The state of pro beach volleyball is examined by Terry
Lefton of BRANDWEEK who writes, "While sponsors and
organizers still express confidence in beach volleyball as a
sports marketing property, the organizations putting on the
tours are either wounded, dead or on their last legs." The
AVP is undergoing a leadership change and facing a $1.8M
debt, Budweiser's four-on-four women's league was dropped
last year and the WPVA has "entered into 'voluntary
dissolution.'" Lefton writes that the "very California
lifestyle that makes the game popular may also be at the
root of the disharmony and communal organizational structure
that doomed the WPVA and, possibly, the AVP. Those
organizations were always run for the players and by the
players." Former AVP Exec Dir Jerry Solomon: "Players just
can't be management and labor at the same time." NBC had
broadcast AVP events for nine years before dropping it this
year, and NBC Sports Senior VP Jon Miller said, "They never
grew as a business organization. It was always run by the
players for the players benefit" (BRANDWEEK, 4/20 issue).
NEED SET-UP MEN: While the AVP and WPVA didn't have
"any trouble finding sponsors" until recently, Lefton writes
that "consistent, marketing-minded leadership, the kind
that's vital to the success of any sports property, much
less a neophyte one, was either non-existent or anathema to
a player-run organization." Steve Vanderpool, who was an
outside PR counsel for Miller's AVP sponsorship, said most
"players never really grasped how important their sponsors
were. Miller kept the league afloat for many years and the
sponsors would go into a bar and the players would be in
there drinking Bud." Lefton: "Compounding the problems was
the sport's penchant for factionalization." Tom Feuer, Nike
Sports Entertainment's Dir of Running & Volleyball: "The
infighting has killed them" (BRANDWEEK, 4/20 issue).
WHAT'S NEXT: New AVP President Harry Usher has taken
steps to reduce the Association's debt and the league's
players have voted to reduce prize money for this year's
remaining events. But a new league model is "being
proposed" by Solomon that would feature an eight-tourney
circuit where players would be individually contracted to
play. Lefton concludes, "Almost everyone involved agrees
the sport needs to be reborn under a unified organization.
Whether the current financial difficulties are enough of a
catalyst is unclear" (Terry Lefton, BRANDWEEK, 4/20 issue).
