NBC Sports Group has agreed to air every stop of the AVP pro beach volleyball tour as an appetizer for the Rio Games, where the sport will play a starring role. The tour returned to NBC in '15 after a five-year hiatus, and both sides call it a success. This new one-year deal is identical to last year’s -- NBC will not pay any rights fee and the AVP will handle all ad and sponsorship sales. The parties are now discussing a possible long-term deal extending past the Games. NBC Sports President of Programming Jon Miller said AVP Managing Partner Donald Sun and his team "came in and did everything they said they’d do.” Miller: “They invested heavily in the sport, invested heavily in television, and did a good job logistically.” Coverage will launch April 17, when NBC will air the final rounds of the New Orleans Open. Seven additional events will air on NBC or NBCSN, including an international tour stop in Cincinnati run by the AVP. All except the final leg, the Chicago Open on Sept. 4, will air prior to the Olympics. Every broadcast will stream on NBC Live Sports Extra. “Obviously they believe in the property, which is great,” Sun said. “We obviously like residing on their network." Ratings were a mixed bag for the AVP in '15. Some events, like the Seattle Open and the Manhattan Beach Open, drew more than 1.1 million viewers on NBC. But the N.Y. Open drew just 553,000 viewers on the net, while the Cincinnati Open drew just 129,000 viewers on NBCSN. “A lot of this has to do with timing and lead-ins, but overall we were pretty pleased with the way it performed,” Miller said. Prior to last year, the AVP aired on the unrated CBS Sports Network in a revenue-sharing deal.
DEDICATED TO THE SPORT: NBC will air 14 total hours of AVP action, down three hours from 2015, because of the Olympics blocking out all of August. Veteran broadcaster Chris Marlowe will handle play-by-play duties, while Kevin Wong will join as an analyst and Dain Blanton will be an on-air reporter for each event. They are all former Olympians. NBC also says it will air 170 hours of non-Olympics volleyball in total across its platforms. Along with the AVP, it will air the FIVB World Tour, the World Series of Beach Volleyball, the FIVB World League and the FIVB Women’s Grand Prix. The AVP and NBC both said a long-term deal was likely to get done, even without the Olympics as an incentive in the out years. “We think it’s a standalone property with the right timing and packaging,” Miller said.
