A volleyball match duration varies drastically depending on how even the teams are and how many sets up being played.
However this doesn’t answer the question above does it.
With that being said I compared the length of the last 10 matches played in the FIVB Volleyball Men’s Club World Championship 2019 Held in Betim.
From these 10 matches I took the total length of the game and divided it by the number of games I looked at to get an exact average.
From this I can conclude that the average Volleyball game lasts for 1 hour and 55 minutes and 50 Seconds
Let’s look at where I got these figures from.
Table of Contents
1st Game Used for results
The 1st game I selected or rather last game was the final between:
Cucine Lube Civitanova vs Sada Cruzeiro Volei
The game was very close fought, however, even with this close fought battle the game lasted just 4 sets.
Below is the stats from the game
The game was played on 8/12/2019 and the match started at 12:30 and ended 15:03.
This makes the length of this game 2 Hours and 33 minutes.
If you are looking at the above stat sheet you may notice that there is time durations noted next to the sets and the total of the sets added up is only 2 hours 24 minutes.
The reason for this is because in between each set is a small interval to allow the teams to collect themselves, switch sides and make any required changes.
2nd Game Used For Results
The next match used for the results was the play-off match to decide who took 3rd and 4th place in the tournament.
The match was between:
AL-RAYYAN Sports Club vs Zenit Kazan
The game was executed with cold cut precision as Zenit breezed through RSC in 3 straight sets.
Due to Zenit clinching the win in just 3 sets the game was much shorter in comparison to our first game.
The game was played on 8/12/2019 with a match start time of 9:30 and a finish time 11:03. This make for a full match duration of 1 hour and 33 minutes
Due to the decimation if you look at the set durations and the overall match time you will see even the turn arounds were quick. Both teams wanted this game over in a hurry.
3rd Game Used For Results
As we are working in reverse order from the final game, the 3rd match was played between the champions of the tournament and the team which finished 4th.
Cucine Lube Civitanova vs AL-RAYYAN Sports club.
Based on the teams playing I am going to guess you already know the outcome of this match.
Even you said Lube blew through the competition then you would be absolutely right.
Lube showed no remorse in decimating AL-RAYYAN finishing the game in 3 straight sets with the closest result being 25-22 in the final set.
The game was played on the 7/12/2019 and started at 17:00 with a finish time of 18:26.
This meant the match length was 1 hour and 26 minutes.
Again the switchover time between sets was kept to a minimum.
4th Game Used For Results
Moving down the list to the other semi-final we had a much closer battle in this semi-final and these teams that would finish 2nd and 3rd battled it out for a spot in the final.
The game was played between:
Sada Cruzeiro Volei vs Zenit Kazan
All though this game was much closer in scoreline surprisingly it was also finished in just 3 sets
The match was played on 7/12/2019 with a game start time of 14:00 and a finish time 15:45.
The made a match duration of 1 hour and 45 minutes
Again the switchovers where very efficient between sets
5th Game Used For Results
As we drop down into the Preliminary Matches we have the only match up that we currently haven’t seen out of the top 4
Sada Cruzeiro Volei vs AL-RAYYAN Sports Club.
The game was very one sided with the closest being 25-20. Cruz made light work of this game comfortable dominating all 3 sets.
Due to how the result is recorded when the time matches a 24 hour clock time for some reason the total doesn’t seem to like it as such it seems to add 24 to the hour time.
The match was played on the 5/12/2019 with a match start time of 20:30 and a finish time of 21:55. This makes for a match duration of 1 hour and 25 minutes
I am really not sure what happened to the stat sheet here.
6th Game Used For Results
This game was by far the most competitive and most entertaining match of the whole competition.
We saw the two heavy weights of club level volleyball going head to head again.
Cucine Lube Civitanova vs Zenit Kazan.
The first set was extremely one sided seeing Lube walk over Zenit 25-12. What ever happened during that team talk clearly walked as an entirely different squad returned to the court.
Zenit ended up coming out on the receiving end of the second set by just 2 points.
Going into the 3rd set with a 2 set deficit must of flipped a switch as Zenit returned the court beating Lube the same scoreline they were beaten by in the first. After this win they went on to win the next 2 sets to win the game 3-2.
Even though the game was played to the maximum possible sets, due to heavy score lines in 3 out of the 5 sets the game surprisingly did not last as long as you might think.
The match was played on 5/12/2019. The game started at 18:00 and finished at 20:22.
This made the full game a length of 2 Hours and 22 Minutes
7th Game Used For Results
The preliminary match before the one noted above was between two teams we have already seen face off.
The first 2 sets were extremely close coming down to the wire both times. However once Lube took a 2 set lead the 3rd set was very much a stroll over the finish line.
The match was played on 04/12/2019 and started at 20:30 and finished 22:16.
The makes the match duration 1 hour and 46 minutes
8th Game Used For Results
The game before was another preliminary game that saw play-off teams battling it out.
Zenit Kazan vs AL-RAYYAN Sports Club
In this game AL-RAYYAN put up a much better fight and managed to steal the first set of Zenit.
Unfortunately for them this wasn’t enough to give them the momentum to go and win the game and Zenit came back stronger and won the next 3 straight sets to take the game.
This match was played on 04/12/2019 and started at 18:00 with an end time of 20:45.
This meant the match lasted 2 hours and 45 minutes.
9th Game Used For Results
The Match prior was a rather surprising result as the game was over very quickly considering the two quite evenly matched teams on paper.
Sada Cruzeiro Volei vs Zenit Kazan.
A game which on paper would excite many avid volleyball fans as some of the biggest names in the game go head to head.
However, in this match Sada Cruzeiro Volei were too powerful for Zenit and romped home to the win in 3 straight sets. Now by no means did Zenit disgrace themselves in this game scoring 20, 20 & 22 respectively in the sets.
The match was played on 03/12/2019, the match started at 20:30 and finished at 22:09.
The match lasted 1 hour and 39 minutes
10th Game Used For Results
The first match of the tournament saw the overall winners take an easy victory.
Cucine Lube Civitanova vs AL-RAYYAN Sports Club.
Lube clearly didn’t need time to find their rhythm in this first game as the walked away with a very comfortable 3-0 win.
RSC weren’t able to get into the match at all with their best set performance only adding up to 18 points.
The match was played on 03/12/2019. It started at 18:00 and finished soon after 19:21.
This made the full game time just 1 hour and 21 Minutes
What do the Results Show?
Now in order to keep the math easy for myself I converted all the times into minutes rather than minutes and hours.
- 153 minutes
- 93 minutes
- 86 Minutes
- 105 Minutes
- 85 Minutes
- 142 Minutes
- 106 Minutes
- 165 Minutes
- 99 Minutes
- 81 Minutes
Total Time Played in Minutes = 1115
Divided by the Number of Games = 10
Average Game Length in Minutes = 115.5
Average Game Length = 1 Hour 55 Minutes and 50 Seconds
So there you have it the average game last that long.
Now I know that best on the small pool size and the limited number of teams this may vary slightly however I do feel this quite a fair reflection as there a variety of different game types.
Some games were over very quickly whilst others went the full 5 sets.
Hopefully you found this article to be useful and hopefully it allows you to gauge how long a Volleyball match played to 5 sets could last.