Players, fans dig revamped U.S. pro tour
By Chris Carola
Associated Press
After an All-America career and three national indoor volleyball championships at UCLA, Stein Metzger was eager to hit the pro beach game, with its seaside venues and endless summer vibe.
Associated Press
A couple of years and just a few thousand dollars in winnings later, Metzger sold his car and was living in a garage to make ends meet while working construction and tending bar.
Punahou graduate Stein Metzger, who lived through some lean times early in his beach volleyball career, made nearly $100,000 last year.
"I couldn't handle that," the Punahou graduate said.
Beach volleyball, it turned out, was no day at the beach for up-and-coming players like Metzger after the bottom dropped out of the U.S. pro tour in the late 1990s following a decade of boom times.
Player squabbles, disagreements with the sport's international governing body, and a loss of momentum between the 1996 and 2000 Summer Olympics all combined to take the steam out of the Association of Volleyball Professionals, the only pro beach volleyball tour in the United States.
But the sun may be shining again on the AVP, which filed for bankruptcy in 1998. Last year, a former beach player-turned-sports agent bought the AVP, united the men's and women's tours under one organization, and adopted the rules and court dimensions used in international play.
Players have united behind AVP owner Leonard Armato's plans. Now the 28-year-old Metzger does not have to worry about money. He made nearly $100,000 on the AVP and international tour last season, his best year as a pro.
"It's just so much more well-run," Metzger said.
In the down times, the number of AVP tour stops dropped from a high of 30 men's events in 1991 to just a dozen by 2000, while two women's tours folded. Corporations took their sponsorships elsewhere, tournament purses dwindled and network television went in search of the next cool sport.
Players disagreed about the Olympic qualifying process, with many of the biggest stars supporting the route laid out by the FIVB, beach volleyball's international circuit.
Armato seemingly has changed everything. Big-name sponsors such as Michelob Light and Nissan are back, as are the TV networks, with NBC, Fox Sports Net and the Oxygen Network airing the AVP.
"I think it's going in the direction it needs to be going," said Eric Fonoimoana, who teamed with Dain Blanton to win the 2000 Olympic gold medal in beach volleyball in Sydney.
Armato, former agent for Los Angeles Lakers star Shaquille O'Neal, is giving equal time to the women's tour, which gets the same amount of prize money as the men's.
"I've seen so many different changes. This is the best I've felt about our sport in a long time," said Holly McPeak, a 12-year veteran who has teamed with Barbara Fontana to win the AVP's first four women's events this season.
Armato plans to expand this year's seven-stop tour to around a dozen or more events by 2004, but he's taking a slow approach. No AVP events were scheduled for July, allowing the tour's regulars to play on the FIVB's bigger and richer circuit.
Meanwhile, Armato wants to promote the AVP's Southern California beach lifestyle while touting the game as a family event.
"Show me a sport where the lifestyle isn't part of the attraction," Armato said. "We have great-looking athletes being watched by fans in bikinis. There's nothing wrong with that."
During the AVP event this summer in Belmar, N.J., the beach party was in full swing. A disc jockey spun tunes, the game announcer kept up a running monologue and fans caught miniature souvenir balls whacked into the bleachers by AVP players with tennis rackets.
"We encourage people to get up and have fun and dance during the timeouts," said Karch Kiraly, beach volleyball's winningest player with 143 tournament victories.
"We're part pure sport that takes a great combination of great physical skills. But we're also part lifestyle. Part of that lifestyle is girls checking out the guys and the guys checking out the girls."
AVP officials estimate an average of more than 70,000 people turn out over the course of a typical three-day tournament. More are expected to show up for Southern California's Aug. 8-11 Manhattan Open.
Despite those numbers, AVP watchers believe the tour is unlikely to relive the growth it experienced through the mid-1990s, when the total prize money topped $4 million. This year, that figure is less than $1 million, but many of the players remain optimistic about the AVP's future.
"There's nothing more that I'd rather do," Metzger said. "Now I make more than my father."
