From the article: Is the Summer Over for the AVP Tour?
The AVP may need to cut the 2010 season short due to financial difficulties. In spite of having a great sport and great athletes the league has not been able to finish a single season in the black. They've tried different strategies, but nothing has worked. So what you do to save the AVP? Share Your Ideas
Save the AVP Campaign
- How can fans and players help? We want to keep the AVP and we want it on the beaches not parking lots and stadiums. Ideas?
- —Guest Joyce
Long-term Aliiances
- AVP needs to develop long term revenue alliances, not just the annual or venue sponsorships that are the norm today. Licensing, apparel, and long term product affiliations. I work with several pros now that are doing that with me on a personal level, why not make it series wide and have the players and fans tap into it and generate revenue, on-going, for everyone involved.
- —Guest Bill
Leadership
- The problem is poor leadership. How many times have you seen the sponser's have invitation's to be part of the family of AVP. The idea of charging admission is fine for a professional league, if it is agreeable with the site leadership. Example (Manhattan Bch City Council). How many times does the AVP intermingle with the business of the site city? The real losers are the player's. Remember this is the real world. The player's have reached the professional level, but the board of director's for the AVP has not.
- —Guest Mitch
No easy answer
- Bev, They signed Nivea, Gatorade, Nike, Twinlab, Barefoot, KGC, Malibu and still no profits. The sponsorships aren't yet worth enough-they're giving away the farm to get sponsors & TV. The AVP has to activate the fan base of ALL vball players. Crossover into millions of indoor (mostly young female) players. It's tough for us men to swallow, but it's gonna look more like 17 magazine than Sportscenter. But there are 15MM vball players in the US. If they followed the AVP in the summer like they follow clubs & USAV the rest of the year, sponsors would pay good $ to have their attention. It's going to take time to build and good investment capital after bad (current debt.) But it can and should be done. It's a digital generation, which is the great equalizer in content distribution. The AVP needs to invest in tech- and youth-oriented marketing savvy to pull this off. Hodell & co. know this. As always, it starts with a benefactor who loves the sport. A lot to ask. I'm playing lotto myself.
- —Guest Matt G.
Keep it in CA
- They're still spending too much money trucking sand out to landlocked states. They need to keep the events in CA and bag the non-beachside locales.
- —Guest Stephen
