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The oldest college men’s volleyball conference is expanding into the south.
The MIVA announced Northern Kentucky will join the conference starting for the program’s inaugural season in 2026.
“As one of the premier men’s volleyball conferences competing for the National Collegiate men’s volleyball championship, we are pleased to welcome Northern Kentucky as a member of the Midwestern Intercollegiate Volleyball Association,” MIVA commissioner Tim O’Brien said in a statement. “NKU fits perfectly in the MIVA footprint and will be an incredibly valued member that will help strengthen and stabilize our conference as the collegiate landscape continues to shift and the sport of men’s volleyball continues to grow.”
Northern Kentucky is a public university located in Highland Heights, Kentucky, and has an enrollment of about 15,000 students. The Norse announced last year that men’s volleyball would be one of six new sports the Division I school would sponsor.
Northern Kentucky earlier this summer hired Jim Palilonis to be the program’s first head coach. Palilonis has ties to the MIVA previously serving as an assistant coach at Ball State and Purdue Fort Wayne.
The addition of Northern Kentucky comes after Quincy opted to depart the conference at the conclusion of this upcoming season to compete in the GLVC, which will start sponsoring men’s volleyball in 2026.
The MIVA with Northern Kentucky will remain at nine teams. In addition, seven of those teams will be NCAA Division I programs – the most Division I schools for any men’s volleyball conference in the nation.
Schools in the MIVA have won a combined five NCAA championships since the start of the 25-point rally scoring era in 2011.
This will be the third school from Kentucky to join the MIVA in the conference’s history and the first school from the state since 1997. Thomas More was a MIVA member in the 1990s, while the University of Kentucky as a club program competed in the conference during the 1960s.