Australian Beach volleyball tour 2009… still a no go.
Friday, February 6, 2009 15:50
The AVF has just put out another newsletter explaining that unless someone else pays for it, there won’t be a national championship tournament this year.
Come on guys! How hard is it to organise a beach volleyball tournament? I’m not talking about grand stands and dancing girls… I’m talking nets, and referees for the finals. Any beach volleyball club in the country could put it on for a nominal fee.
What is needed is a little lateral thinking. For example, get each state to run a qualification tournament, or just nominate one of their existing tournaments as the “qualification” tournament. Allow a total of 16 teams, from around the country to qualify, (assigning x number of qualification places per state depending on the size of the volleyball community) and then run a small 16 team tournament… somewhere. Who cares where, do it on Hamilton Island… do it at Civic pool next to the AVF…
The lack of prize money, and sponsors is a great opportunity for some younger players to step up and compete for a National Championship. (And let’s face it, prize money levels in Australia haven’t changed for over 10 years, and don’t even cover travel costs ffor 95% of athletes anyway.)
To not have a National Championship event because “we don’t want to run a loss” is a cop out. How much government funding do the AVF get?
The AVF needs to change their attitude from, “We will do it if….” to “We will do it, now let’s work out how…”
What do you think? Am I being too harsh, or should the AVF be doing more for our sport?
Beach Volleyball Guru says:
February 12th, 2009 at 8:57 pm
good post. the sport shouldn’t fall over just because the national federation is unable to host a national tour.
the players shouldn’t stop playing just because there is no money.
what ever happened to ‘for the love of it?’
Tristo says:
February 13th, 2009 at 12:21 am
I agree Guru. Luckily we have a lot of participation at the State level. I think we just need to get one event together before the end of the summer so that someone gets crowned National champion. It’s going to look a bit lame in 10 years, when we go through the record books and say “Hmmm… who was national Champion 2008/09?… oh yeah, that’s right, the AVF didn’t have a spare weekend to put a tourney on…”
Beach Volleyball Guru says:
February 13th, 2009 at 8:54 am
apart from me setting up a net at mollymook beach and inviting down a few friends for a game, i think the option needs to be put to the states to claim the rights for the event.
set the date in March or April, run it in the north of the country, so we get some sun (?), and the hosts get the benefit of probably winning it – if nobody can make the trip. Any prizemoney can be donated to the Bushfire / Qld floods appeals.
I’m with you Tristo, it just has to happen.
dt says:
February 20th, 2009 at 7:44 pm
yaaaaay!
From the AVF Website:
http://www.avf.org.au
It has been a long time coming, but The Australian Volleyball Federation (AVF) today announced that the National Beach Championships will take place at the Sandstorm Beach Club on Kessels Rd, Nathan QLD.
As most of the volleyball community would be aware, the AVP and subsequently Crocs pulled out of promoting and sponsoring the National Beach Volleyball Tour for 2009. The final advice was only received in December and since then the AVF has been trying to pull together the necessary sponsorship to make a Tour possible. Whilst there has been definite interest from companies seeking to invest, the financial crisis has made it impossible for these companies to come up with the cash required for 2009.
Natalie Cook, Olympic Gold Medallist knows all too well the importance of the Tour to both the athletes and the AVF and has kindly offered her venue to deliver a National Beach Championships. AVF CEO Joan Perry today said that “Natalie has been our saviour. She is truly committed to the advancement of beach volleyball in this country and by offering the Sandstorm venue has literally saved the AVF thousands of dollars.”
“Delivering a National Beach Tour is an expensive exercise, each Tour event costs nearly $100,000 before television and prize money is figured into the equation. Without the support of sponsorship this was simply not possible. We still wanted to provide an opportunity for the best beach volleyball players in Australia to compete for the honour and prestige of being crown the National Champion and Natalie has made this possible” said Perry.
The event will be open to all beach volleyball players around Australia and details for entry will be published by the end of this week.
W. Joan Perry
CEO , Volleyball Australia