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Post by volleyshots on May 7, 2014 13:33:56 GMT -5
www.mysuncoast.com/sports/local/suncoast-volleyballer-deemed-inelligible-for-beach-tour/article_996eb4de-d559-11e3-a6a0-001a4bcf6878.html
VENICE, Fla. -- The AVP volleyball tour makes its stop in St. Petersburg this weekend, but when it does, it will have a decidedly un-Suncoast flavor.
Chara Harris is a biology teacher at Venice High School whom ABC 7 profiled a couple of years ago. Her side job is as a professional volleyball player, but she found out recently she is ineligible to play for the top league any longer.
“I had partners lined up, unfortunately, and they had purchased tickets to come out here. Then I had to call them up and tell them I couldn't play," says Harris.
Players who are not in the upper echelon for the AVP try to play as much as possible on smaller tours to keep their game sharp. "The average income of a volleyball player is under $10,000, and we have to pay our own expenses. We are really doing it for the love of the game. We don't make enough money, we are not making a salary, or making any money from the AVP so we have to play as many matches as possible."
It’s not just Harris that is affected. She is upset not only for herself, but also for the multitude of other players, including her partner Megan Wallin, who lost 2 partners for this weekend’s event due to the ruling.
"So now Megan is looking for a partner, along with a plethora of players that are being affected by this," says Harris.
Besides, being told she is no longer welcome on the AVP tour, Harris is upset that they waited so long to let her know she wasn't going to be able to play with the tour. "About a month ago, 7 or 8 months later, they made a decision to ban those players that played on the NVL."
And that they never happened to mention this possibility when they granted her permission to play elsewhere. "They didn't give me any type of a detailed response. They just said, ‘I'm sorry to give you the bad news, but you will be ineligible, and banned to play this year from the AVP'."
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Post by haze on May 7, 2014 16:06:55 GMT -5
"This weekend" - isn't this tournament at the end of May?
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Post by stevek on May 7, 2014 19:06:49 GMT -5
So annoying we have to deal with this crap. Player should be able to play where they want to play.
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Post by Deleted on May 8, 2014 10:52:28 GMT -5
So annoying we have to deal with this crap. Player should be able to play where they want to play. It's my understanding people knew the AVPs stance on competing tours. While I agree the lesser names ie Chara should be allowed to play where they can, I also believe the AVP has the right to operate as they see fit. Then its up to the players/consumers to decide if they want to be associated with them.
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11Six
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Post by 11Six on May 8, 2014 21:21:36 GMT -5
So annoying we have to deal with this crap. Player should be able to play where they want to play. It's my understanding people knew the AVPs stance on competing tours. While I agree the lesser names ie Chara should be allowed to play where they can, I also believe the AVP has the right to operate as they see fit. Then its up to the players/consumers to decide if they want to be associated with them. The re-appearance on a regular basis of threads on this forum lamenting the now-long-term decline in sand vb's popularity among "consumers" pretty much tells us that the decision has long since been made regarding the AVP.
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Post by Deleted on May 9, 2014 8:58:43 GMT -5
It's my understanding people knew the AVPs stance on competing tours. While I agree the lesser names ie Chara should be allowed to play where they can, I also believe the AVP has the right to operate as they see fit. Then its up to the players/consumers to decide if they want to be associated with them. The re-appearance on a regular basis of threads on this forum lamenting the now-long-term decline in sand vb's popularity among "consumers" pretty much tells us that the decision has long since been made regarding the AVP. Popularity isn't the issue. Viability is however.
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11Six
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Post by 11Six on May 9, 2014 10:36:29 GMT -5
The re-appearance on a regular basis of threads on this forum lamenting the now-long-term decline in sand vb's popularity among "consumers" pretty much tells us that the decision has long since been made regarding the AVP. Popularity isn't the issue. Viability is however. Au contraire. I agree that with regard to players viability is indeed the issue. But you also mentioned consumers. If consumers are not attracted by a sports product, they will not spend their leisure $ on it. And posts lamenting sand vb's now-long-term decline in popularity abound in this forum. Sad, perhaps, but true. Volleyball enthusiasts like myself often talk about how our sport is a niche sport. We wish it was more popular, and we hope it will become so, but for now it is what it is and we love the sport we see as a hidden gem. But we do not fill the mens and womens volleyball forums with the bipolar wide-eyed Annie-isms on one hand, and hand-wringing despair on the other, seen in this sand vb forum. A bit of hyperbole, yes, but not meant in a mean way, just describing what I see. I just find volleyball supporters to be much more realistic about our sport and its future prospects, as compared to sand vb folks. Again, just an observation.
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Post by unrated on May 9, 2014 13:21:47 GMT -5
"But we do not fill the mens and womens volleyball forums with the bipolar wide-eyed Annie-isms on one hand, and hand-wringing despair on the other, seen in this sand vb forum."
Wait... are you saying the indoor women's forum is NOT a writhing bipolar pit of schadenfreude and despair?
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Post by Deleted on May 9, 2014 18:41:50 GMT -5
Popularity isn't the issue. Viability is however. Au contraire. I agree that with regard to players viability is indeed the issue. But you also mentioned consumers. If consumers are not attracted by a sports product, they will not spend their leisure $ on it. And posts lamenting sand vb's now-long-term decline in popularity abound in this forum. Sad, perhaps, but true. Volleyball enthusiasts like myself often talk about how our sport is a niche sport. We wish it was more popular, and we hope it will become so, but for now it is what it is and we love the sport we see as a hidden gem. But we do not fill the mens and womens volleyball forums with the bipolar wide-eyed Annie-isms on one hand, and hand-wringing despair on the other, seen in this sand vb forum. A bit of hyperbole, yes, but not meant in a mean way, just describing what I see. I just find volleyball supporters to be much more realistic about our sport and its future prospects, as compared to sand vb folks. Again, just an observation. I think it's as popular as it ever was. The biggest issue is people just don't want to pay to watch it which obviously cripples promoters. Sponsors dollars just aren't there to offset those losses because there are so many options off them (hello Supercross Barnett)
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11Six
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Post by 11Six on May 9, 2014 19:27:48 GMT -5
"But we do not fill the mens and womens volleyball forums with the bipolar wide-eyed Annie-isms on one hand, and hand-wringing despair on the other, seen in this sand vb forum." Wait... are you saying the indoor women's forum is NOT a writhing bipolar pit of schadenfreude and despair? About the popularity of the sport (which is the context in which the quoted statement was made)? That's exactly what I'm saying.
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11Six
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Post by 11Six on May 9, 2014 19:36:31 GMT -5
Au contraire. I agree that with regard to players viability is indeed the issue. But you also mentioned consumers. If consumers are not attracted by a sports product, they will not spend their leisure $ on it. And posts lamenting sand vb's now-long-term decline in popularity abound in this forum. Sad, perhaps, but true. Volleyball enthusiasts like myself often talk about how our sport is a niche sport. We wish it was more popular, and we hope it will become so, but for now it is what it is and we love the sport we see as a hidden gem. But we do not fill the mens and womens volleyball forums with the bipolar wide-eyed Annie-isms on one hand, and hand-wringing despair on the other, seen in this sand vb forum. A bit of hyperbole, yes, but not meant in a mean way, just describing what I see. I just find volleyball supporters to be much more realistic about our sport and its future prospects, as compared to sand vb folks. Again, just an observation. I think it's as popular as it ever was. The biggest issue is people just don't want to pay to watch it... You don't see the contradiction in what you said here? This is a good example of an Annie-ism. Think about it. When people decide they don't want to pay to watch a (fill in the blank) team, we generally then say that the team is not as popular as it once was. If sand vb really was as popular with consumers as some here want to believe it is, there would be no need for all the despair expressed here about the state of the sport, because the state would be healthy. As it is, sand vb has been on life support -- among consumers -- for quite a while now.
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Post by geddyleeridesagain on May 9, 2014 22:50:27 GMT -5
What a load of crap. On life support? The fastest growing sport in NCAA history. This season also marks the largest amount of prize money ever made available in one season. The first $1 million dollar purse ever for a single tournament (Long Beach). The second $1 million dollar purse ever for a single tournament (Netherlands). Sponsors like ASICS, Kia, and Mizuno putting money into the sport. An AVP tour with seven stops, each one offering $200K plus. Etc.
The domestic pro scene is still recovering from damage caused by a combination of the recession and poor management, but it is recovering. Any assertion that the sport is nearly dead - particularly an assertion that seems to be based on the questionable (to say the least) premise that beach volleyball commenters on Volleytalk are sad pandas - is pretty silly.
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Post by volleyguy on May 10, 2014 13:28:51 GMT -5
Totally agree with Geddy. At one time, the prevailing view that people wouldn't pay to watch beach volleyball may have had some merit, but the future of the sport in the US lies in the middle-tp-upper class families with means, parents who enjoy the active outdoors life-style, and their kids who share that life-style and have their parents' bank accounts to fund it. The trick is in the ability of the Pro Tour (AVP or whoever wins out) to market to that group, in much the way Vegas was marketed to families in the 90's.
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Post by guest2 on May 10, 2014 16:07:46 GMT -5
What a load of crap. On life support? The fastest growing sport in NCAA history. This season also marks the largest amount of prize money ever made available in one season. The first $1 million dollar purse ever for a single tournament (Long Beach). The second $1 million dollar purse ever for a single tournament (Netherlands). Sponsors like ASICS, Kia, and Mizuno putting money into the sport. An AVP tour with seven stops, each one offering $200K plus. Etc. The domestic pro scene is still recovering from damage caused by a combination of the recession and poor management, but it is recovering. Any assertion that the sport is nearly dead - particularly an assertion that seems to be based on the questionable (to say the least) premise that beach volleyball commenters on Volleytalk are sad pandas - is pretty silly. In the worldwide sense I agree with you but some of the things you mention aren't really great indicators. The fastest growing women's sport? Maybe, but show me another cheap, easy women's sport to add that has a large pool of players available and I will show you a sport that grows massively too. I know people get tired of this but Title IX has way more to do with this than any popularity of BVB. The AVP tour is a vanity project of Donald Sun at this point and is drawing very few fans. Its essentially evidence that one guy really like bvb, not an indicator of overall popularity (please dont think I am knocking Donald Sun, I love him for giving me bvb)
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Post by volleyguy on May 10, 2014 16:32:13 GMT -5
Certainly Title IX has lots to do with it, but regardless of the reason, the sport is growing tremendously. The ability to increase the number of female participants is a strong factor in the growth, but if low cost were the sole reason, you wouldn't see such strong movement towards creating separate rosters and staffs for indoor and beach. There is in fact strong interest, and like the women's indoor game, that interest will create opportunities in the youth and professional market as well. In the women's indoor game, the juniors market is huge of course, and the professional market is centered overseas. Whoever figures out how to best capture the beach market (not sure that the current AVP is the one who will do it) will be a big winner.
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