The Association of Volleyball Professionals and USA Volleyball have entered a strategic partnership aimed at growing and enhancing beach volleyball within the United States.
The alliance between the professional beach volleyball organization and the national governing body will see the organizations collaborate on events, marketing, coaching and officials’ education, and more. It will also create new partnerships and sponsorship opportunities across the professional tour, as well as AVP America’s and USA Volleyball’s Beach Tour’s grass-roots efforts. The deal will also create a unified ranking system and coordinated event calendar.
“After years of working alongside USAV — supporting each other, and sharing a common understanding of the sport, we recognized that together, our footprint could be bigger, better and the only real way to unify and enhance our sport across the dynamic landscape that we’ve each been building,” said Al Lau, chief executive officer of the AVP. “I am deeply proud of this opportunity and those involved to make it a reality — I know that there are only great things to come for those who love and play our sport. With beach volleyball expanding across the NCAA, this is the perfect time to create a proper ecosystem for the development and growth of beach volleyball.”
“As the national governing body for volleyball, our goal is to expand the strength and breadth of the sport in the United States and to have the world’s best grassroots programs and national teams,” said Jamie Davis, president and chief executive officer of USA Volleyball. “I am convinced that partnering with the AVP in many aspects of the development of beach volleyball will lead to even further growth of the sport and enhance our competitive excellence on the world stage. Virtually all of USA Volleyball’s national team players also compete on the AVP Tour so this alliance makes total sense.”