New beach volleyball tour to start at Manhattan Beach in August
A year after the Assn. of Volleyball Professionals Tour shut down after 23 years, a new, three-event tour is expected to be unveiled Wednesday. The tour will open with the Manhattan Beach Open on Aug. 26 and carry a total purse of $500,000.
“For us there was a different void in the market with AVP ceasing operations,” said Dave Williams, the managing director of Beach USA Volleyball. “So it is very important for us to get these events up and running first.”
The Jose Cuervo Pro Beach Volleyball Series will move from Manhattan Beach to Miami Beach on Sept. 9-11 and ends at Hermosa Beach on Sept. 23-25. The $500,000 purse will be split among the three tournaments. The Manhattan Open will be worth $200,000 and the other two worth $150,000 each.
Those winnings will match the biggest from the AVP Tour in the last few years, and exceed what players have been playing for this summer. The Corona Light Wide Open Tour, a series of five tournaments worth a total of $425,000 in purses, has filled in for the AVP.
“The events that have been going on have been a bit reduced in prize money, so the amount that is being put up for these events is really exciting,” said Sean Scott, winner of the first two tournaments in the Corona Tour. “Every opportunity we have when we can go out in front of the fans to do what we love to do, that’s really exciting.”
Scott said the players would be even more excited if the three-event tour sets a precedent.
“I hope going forward into 2012 that this will grow into six or seven of these, and really set a level for all of us,” he said.
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