyball Championship". NCAA. 26 April 2016. Retrieved 27 April 2016.

[9] "NCAA awards ESPN beach volleyball rights". ncaa.com. December 20, 2017. Retrieved March 13, 2018.

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v t e NCAA Emerging Sports for Women
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