Is it possible LSU women's basketball could play a game inside Tiger Stadium?
Nebraska volleyball, and the historic support it drew Wednesday night, painted a powerful, lasting image for women’s sports at its match inside Nebraska football’s Memorial Stadium.
With 92,003 fans in attendance, the Cornhuskers broke the world record.
The historic scene turned minds elsewhere. Could other universities and women’s programs pull something close to that off?
LSU women’s basketball, in the current landscape of popularity, ranks among the top of women’s teams across all sports in interest and support.
Angel Reese is the face of women’s basketball. Flau’jae Johnson is already a star in her own right. LSU coach Kim Mulkey is one of the top coaches in the game, having led the Tigers to their first NCAA championship this past season in her second season in Baton Rouge.
And this is not to mention star transfer guard Hailey Van Lith.
Season-ticket sales and overall following for LSU women’s basketball grew 10-fold as soon as she walked through the doors at Pete Maravich Assembly Center more than two years ago. And the platform has only skyrocketed from then as the team broke PMAC attendance records last season.
Could now be the moment to take advantage and hold a LSU women’s basketball game inside Tiger Stadium?
It’s worth at least thinking about it to LSU President William Tate.
“People here are big-time supports of women’s basketball and they love Kim and the team,” Tate told The Daily Advertiser Thursday night. “It would be pretty special to do. But I do have questions in the SEC footprint.
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“(Nebraska) has an advantage over us with weather. The realities in southern Louisiana, an early season in Tiger Stadium, it could still be 90 degrees and humid. I think it’s worth thinking about. The question is: when could you pull it off?”
That hypothetical has a couple of parts to it. Time of year would factor into the decision-making process. The second part would be the star-power at the time would have to be right as well.
Like Cornhusker volleyball, which is a highly-ranked program in its sport, LSU figured to enter the 2023-24 season ranked as the No. 1 team and will likely be favorites to repeat as national champions.
Mulkey and her staff signed the nation’s top recruiting class this past cycle which includes a budding, homegrown star in Shreveport native Mikaylah Williams.
In theory, this season “would be the optimal year” to potentially have LSU play inside the football stadium, Tate said, as there may never be a more star-studded, plus talented, team playing for Mulkey at LSU.
The Garth Brooks concert inside Tiger Stadium a couple of years ago shows that a non-football event is feasible, he said, but logistically, it would be hard to try and pull something off while Reese, Van Lith and others were still on campus.
“Bottom line is if it’s going to happen, I think you try to do it next year, if you do it. It would be pretty cool,” Tate said. “I haven’t talked to (LSU Athletics Director Scott Woodward) yet. I’m not going to call and talk about it. I haven’t talked to Kim either.
“They would all have to be aligned and excited about it. But they’re the kind of team that would draw.”
If the university gets to the point where the women’s basketball team would be set to play in Tiger Stadium, would the world record that Nebraska volleyball be in jeopardy?
Tate thinks so.
“I would want to believe that the Tiger community would step up and make a big push to get that number. I’m confident in the fanbase. Always.”
Cory Diaz covers the LSU Tigers and Louisiana Ragin’ Cajuns for The Daily Advertiser as part of the USA TODAY Network. Follow his Tigers and Cajuns coverage on Twitter: @ByCoryDiaz. Got questions regarding LSU/UL athletics? Send them to Cory Diaz at bdiaz@gannett.com.
This article originally appeared on Lafayette Daily Advertiser: Could LSU women's basketball play inside Tiger Stadium?
