Beach Volleyball's Moment The sport, with its beach-party atmosphere featuring impeccably cut and tanned athletes competing in skimpy bathing suits, is seen as having huge entertainment potential, which is why NBC is featuring it live in prime time throughout the Summer Games. At the volleyball arena in China, where the sport is relatively new, crowds clap along to music from Shania Twain and Michael Jackson as Chinese cheerleaders whip up the enthusiasm. Watching the Olympic competition with keen interest are a number of promoters who hope the attention will help them turn beach volleyball into a perennial moneymaker, rather than a novelty hit that comes along every four years. The top U.S. teams of Phil Dalhausser with Todd Rogers and Misty May-Treanor with Kerri Walsh are gold-medal favorites in the men's and women's tournaments, which conclude next Wednesday and Thursday. Despite the millions tuning into the myriad attractions of beach volleyball during the Games, the Association of Volleyball Professionals Inc., which operates games around the U.S. under the banner of the AVP Crocs Tour, is struggling to become profitable. A rarity in the U.S. as a sports league whose shares are publicly traded, AVP Inc. recorded a $4 million loss in 2007, its sixth consecutive unprofitable year. But optimism remains. "Coming off the Olympics, this is going to be very big year for us," Leonard Armato, a former sports agent who helped found AVP in 1983 and became chief executive in 2001. "We're going to get a big boost." National Basketball Association Commissioner David Stern, who worked with Mr. Armato when the agent represented such star athletes as Shaquille O'Neal, sees promise in professional volleyball. "You've got a good game, a young demographic, a great setting," he says. "It's got a lot going for it." Even so, some participants say there are limits on what they will devote to the sport. Jenny Johnson Jordan and Annett Davis, another top U.S. team, didn't make the trip to Beijing, with the players saying it would require too much time away from their children. "Everyone wants this sport to become something that I'm not sure it's going to be," Jeff Nygaard, a three-time Olympian in his eighth year on the tour, said before a recent tournament in Belmar on the New Jersey Shore. "Maybe this is as good as it can get?" AVP's organizers saw opportunity in a game that traces its roots to a popular sun-splashed lifestyle. Moving from city to city, the AVP Crocs Tour is a roving, three-day beach party, with music, food and fun centered around a traveling 5,000-seat stadium. Venues include various waterfront havens, from Coney Island, N.Y., to Hermosa Beach, Calif., with the occasional landlocked stop in Boulder, Colo., or Louisville, Ky. Sand is shipped in for the events. With revenue of $24 million last year, AVP's outdoor season now has 18 scheduled stops and 12.5 hours of coverage on NBC -- airtime it must pay for, then share ad revenue with the network. Some 26 hours of regional coverage also is carried on Fox SportsNet, a unit of News Corp. Rising expenses have eroded profit prospects, however. The logistics of moving the stadium around the country, providing $4.5 million in prize money and buying time on network and cable television are the main culprits. And until fan interest and television ratings grow, companies will only pay so much to sponsor the tour. For all of AVP's woes, Shamrock Holdings, the investment company cofounded by Roy E. Disney, offered last year to buy the tour for $36.9 million, or $1.23 a share. Mr. Armato favored the deal, but top investors, including Jan Loeb, a money manager at AmTrust Capital Management, helped kill it. AmTrust holds about 15% of AVP's shares, according to Mr. Loeb. Since then, AVP stock has fallen, and currently trades at 42 cents a share on the over-the-counter bulletin board. Six new board members were elected in May, replacing several that had favored the Shamrock deal, according to Mr. Armato, who remains chairman. Mr. Loeb said he has no regrets about rejecting the Shamrock offer. He said the protracted negotiations last summer distracted the company and now it can focus on building corporate sponsorships. "Exciting things are happening," Mr. Loeb said recently. "Near term it doesn't look that way, but we're happy with the asset." AVP's best players now earn several hundred thousand dollars each year in prize money and endorsements, such as a swimsuit endorsement deal with Adidas AG's Reebok unit for Ms. Johnson Jordan and Ms. Davis. "I never planned to earn any money at this," Ms. Johnson Jordan said. "I thought I was going to have to get a real job." But many AVP players don't make enough to cover their expenses, which include having to pay for travel and lodging. Mr. Nygaard said some players occasionally sleep on the beach at tour events or under the triangular sponsorship signs that line courtside. Steve Lindecke, an AVP board member and former top executive with sports conglomerate IMG, said beach volleyball needs to embrace its roots and turn tournaments into festivals with concerts and other attractions. After the competitive glory of the Olympics goes away, pure competition simply isn't enough. "It's a sport that's built in the sand and on the beach," Mr. Lindecke said. "You take that and you work with it." |
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