VBM chats with AVP's Donald Sun on a wide range of topics

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The AVP's Donald Sun chats with VolleyballMag.com's Phil Collins about relationships with the FIVB, the 2017 schedule, rule changes, and more: volleyballmag.com/donald-sun/

[volleyballer4life]

"I don’t know, to be quite frank, if your casual fan even knows team No. 5 (in the standings) and we’re going to do a better job in promoting."

You know, I remember one of his first interviews, the statement that disappointed me was when he was discussing going from 32 to 16 teams and saying "Why have a 5 vs 28 when no one knows the 28 seed" (paraphrasing, but 5 and 28 are the seeds that he mentioned). Now he at least admits he doesn't know if the casual fan even knows #5.

I genuinely hope they do a better job in promoting, because a) I'll say with certainty that most fans won't be able to pull all but 5-10 beach athletes out of a lineup b) one thing we're lacking is a sense of rivalry/storylines. The best matches I've seen from a crowd/energy have one big thing in common: You can feel the crowd pulling for one side or the other. People love watching great volleyball, but if we want to get people making volleyball must-see action, we need to get them interested in following specific teams.

Until that's addressed, spectator numbers will stay as they are, sponsor interest that lasts beyond a few years will continue to be a challenge, and we'll have a business model that won't be sustainable as soon as Donald and his checkbook is gone.

[volleyballjim]

I hear ya volleyballer4life. It's perplexed me why such a compelling sport is such a niche market. I've even wondered why you can't get more sponsors, just the photographs of the athletes, the environment , the beaches, the venues and owning the copyrights would have to be fairly alluring to any commercial enterprise. But as they say, if it was so easy everybody would be doing it. In the old days, weren’t the more profitable venues just regular Southern California locales? Everybody knew everybody and the players had quite the following. Was it the money? What was the cause of the player identification in that era? It is arguably nonexistent these days. Yes, if you could identify the fifth player on the AVP in either gender class, and there’s not a strong swell for those naming number three and number four. Even when I started following beach volleyball though, circa 2005, I remember having to subscribe to Dig magazine and familiarizing myself on my own. But how would it hurt to have “uniforms” with names on them, and possible nicknames. Something identifying the players other than just their AVP backpacks and their six-foot six-inch frames? Somehow create a much more “star” environment for the players. I’d love to be of on a focus group for this thing as it’s inexcusable for there to be so few followers of this great sport of ours.

[Deleted]

Kind of surprised that Sun hasn't made a final decision on the rules changes. They did their one event test. Why such a hard decision whether to continue old or go new?

In my opinion, the AVP hasn't tried to market anyone other than Kerri on the Women's side & Phil on the Men's side since 2012 -2013. They both may or may not go to Tokyo in 2020. They had better start thinking of some sort of marketing strategy for some of these other players. A hear a few people say they are going to heavily market Sara & Kelly. How about the talent that already exists within the AVP player & teamwise.  What happens if Kelly & Sara don't stay together? Lots of questions going into the next 4 years. 

[guest2]

Feb 28, 2017 22:43:52 GMT -5 volleyballjim said:

I hear ya volleyballer4life. It's perplexed me why such a compelling sport is such a niche market. I've even wondered why you can't get more sponsors, just the photographs of the athletes, the environment , the beaches, the venues and owning the copyrights would have to be fairly alluring to any commercial enterprise. But as they say, if it was so easy everybody would be doing it. In the old days, weren’t the more profitable venues just regular Southern California locales? Everybody knew everybody and the players had quite the following. Was it the money? What was the cause of the player identification in that era? It is arguably nonexistent these days. Yes, if you could identify the fifth player on the AVP in either gender class, and there’s not a strong swell for those naming number three and number four. Even when I started following beach volleyball though, circa 2005, I remember having to subscribe to Dig magazine and familiarizing myself on my own. But how would it hurt to have “uniforms” with names on them, and possible nicknames. Something identifying the players other than just their AVP backpacks and their six-foot six-inch frames? Somehow create a much more “star” environment for the players. I’d love to be of on a focus group for this thing as it’s inexcusable for there to be so few followers of this great sport of ours.

Back in the day there were a lot of profitable and popular venues outside Socal. There are a lot of things that contribute to why players then were known and players now arent, but one obvious one is to compare the best teams of that era to the teams of this one. Compare by appearance not by skill. They were rockstars in part because they looked like them and lived the life. I've said it before but no one thinks to themself, "I wish I could have Ryan Doherty's life." Sinjin Smith? Thats another story.

The lack of events is also a huge issue. How do storylines develop in 45 minutes.

[geedawg]

The players also marketed themselves and the sport and their sponsors or their own companies together. Sinjin was the master of this, promoting himself, the AVP and Sideout co-jointly. Randy was sponsored by Fila and Killer Loop sunglasses (Ray Ban essentially) other players partially owned their own brands like Primitive Prints Scott Ayakatubby, Red Sand by Steve Timmins, or were sponsored upwards of 6 figures, Nike with Adam Johnson and Jose Loiola. Of course Karcheee and Kent were winning everything in the early 90s so they also got huge paychecks from Speedo and Fila.

Players these days either don't self promote or they have fewer opportunities the rock stars of yore had.

It also didn't help when a former owner nixed a deal between a large sports drink company and Jason Ring and George Romaine that would have been six figures as well. It didn't help that the owner at the time tried to secure the deal for the tour then the company got disgusted and neither party got the contract.