NAPERVILLE — Eight College Conference of Illinois & Wisconsin (CCIW) women’s volleyball programs earned the 2025 Team Academic Award from the American Volleyball Coaches Association (AVCA) on Monday.
 
Teams that maintained a year-long grade-point average of at least 3.3 on a 4.0 scale (or 4.1 on a 5.0 scale) were recognized. Carroll earned the additional distinction of the Team Academic Honor Roll, celebrating programs in the top 20% of GPAs for their division.
 
2025 AVCA Team Academic Award 
Augustana
Carroll*
Elmhurst
Illinois Wesleyan
Millikin
North Central
North Park
Wheaton

* — denotes AVCA Team Academic Honor Roll

 

Women’s Volleyball | 7/22/2025 3:20:00 PM

PITTSFORD, N.Y. – The St. John Fisher women’s volleyball team announced its full 2025 schedule on Tuesday. 

The Cardinals’ 27-match schedule features six home, nine neutral-site and 12 road contests. They play in multi-match events at Itahca College, Clarkson University, St. Lawrence University, Hamilton College, Buffalo State University and SUNY New Paltz. 

Fisher opens the season against Ithaca College in the Bomber Invite at 3 p.m. Friday, August 29. The Cardinals don’t open the home portion of their schedule until they face Fredonia State at 6 p.m. Friday, Sept. 19, at Manning and Napier Varsity Gym. 

Always one of the decisive matches of the year in the Empire 8 Conference, the Cardinals face East Avenue rival Nazareth at Kidera Gymnasium at 6 p.m. Tuesday, Oct. 21. Fisher swept Nazareth in the E8 title match last November to punch its ticket to the NCAA Division III Women’s Volleyball Tournament. 

The Cardinals, who finished 21-9 and lost just two E8 contests in 2024, have won five of the last six conference championships. 

View the Cardinals’ full 2025 schedule below:

The Hungarian men’s water polo team defeated the Olympic champion Serbs 19-18 in Tuesday’s semifinal at the World Aquatics Championships in Singapore, meaning that they will now play for gold alongside the women’s team. The Hungarians were leading by five goals with six minutes to go, but their rivals managed to make the final minutes exciting. This is the first time since 1998 that the Hungarian team has triumphed over Serbia at the World Championships.

After the success in Fukuoka in 2023, national team coach Zsolt Varga can now prepare for his second World Championships final at the helm of the men’s team, with European champions Spain as their opponents in Thursday’s final. The two teams met in the third round of the group stage at this year’s World Cup, with Spain winning by one goal thanks to a 5-1 victory in the fourth quarter. Outside of the World Cup, they last met in January this year, when Spain triumphed in the final match of the World Cup qualifiers in Otopeni.

So far, only once, in 2005 in Montreal, have both the men’s and women’s national teams played in the World Championships final, with the women returning home with gold medals and the men with silver.

The Hungarian men’s team is preparing for its eighth classic World Championships final, winning three times, in 2003, 2013 and 2023. The Spanish have the same record, with their three successes to date coming in 1998, 2001 and 2022 (the latter in Budapest).

Krisztián Manhercz. Photo: MTI/Koszticsák Szilárd

The strength of the Spanish team is demonstrated by the fact that they have won medals in five consecutive world championships and, with the exception of two Olympic Games, have been on the podium at every major world competition since 2018. The Spanish team is extremely experienced, with 11 members of the 2022 Budapest-winning team still on the roster today.

Márton Vámos is on the verge of a historic achievement for the Hungarian team, as he could become the first Hungarian water polo player to win three world championships.

Zsolt Varga could become the first Hungarian national team coach to win two world championships, but Dénes Kemény leads the coaching rankings with one gold and three silver medals.

Gergő Fekete. MTI/Koszticsák Szilárd

According to Zsolt Varga, in an incredibly difficult match, the Serbs were “outplayed” in the semifinals, which was also a triumph for the heart. “I would like to start by congratulating the girls, they played fantastically yesterday, it is a huge achievement, and we can be proud that both teams are playing in the final,” said Zsolt Varga in his assessment to M4 Sport in the mixed zone.

“Today’s match started well, but as three-time Olympic champions, the Serbs know how to win these games. We had to work very hard to stay in it at the end, the defense was incredibly tough, they fought for a lot of penalties, but today we simply managed to outscore them, which was one of the keys to victory.” The expert said that in the final minutes, a “huge chess game” began, with the aim of taking the tired Serbian players, who had made several personal mistakes, out of the game. This strategy was largely successful, although Dusan Mandic still managed to make his mark, but that was to be expected from him, he explained.

Kristóf Csoma goalkeeper (R) and Dusan Mandic of Serbia. Photo: MTI/Koszticsák Szilárd

The national team coach noted that the stakes will be no higher in the final against Spain than they were in this match:

The two teams know each other well, we train together regularly, we know that they are a very strong opponent, but it is the heart that we showed today that is needed for success.”

The Hungary-Spain World Championships final will be held on Thursday at 3:35 p.m. Central European Time.

Related article

World Aquatics: Women’s Water Polo Team Knocks Out Olympic Champions to Reach Final

Via MTI, M4 Sport; Featured image: MTI/Koszticsák Szilárd

SPOKANE, Wash. – Gonzaga Volleyball has been named a winner of the American Volleyball Coaches Association (AVCA) national Team Academic Award. 

 A program must maintain an average team GPA of at least 3.3 across both semesters of the 2024-2025 academic year to be named an Academic Award winner. This is the eighth time that the Zags have been honored with this award, as they look to continue to build a culture of success in the classroom in addition to performance on the court. 

The academic performance of volleyball has set records off the court, with a record high 1,450 teams across the high school and collegiate levels being recognized by the coaches association for their academics. 233 Division 1 teams were recognized as Team Academic Award winners, the most since 2020-2021. The Bulldogs will look to continue their academic success in the upcoming athletic and academic year that starts next month. 

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Are sports television networks listening? When CBS pulled the plug on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, it ended a franchise player of the network for over 30 years—a direct head-to-head competitor that the network created to challenge its rival at NBC and their Tonight Show franchise. For generations, the back-and-forth ratings battle was intense, as every night seemed like must-see television with the two sides doing anything to entertain audiences to grasp the biggest number of viewers possible.

Does the cancellation of The Late Show serve as a warning shot to professional sports networks such as ESPN and FOX Sports?

Many will scoff at the idea of sports television networks canceling shows surrounding their sports programming. I get it. However, the reasoning CBS gave behind the cancellation should be heard loud and clear by everyone, including sports television networks.

Political leanings aside, The Late Show with Stephen Colbert cost a lot to produce. Reportedly, the price tag to create the program was near $100 million a year, with advertising revenue reportedly down over 50% compared to 2018. The show may have had the highest viewership of the competing late-night programs currently, but the amount of viewership compared to 2018 had also dwindled.

The Old Model Is a Formula for Disaster

Reduced revenue, ratings, and high expenses spell a formula for disaster in any type of media—especially in Colbert’s case, where a media company on the brink of being sold was looking to cut expenses and improve its bottom line in preparation for sale.

Isn’t this exactly what FOX Sports just went through with Breakfast Ball, The Facility, and Speak? High expense, low viewership, and limited revenue?

What is happening to The Late Show franchise is exactly the same as what happened with FOX Sports last week, which resulted in a phone call to Barstool Sports.

FOX Sports decided to license out their programming time slots in a partnership with the digital sports content hub, where Barstool (not FOX Sports) will produce a two-hour program to air on FS1 in the mornings to compete with ESPN’s Get Up. The show will then (reportedly) repeat from 10 a.m.–12 p.m. to go head-to-head against ESPN’s First Take.

In FOX Sports’ mind, why pay the massive freight for talent, staff, and production if you can pay someone else to do it for you? What’s to say CBS doesn’t follow that model for their coveted 11:35 p.m. time slot in May—replacing a personality-driven talk show with one that already thrives digitally that the network doesn’t have to invest in like the current Colbert model?

ESPN Programming Questions To Ponder

Could ESPN be next?

The simple question all these networks need to ask when it comes to programming is: Is the juice worth the squeeze? Is the amount of money any network (sports or non-sports) is shelling out to produce its own programming worth the investment? Is the product driving influence, viewership, and revenue enough to keep around?

Let’s look at a couple of examples with ESPN.

Was Tony Reali too expensive to keep around at ESPN? They canceled Around the Horn and have yet to give a reason why. Assuming each of the four panelists were compensated in some fashion, the network was compensating five talents per day, five days a week, for nearly 5,000 episodes. The network also siloed Reali from any other ESPN programming focusing his talents only on Around the Horn.

Was the juice worth the squeeze? Reali is now the most-sought after free-agent in sports television.

Dan Le Batard hinted the other day that Michael Wilbon’s contract runs up in August. Tony Kornheiser and Wilbon have been hosting Pardon The Interruption for nearly a quarter-century. Both are among the highest-paid talents at ESPN—but are they drawing more than a million viewers per episode? Not necessarily.

Is PTI’s juice worth the squeeze? Was their lead in a sign of things to come?

Stephen A. Smith is the highest-paid talent at ESPN, having just signed a reported 5-year, $100 million contract. Quick math: that’s about $20 million a year, which is more than Kornheiser and Wilbon combined. Using Colbert as a reference point, if The Late Show cost $100 million annually to produce, Stephen A. Smith’s contract would account for 20% of that cost by itself. Sure, First Take is number one in sports programming during that time slot—but its viewership isn’t anywhere near what The Late Show was doing. Then add in the compensation for the rotating cast of characters like Shannon Sharpe, Chris “Mad Dog” Russo, Molly Qerim, and others. Pretty pricey—averaging around half a million viewers.

Is First Take’s juice worth the squeeze? Maybe this is why Stephen A. Smith is everywhere at all times, to ensure the lemonade still has taste.

ALL Networks Are Playing Catch up for Lost Opportunity

If your program is making more money than you’re spending on it, you’re safe. If not, heed the warning of what happened to The Late Show with Stephen Colbert.

With changing times come changing dynamics—and rising production costs. Talent is not going to magically become cheaper. Nor will the costs to create and distribute content.

While many believe sports content networks have a shield of Teflon from the struggles of network television, the challenges remain the same.

Sports rights agreements are more expensive than ever. Sports networks need those rights as the industry continues to face hurdles from cord-cutting and the fragmentation of live sports. It’s a proven fact that appointment television lives, breathes and survives on live sports play-by-play. Nothing else comes close, and nothing else may ever again.

However, could we see a day where sports networks battle each other for streamers, influencers, and podcasters to fill programming space at a cheaper rate?

It may already be here—for all we know.

Simply put, sports fans can now find entertainment far beyond just the television. The days of appointment viewing for shows like Around the Horn, Get Up, Pardon the Interruption, First Take, and others are over. With the click of a button, sports fans can access a buffet of content options on any app, website, or social network to get the entertainment value they desire. The old way of doing business and generating audience has shifted dramatically, and networks are pivoting their strategies as only they know how.

The eventual fall of late night television was not in the strategy of content direction, it was in the strategy of networks not adapting to changing viewing habits and where audiences are going.

Let’s hope sports networks don’t follow the same formula, before it’s too late.

Barrett Media produces daily content on the music, news, and sports media industries. To stay updated, sign up for our newsletters and get the latest information delivered straight to your inbox.

John Mamola is the sports editor and columnist for Barrett Media. He brings over two decades of experience (Chicago, Tampa/St Petersburg) in the broadcast industry with expertise in brand management, sales, promotions, producing, imaging, hosting, talent coaching, talent development, web development, social media strategy and design, video production, creative writing, partnership building, communication/networking with a long track record of growth and success.  Honored to be a five-time recognized top 20 program director in a major market via Barrett Media and honored internally multiple times as station/brand of the year (Tampa, FL) and employee of the month (Tampa, FL). Connect with John by email at John@BarrettMedia.com.