Warning: this post contains spoilers about the Olympic women’s volleyball semifinals.
As women’s basketball is my second-favorite sport, I have naturally been watching all of the Olympic women’s tournament, and it struck me how relatively short Serbia’s women’s team is, compared to much of their competition. According to their FIBA.com profile, their average height works out to be 1.83m, but it seems to me as though they may have some non-rotation bench warmers inflating those numbers, because the women who are part of the regular rotation don’t appear to be nearly that tall (EDIT - a second glance of Serbia’s FIBA profile indicates, in fact, that three of their four tallest players are bottom-three on the team in minutes, so it looks like they actually do have some tall towel wavers inflating their height statistics).
I found this to be in stark contrast to the women’s volleyball semifinal that I watched earlier today, in which the Serbian team upset the United States team in five sets. As I was watching that match, I couldn’t help but notice that those women seemed to be way taller… And it would appear that they are: according to their FIVB.com profile, the average height of the Serbian women’s volleyball team is 1.89m, a good 6cm (or nearly 2 and a half inches, for us lazy Americans) taller than the basketball team. Curious, I decided to do a little digging, and I noticed that, of the five countries that sent both a women’s basketball team and a women’s volleyball team to Rio, three of them have taller volleyball teams: the two whose basketball teams were taller are Japan (1.77m versus 1.76m) and United States (1.88m versus 1.86m). I found this to be in strange contrast to the men where, of the four countries that sent both a men’s basketball team and a men’s volleyball team to Rio, all four countries have taller basketball teams; in fact, only Brazil has a height differential of less than 3cm in favor of the basketball team.
All of this leads me to wonder, why are these womens’ volleyball teams taller than the basketball teams? What is it about volleyball that is more attractive to young, tall, athletic women than basketball? Like, I know that this isn’t how averages work, but I’m sitting here like, if Serbia could find twelve 6’3" women to play volleyball, why could they only scrape up twelve 6’0" women to play basketball? At a cursory glance, it doesn’t appear as though professional women’s basketball pays more. I don’t know what sort of profile volleyball has worldwide but, for as much negativity and criticism that tends to be directed towards the WNBA here in the states, it’s not like there’s a women’s pro volleyball league that is getting a ton of positive attention around here. Is it thought of as a more glamorous sport? More fun? What’s the deal?
One hypothesis: The benefit of height in either sport is not linear. It might matter a great deal if you’re above some threshold, but not matter as much beyond that. If this is the case, then it might further be the case that, among men, a large-enough proportion meets the basketball threshold to make it possible to construct a team of them, but that women that tall are nearly nonexistent, and so there’s no point in even trying to field them.
Plus, of course, there’s also the fact that basketball is a lot more popular in the US than in the rest of the world.
This is interesting, and may be true, but I don’t feel like it really addresses the question of, “Why volleyball?” I mean, each team fields the same number of players.
Let’s suppose that I stipulate this. Whether basketball is less popular worldwide than it is in the United States doesn’t really have anything to do with whether basketball is less popular worldwide than volleyball… which is kinda what I’m asking. Is it?
I think it does. I took his point to be – basically – that there’s a height where you’re not tall enough to dunk a basketball, but you are tall enough to spike a volleyball. A woman of that height would have a small advantage in basketball, but a big one in volleyball.
My knowledge of women’s basketball is pretty much “that is a thing which exists,” plus that line from FUTURAMA about men laughing at the idea of women being good enough at the fundamentals to make up for an inability to dunk, so I’ll defer to you – though I’ll note that Wiki says there have been all of 11 dunks scored in WNBA play, and none of them by women under 6’4" (and that it wasn’t until 2012 that a woman first dunked in Olympic play, and she was 6’8").
I didn’t actually think about it in that much detail (I’m a lot better at thinking about nonlinear mathematical relationships than I am at thinking about sports), but yes, “tall enough to dunk” is a plausible point for the basketball threshold, and “tall enough to spike” a plausible one for the volleyball threshold.
I never said that they dunked in a game. Technically, five of those eleven dunks aren’t even “official”: Lisa Leslie’s second dunk, Candace Parker’s second dunk, Britney Griner’s third dunk, Michelle Snow’s dunk and Sylvia Fowles’ dunk all came in an All-Star circumstance. I will also point out that Candace Parker is listed at 6’4", but is actually probably closer to 6’2".
I just can’t wrap my head around the idea of women choosing volleyball over basketball, on the basis of being tall enough to spike, but not tall enough to dunk. Women don’t play above the rim in basketball, anyway. It’s not considered to be in the top fifty of skills for women to have. Like, the notion that taller women were gravitating towards volleyball over basketball because there’s a height at which you can’t dunk but you can spike would make more sense if dunking were a barrier to entry in women’s basketball. But it’s not: as you pointed out, only eleven dunks have “officially” occurred in a game, over the twenty-year history of the league, and that’s counting exhibitions. Parker did it twice during her rookie year, basically to prove that she could, and hasn’t so much as attempted one since. The late Margo Dydek was 7’2". She’s the all-time blocks leader in WNBA history. She could dunk without leaving her feet; I’ve seen her do it in warmups. In her ten-year WNBA career, she never “officially” dunked in a game, not once. Why? Because she felt that it was “unsportsmanlike.” That women don’t dunk in the WNBA is something like 15 percent height, 15 percent athleticism, and 70 percent culture.
I can’t imagine asking a woman when she decided to focus on volleyball, and her replying, “When I figured out I couldn’t dunk.”
Well, look, I’ll gladly leave this to folks who actually know, but let me at least note that I’m not contradicting myself: my thinking was, if you can’t readily dunk, you don’t dunk; and if you get a little taller and still can’t readily dunk, then you – still don’t dunk. Whereas if you can’t readily spike, you don’t spike; and if you get a little taller and can readily spike, then you – start spiking.
If that’s so, then it’s irrelevant that other women also aren’t dunking; it’s not about a barrier to entry, it’s that being a little taller doesn’t give you much of an advantage. Why not go in for a sport where being a little taller gives you a big fine advantage?
Just a brief tangential comment: the best game I ever watched was a high school girls game. The game was really fast and really impressive what they could do. All without any dunking.
It’s one of the few times I went to a game and actually enjoyed the game itself, and not just the social aspects.
Except that being taller does still give you a big advantage in women’s basketball. Not in terms of being able to dunk, but in terms of being able to see over the defense to pass, see over the defense to shoot, actually contest shots while on defense, and so on.
One of the reasons why Elena Delle Donne (who is 6’5", and can’t dunk BTW), for example, is such a great player is because of her height: she plays like a guard, but has the height of a center. She can see over most of the players that guard her, and it’s virtually impossible for the defense to block her shot.
Given that both are team sports, it’s quite possible that the reason that volleyball is more popular with women is *because *it’s more popular with women. A sport being popular with a group or in an area tends to produce a snowball effect of increasing popularity because it’s easier to find a team & facilities for it.
If a young woman looks around and sees teams of women her age playing volleyball but none playing basketball she’ll probably join a volleyball team, because that’s what is available. It’s self-reinforcing.
An on topic article from back in 2013 with some thoughts on potential reasons. I’m dubious about some of his hypotheses, especially the one on appearance. But I’m guessing the issue of basketball requiring taking constant physical contact as opposed to volleyball might be a real problem in competitive recruitment.
Feh. I actually find his argument about appearance to be much more compelling than his argument about contact. After all, an aversion to contact might explain why the numbers he cited from Val Ackerman’s report indicate that volleyball is growing in girls high school participation faster than basketball, but it damned sure doesn’t explain why soccer, water polo and lacrosse are all growing faster than volleyball.
Outside the US v-ball could very well be more popular for girls than b-ball. That means the pool for v-ball players is larger and thus has the taller girls.
I play both and full-court quickness is much more important in b-ball than v-ball. A tall player may be quick enough for v-ball but can’t get up and down the court fast enough for b-ball. Thus tall girls are more likely to be able to play v-ball at a high level.
It’s hard to dominate v-ball without at least a few tall hitters. You don’t have to be the tallest team but hitters need to be able to get above the net. In basketball, though, you can dominate with few, if any, tall players if you have other skills to make up for them (like 3-point shooting).
Here’s one theory: Volleyball is played in the fall, which allows girls to play a spring sport (e.g. softball, track & field, lacrosse) as well without having to worry about coaches complaining about the overlap in seasons. Basketball is played in the winter, which will overlap with both fall and spring sports (and, at least out where I live, the varsity basketball players are pretty much expected to spend two months of their summer playing summer league basketball, where each team is usually coached by a school’s varsity head coach and the team consists of the expected varsity players - and since it’s in the summer, it doesn’t break any state high school athletic rules).
Let’s stipulate this, for the sake of argument. Why is it more popular?
That’s a plausible explanation, but it seems pretty thin, to me. I find the notion of a player being athletic enough to spike a volleyball, and do all of that jumping around, but not athletic enough to run up and down a basketball court to be somewhat dubious.
Where are these dominant basketball teams with “few, if any, tall players”?
That could be. I don’t have any daughters, and my son didn’t play sports in high school. According to my best friend, though, whose daughter is an athlete, they try to encourage the girls to focus on only one sport, by the time they get to high school.
Basketball requires a very particular skill; namely, the ability to throw a ball into a small target hoop with accuracy. (Of course, it requires dribbling and many other skills, too, but if you can’t shoot, you can’t play, period.) Many men and women can’t do that (throw the ball into the basket accurately) to save their lives.
Also, basketball does not have the global appeal among women that volleyball does.