AVP gaining momentum
By Sharon Robb
STAFF WRITER
Posted April 3 2003

After struggling with mismanagement, lost sponsors and player dissension, the glory days of the Association of Volleyball Professionals have returned.

The AVP spiraled out of control in the late 1990s and lost more than $1 million in 2001 before AVP Commissioner Leonard Armato, a beach volleyball player in the mid-1970s and former agent for Shaquille O'Neal, came to the rescue.

Armato took over the tour from Spencer Trask Ventures Inc., a venture-capital firm in New York City that had no clue how to run a successful beach volleyball tour. The previous owners made poor decisions, overpaid the players and ultimately filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in November 1998.

"We had to resuscitate a dying body," said Armato, who founded the AVP in 1983. "It was my baby and I gave it up for my sports marketing business.

"I always thought it was something that could become a major sport, if properly administered. I saw the success it had at the Olympics. It had all the elements: great athletes, sex appeal, accessibility to the fans. But they threw it away. The result was [the tour] came back to me like a boomerang. This is a career focus for me now. This is where I am putting my energy. It's the right time and right place for beach volleyball."

What Armato calls "an exciting time" for the sport, the AVP Nissan Series kicks off its 10-stop tour Friday with the $62,500 Paul Mitchell Fort Lauderdale Open at the Sheraton Yankee Clipper.

The tour has combined the men's and women's tournaments with more than $1 million in prize money and features six AVP finals telecast live on NBC and seven tournament stops telecast on national cable TV, including the Fort Lauderdale stop.

"Once we set ourselves and our credibility, we have a place at NBC where we can grow," Armato said. "There's certainly the opportunity for us if we perform well."
Top players Holly McPeak and Eric Fonoimoana agree the national exposure will pay off.

"I have been around in the good times where we were going after $2.5 million in prize money and bad times where it was something ridiculous and they couldn't pay us," Fonoimoana said.

"Leonard put us in a good position where sponsors are working together in a marketing campaign that will give us more awareness that we do exist. We have never been marketed like this before. We are not being mismanaged and we are following a budget and not running into debt."

Said McPeak, a 12-year pro and all-time money winner among women: "The last two years we have been gaining momentum. Leonard keeps reminding the players we need to promote our sport, be real good ambassadors and take care of our sponsors. We knew we had a great sport, we just didn't have the right management to take us to the next level until now."

Beach volleyball was born on the beaches of California in the late 1920s and has been a full Olympic discipline since 1996. Armato now has high hopes that the AVP, FIVB, the sport's international governing body and USA Volleyball, have joined forces to strengthen the game at every level.

USA Volleyball has 39 regional associations and nearly 140,000 members. The AVP will promote a series of major FIVB tournaments in the United States including a World Tour Grand Slam event this year, two Grand Slam events in 2004 and the 2005 Beach Volleyball World Championships. Some of those tournaments will serve as Olympic qualifiers for the 2004 Summer Games in Athens, Greece.

"It's going to make a difference in the game," Fonoimoana said of the new marketing plan. "It's going to be a good atmosphere.

"We are a team working together for one goal. We are going to be a sport to watch."