Bringing Back Beach Volleyball

As the  beach volleyball tournament gets underway Saturday, the weekend event offers a glimpse into the fragility of the sport as an industry.

The Wide Open serves as one of few major beach volleyball tours stopping in the South Bay this summer as the sport aims to recover from the sudden collapse of the Association of Volleyball Professionals (AVP) tour last year in August.

The left many players, officials and executives scrambling to save a sport that only two years earlier saw the men’s and women’s beach teams capture gold medals in the Beijing Olympics. 

Now several new "mini" tours have sprouted in an effort to fill the void left by the absence of a central domestic tour. 

The Corona Light Wide Open is one, along with the National Volleyball League (NVL) and the Jose Cuervo Beach Series. 

But while players are still given the chance to tour, the prospect of making a living as a pro athlete becomes bleak.

During the AVP’s final season the tour was paying $6 million in prize earnings—a far greater amount than the combined prize money from all three tours this year. 

The Corona Light Wide Open tour will offer a $75,000 prize and is expected to draw many of the country’s top players. Hermosa Beach is the second to last stop on the four-city tour, which will conclude in Cincinnati on Labor Day weekend.

The National Volleyball League stops in Aspen on Labor Day weekend, offering a $75,000 prize, and then Miami on Sept. 9-11 offering $150,000.

Manhattan Beach will play host to the 51st annual Manhattan Open on Aug. 26-28, which is considered to be beach volleyball’s Wimbledon. 

USA Volleyball’s director of beach programs and Hermosa Beach resident will produce the Open, aided by James Leitz, the director of action sports for International Marketing Group (IMG) in conjunction with title sponsor Jose Cuervo Tequila—the sponsorship will provide $500,000 in prize money for the three-stop tour. 

After the Manhattan Open the tour will stop in Miami Beach (Sept. 15-17) before finishing the season back in the South Bay with a final tournament and Olympic qualifying event in Hermosa Beach (Sept. 23-25). 

The Cuervo tour aims to add up to seven events for next year while also working side by side with the other two domestic tours (Corona Light Wide Open and National Volleyball League) to avoid date conflicts and optimize player development. 

As beach volleyball tours develop and continue, Hermosa Beach is expected to continue hosting big matchups in the seaside sport.

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