HERMOSA BEACH, Calif. — There are two main occasions remaining on the AVP calendar: This weekend’s Manhattan Seashore Open, and the annual Chicago occasion on Labor Day weekend. The season-ending Championships have been scheduled for September 22-23, however that’s all we all know. Don’t know the format, the place it may be held, what number of groups can be competing and, all people’s favourite subject in the meanwhile, the place they may be capable of watch.
We had our semi-monthly episode of SANDCAST: Seashore Volleyball with Tri Bourne and Travis Mewhirter this week, which incorporates our beautiful moderator, Savvy Simo. All anybody needed us to talk about was the streaming. Under is a small sampling of our 100-plus inquiries from followers, the vast majority of which had been about, you guessed it, streaming:
Is there any means we are able to get the AVP to determine this streaming? On Sunday I needed to have ESPN, Ballys and cable to look at the matches. Additionally, may we get the semis one after one other as a substitute of on the similar time?
Quite a lot of followers have complained about streaming matches this 12 months. What do the athletes assume?
Do gamers assume streaming on ESPN+ and Bally is price it even when it’s alienating followers?
Do you assume the AVP broadcasting will ever get again to the standard of Amazon Prime? It’s BAD.
How’s the AVP group for the gamers? As a fan tuning in remotely, the expertise is complicated and dangerous.
What ought to the AVP do about broadcasting? Transfer to their very own steaming app?
Is the streaming platform musical chairs dangerous for the game, even when it lands on one with an even bigger attain?
Is the best way the AVP is aired/streamed good? What ought to they do?
Does the AVP have to rethink their broadcasting?
Why can’t the AVP determine streaming?
These aren’t new complaints. The followers have been disgruntled in regards to the streaming for the reason that first occasion, in Miami in March. Larry Hamel wrote a narrative detailing the response from the followers, and so they haven’t grown a lot fonder of the streaming expertise — a mix of Bally Dwell on an app, ESPN+, and ESPN2 — since. In the event you learn that story from Miami, the feedback above are just about the identical because the questions we obtained earlier this week.
Atlanta, nevertheless, appeared to be a tipping level.
We’ve been doing fan query episodes commonly since March, and whereas the streaming is all the time a subject, it’s by no means been this overwhelming. Dana’s remark on the high, referencing needing three totally different apps or channels to view matches inside a span of 4 hours, is what I’d guess to be the ultimate straw for a lot of. To observe one semifinal, you wanted ESPN+, and to look at the opposite, you wanted Bally Dwell. To tune into the ladies’s finals, you wanted ESPN2, which doesn’t include ESPN+, and to tune into the lads’s finals, effectively, you couldn’t, as storms delayed it to the purpose that I assume no streaming was potential. I watched by way of FaceTime.
As Savvy identified throughout our episode, we because the athletes “don’t have any management.” We additionally don’t know the phrases of any of the offers the AVP has had previously — Amazon Prime, Peacock, and now ESPN and Bally Dwell. So we don’t know if the AVP had an excellent take care of Amazon or NBC or ESPN or not. We don’t know who was overlaying manufacturing prices, any upfront funds, what share of subscriptions was going the place — we don’t know any of that, which limits a lot of what we are able to actually critique or praise in regards to the streaming, aside from the truth that it appears to be alienating followers.
Lots of the complaints are in regards to the streaming being behind a paywall, but most followers take into account the Amazon Prime stream to be the golden customary — a stream that was additionally behind a paywall. I’d guess extra folks already had Amazon Prime than ESPN+, so possibly it wasn’t an additional price incurred, however nonetheless: Paying for a product isn’t, in my thoughts, a problem. If you’d like one thing without cost, it’s most likely not going to be any good — see: Bally Dwell — or it can make so little monetary sense that it goes away — see: YouTube, which was additionally the place LIV golf occasions initially lived till it will definitely signed a deal of its personal.
I feel Volleyball World TV is an exceptional product, and nearly the entire followers I chat with are completely happy to pay no matter it’s they pay — both $8/month for all the pieces, or $6/month only for seaside — as a result of they get to look at any match they need, on demand or dwell, with commentary from glorious personalities akin to Simon Golding, Clayton Lucas, Damien Schumann, and a number of others.
Amazon Prime additionally had that. I assumed Kevin Barnett did an incredible job, not simply as a commentator — sincere, considerate, witty, insightful — however as a number, along with his large hammer and typically corny however entertaining stunts on middle courtroom and behind the scenes. Barnett and Camryn Irwin and the remainder of the group had enjoyable post-match interviews and the manufacturing worth was glorious.
Right here it’s additionally necessary to recollect: There was no scarcity of viewers complaining in regards to the protection from Amazon Prime. An ideal streaming platform doesn’t exist, to not followers, anyway. This goes throughout all sports activities and all fanbases. The direct suggestions I get from followers watching on Volleyball TV is roughly 90 p.c optimistic, however there may be nonetheless that 10 p.c who ship me lengthy emails and messages upset about components of Volleyball TV many rave about. That’s simply the best way it goes.
One other word that’s necessary to recollect: After I first began enjoying in qualifiers, the stream was on the AVP Fb web page. This isn’t that way back. Since, the musical chairs has been troublesome to observe, from Fb to Amazon Prime to Peacock to YouTube to ESPN+ and Bally Dwell and ESPN2. That’s brutal for followers, however all of these choices are additionally higher than Fb.
Followers did benefit from the YouTube stream for probably the most half, however it was free, which doesn’t make a lot sense from a enterprise standpoint, until you discover a approach to promote sufficient adverts by way of the YouTube stream for it to make sense. Having a smidgen of expertise in YouTube monetization with SANDCAST, I can’t think about that being the case, particularly given the viewership numbers of the matches that had been streamed (hardly ever did a match eclipse 50,000 viewers). Volleyball World has dialed in the very best of each worlds: A monetized streaming app with highlights on YouTube, that are additionally monetized and level viewers again to Volleyball TV.
In my good world, the AVP would get a take care of Volleyball World TV. All of the volleyball you may watch on one, superior, easy app, the place the attain is international and also you’re hitting your direct market of volleyball followers. It might basically turn into NFL Purple Zone for volleyball followers.
How that may work out, I don’t know. Each events — Volleyball World and the AVP — would need it to be a monetary win for them, as they need to, however the feasibility of that’s simpler mentioned than achieved. A mannequin much like the one AppleTV has with the MLS may, in a maybe overly idealistic world, work. On AppleTV, customers can join an MLS League Cross, or bundle it in with their AppleTV subscription. An AVP go for an additional couple of dollars on Volleyball TV could be a no brainer for me to purchase. Once more, how that may work would get sophisticated, since, amongst a number of points that would want ironing out, the AVP and Volleyball World typically have conflicting occasions — Manhattan Seashore vs. Hamburg, Gstaad vs. Hermosa, Saquarema vs. New Orleans, La Paz vs. Miami this 12 months alone.
Traditionalists would argue, after all, that with out linear TV publicity, the expansion of the sport could be restricted. There’s some reality to that, and that’s the actual fault line upon which the Pac-12 fell aside, as colleges jumped ship when the one tv deal the convention may land was with AppleTV. As I mentioned: The right stream doesn’t exist. However I additionally don’t personally know a single one that merely scrolls via their channels anymore and begins watching one thing that popped up on their menu. Perhaps that’s simply the millennial in me.
All that mentioned, I’d count on there to be a change subsequent 12 months. What that change will seem like, I don’t know. The one factor I do know for certain is that somebody, someplace, most likely gained’t be happy with it, and we’ll be answering comparable questions in a 12 months from now.
See y’all right here subsequent 12 months!
What changes do Sara and Kelly have to make developing quick in Montreal and Atlanta?
Do you assume Kelly and Sara are in just a bit stoop or are different groups figuring them out?
If it is a stoop, it’s a stoop most athletes would like to be in.
I’d prefer to rewind again to Montreal for a minute. It’s 14-12 within the third set of the ninth-place rounds. Kelly Cheng and Sara Hughes have a pair of match factors, in opposition to Brandie Wilkerson and Melissa Humana-Paredes. Ought to have had extra, too. That they had been up 8-4 — simply as that they had been down 4-8 within the Gstaad Elite16 quarterfinals — however Humana-Paredes and Wilkerson tied it up at 10-10. Now it’s 14-12 after a Hughes lower shot. Wilkerson chops a lower of her personal, however Hughes and Cheng nonetheless have a easy sideout to win the match. Hughes, completely in system on the following level, tries the identical dart into the angle that had labored on the earlier play, solely this one catches the highest of the tape, Humana-Paredes digs it simply and hits an angle swing that knots it at 14-14. The Canadians go on to win the match and, subsequently, all the event.
If both of these match factors go in another way, these questions don’t come into our inbox. So it’s troublesome to label this a “stoop,” however such is the character of the Seashore Professional Tour: A handful of factors can drastically shift the course of your season. Hughes and Cheng had been kind of as a result of let one get away after requiring a miracle comeback in Gstaad, the place they gained silver. The universe balanced itself out.
To dub their third place end in Atlanta as additional proof of a “stoop” appears a bit rash to me as effectively. So far, Cheng and Hughes have misplaced one match — one! — on the AVP since their partnership started final fall. That one got here within the semifinals of Atlanta, to Wilkerson and Humana-Paredes, in a well-played 18-21, 20-22 loss. Is {that a} stoop, or simply two matches the place the deciding set between two of the very best groups on the planet went into extra time?
It’s a supreme praise to Cheng and Hughes that some are labeling their latest run of tournaments as a stoop, when contemplating that since Could, they’ve gained an AVP in Huntington Seashore, a silver medal in Gstaad, solely misplaced a single match in Atlanta, and completed fifth in Ostrava and ninth in Montreal in a seesaw match to the group who would ultimately win gold.
Now, was it their greatest volleyball of 2023? Positively not. They barely broke pool in Montreal and had just a few oddly shut calls in Atlanta. The psychological fatigue at this level within the season, significantly in an Olympic qualifying 12 months, is the most important problem to most athletes on Tour, to not point out the athletes on Tour who’re the No. 1 group, the one everybody needs to beat. I’d count on, with a bit of relaxation after Chicago, that the Paris Elite16 and World Champs will characteristic a rejuvenated corps of American groups, together with Cheng and Hughes.
If Alix Klineman made a late run for Paris, who would possibly take into account a associate change?
In the mean time, Alix is signed up for World Championships with Hailey Harward. So for one, it’s superior, and superb, that she’s wholesome sufficient to compete on the highest stage on the planet only a few months after giving delivery to her son. If she had been to compete in Mexico this October, she would want a wild card to take action, given the World Championships qualification course of is your greatest six finishes as a group within the 2023 season. Klineman and Harward clearly don’t have any finishes as a group, so a wild card is the one route.
However right here is the place it will get additional tough: Harward has a bid to World Championships with Kelley Kolinske by way of NORCECA. It’s a bid no person anticipated they’d really be capable of use, as a result of the USA was anticipated to hit its nation quota of 4 groups who certified by way of factors, which it did in Kelly Cheng and Sara Hughes, Kristen Nuss and Taryn Kloth, Sarah Sponcil and Terese Cannon, and Betsi Flint and Julia Scoles. However with Sponcil and Cannon splitting up, solely three USA groups have certified, and Harward and Kolinske may then use the NORCECA route they earned to compete in Tlaxcala.
There’s, nevertheless, the potential of Cannon or Sponcil subbing in somebody, however that may imply one in every of them must withdraw and let the opposite play with a special associate. Who is aware of what is going to come of it, and I gained’t converse for Cannon or Sponcil right here, however what had gave the impression to be a simple World Championships is getting fairly attention-grabbing. If Cannon or Sponcil is ready to sub another person in, then Harward and Kolinske’s NORCECA bid would once more be moot, and Harward may nonetheless doubtlessly get a wild card with Klineman.
In the event that they don’t get a wild card? I’m unsure if Klineman would have the time to qualify. We don’t know what the 2024 schedule seems to be like, however the cutoff is June 9 of 2024. If there aren’t 12 important occasions for Klineman to play, it might be nearly mathematically not possible to qualify, however till the schedule comes out, I’ll by no means rule out an Alix Klineman from carrying out something.
