World Series Of Beach Volleyball

Starting next week the FIVB is looking to begin what hopes to be an annual tradition in beach volleyball that squares off the world's best over 7 days of competition.  At first glance the Long Beach Grand Slam just looked like another tour stop for the FIVB to not only reach a broader audience but give the US players and fans a taste of the international game as well.  The World Series of Beach Volleyball is a 7 day event, which will be hosted in Long Beach, CA, that starts on Monday July 22nd with qualifying, and continues each day until the champions are crowned much like how the the World Series of Poker is set up.  The event will be televised on NBC Sports and NBC Sports Universal.

To this point there has never been a climax to any beach season.  Each tournament is regarded with relatively equal importance.  The only ones that draw greater favor from the players are usually the ones that simply pay more, but there is no great amount of sentimental value attached to any one tournament in particular which could be a culprit in the lack of the sport's mass appeal.  Football has the Superbowl, baseball has the World Series, and golf has 4 majors, and for each sport, prize money is a non-factor.  Each event is held with such esteem by both players and fans that winning them, takes you as an athlete to another level, you reach an exclusive club where champions can be heralded for their season long accomplishments.

Beach volleyball has never had that.  The Manhattan Open is the closest thing to that, where the winner for both the men and women are forever immortalized with the names on plaques on the pier nearby, but financial instability of late has put that tradition at risk.  The AVP which has been regarded as the preeminent American tour didn't even feature the Manhattan on their original schedule this year, giving favor instead to Santa Barbara and Huntington.  Now granted with beach volleyball being born in Southern California, and almost all of the professionals playing and training in that area, each athlete will usually have personal favorites based on their "hometown" beach.  For some it may be Hermosa, and others it may be Mission, but it's still strange that there isn't that "one" that everyone has their eyes set on.

Perhaps this will be a big turning point for the game.  There have been long standing tournaments like the Motherlode that have been around for about as long as the sport has existed but there was never a crown jewel.  I don't think that players will instantly call the WSOBV a classic (despite the large prize money purse), because there needs to be a certain amount of nostalgia and reverence built up in an event first.  Plus this tournament is taking place mid-season.  Just imagine if the Superbowl took place in December and then they resumed the final 8 games of the season.  Championships, trophies, banners, and rings, they are the most coveted symbols by both fans and athletes, but a grand unifying tournament that essentially comes with bragging rights may be just what this sport needs to give the fans something and someone to root for.


Side notes:  If you can't watch it on TV you can get updates online by following @WSOBV on Twitter.