Volleyball Tour Gets Better With Best

Misty May and Kerri Walsh, who form the top women’s beach volleyball team in the world, have signed with the Assn. of Volleyball Professionals, ending a two-year standoff with the AVP and strengthening the U.S. tour almost overnight.

May and Walsh, who live in Southern California, had been playing solely on the international tour, eschewing the AVP for more lucrative tournament payouts, among other things, on the Federation Internationale de Volleyball tour.

The addition of May and Walsh immediately improves the women’s division of the AVP and can be interpreted as another positive sign as the tour continues to emerge from a downward trend that bottomed out with a bankruptcy declaration in November 1998.

“This is just another one of the steps the AVP has taken to unify all interests in the sport while continuing the AVP’s rise as a national sports property,” said AVP Commissioner Leonard Armato, who purchased the tour in May 2001.

May and Walsh also will continue to play on the FIVB tour.

Three months ago, the AVP signed a pact with its longtime adversary, the FIVB, in which the tours agreed to avoid scheduling major tournaments simultaneously.

In one of the pact’s provisions, the FIVB, which controls the Olympic qualifying process, said it would only recognize players that were in good standing with the national tour of their home country. As such, May and Walsh eventually would have had to join the AVP in order to qualify for the Olympics.

“My main concern was having the freedom to qualify to play in the Olympics,” Walsh said. “We’re going to have that now.”

May and her agent, Tom McCarthy, had complained that the AVP had “restrictive” player contracts, but McCarthy said he is satisfied with a few minor changes made in AVP contracts for all players. For example, a new clause allows AVP players to keep secret how much money they make in endorsement deals.

In the end, the AVP now has the top two women’s teams in the world with May, 25, and Walsh, 24, and the successful U.S. team of Holly McPeak and Elaine Youngs.

Of the 11 FIVB tournaments last season, May and Walsh won five, McPeak and Youngs won four.