Volleyball Used to Play to 15, No Matter How Long It Took

Like badminton, volleyball’s older scoring system only awarded points to the serving team, meaning a rally won by the receiving team simply passed the serve back and forth without any points changing hands at all.

Matches could stretch on unpredictably, sometimes lasting far longer than broadcasters or even players themselves expected. Volleyball eventually made the same fundamental switch badminton later would, moving to rally point scoring to fix the problem.

A format that made match length genuinely unpredictable

Under volleyball’s older “side-out scoring” system, teams competed to 15 points, but only the serving team could actually score. If the receiving team won a rally, they simply gained the right to serve next, without any point being added to the scoreboard. That meant a genuinely competitive match between two evenly matched teams, each repeatedly winning back serve without converting it into points, could run on for a considerable, unpredictable length of time.

This created real logistical headaches, especially as volleyball grew into a more prominent Olympic and broadcast sport, needing to fit into scheduled television windows and tournament timetables that a wildly unpredictable match length made genuinely difficult to plan around.

The move to rally point scoring

The International Volleyball Federation introduced rally point scoring at the elite level starting in the late 1990s, with every rally now awarding a point to whichever team won it, regardless of who served. Matches shifted to a format of playing to 25 points across most sets, with a final deciding set typically played to 15, replacing the older, less predictable side-out system entirely.

The shift had an immediate effect on both match length and pace. Games became noticeably faster and more consistently timed, again making the sport considerably easier for broadcasters and tournament organizers to schedule reliably.

Strategy changed along with the scoring

Just as with badminton’s later switch, volleyball’s move to rally point scoring changed team strategy in real ways.

Every single point now carries direct value regardless of who’s serving, which rewards teams for playing aggressively throughout the entire match rather than settling into more cautious, patient patterns while waiting to regain serve.

Serving itself became a more genuinely aggressive weapon, since a strong serve could now win a direct point immediately, rather than simply setting up a chance to eventually score later.

A pattern shared across multiple sports

Volleyball and badminton independently arrived at very similar solutions to very similar problems, both moving from serve-only scoring to rally point scoring specifically to make match length more predictable and the sport more broadcast-friendly. It’s a clear example of how similar competitive and commercial pressures can push genuinely different sports toward remarkably similar rule changes.

Do you think other sports still using older, less predictable scoring formats today will eventually be forced to make similar changes as broadcasting and audience expectations continue to evolve?