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Post by pepperclove on Jan 17, 2024 15:00:29 GMT -5
I thought I remembered a second SoCal event, presumably Huntington since I think there was a thread or discussion somewhere that Hermosa won't be happening in 2024? It's a sad little schedule either way, unfortunately.
Not too optimistic about the league idea from what I've heard so far. It could be cool with larger "teams" for each city - say two women's teams and two men's teams playing a college-style format - but if it's one team of each gender per city, it seems like the matches will be pretty uninteresting. There's a reason World Team Tennis has never taken off like the Grand Slams.
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Post by houdini on Jan 19, 2024 12:22:59 GMT -5
I thought I remembered a second SoCal event, presumably Huntington since I think there was a thread or discussion somewhere that Hermosa won't be happening in 2024? It's a sad little schedule either way, unfortunately. Not too optimistic about the league idea from what I've heard so far. It could be cool with larger "teams" for each city - say two women's teams and two men's teams playing a college-style format - but if it's one team of each gender per city, it seems like the matches will be pretty uninteresting. There's a reason World Team Tennis has never taken off like the Grand Slams. Exactly. One and done matches won't get the crowd interest. I think FOUR city/team two game mini-tournaments on parallel courts would get greater fan interest. Losers play losers & winners play winners. A four-hour event for fans with beer & hot dogs & vegan food. The only down-side is that there's just one home team per gender.
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Post by stevek on Jan 19, 2024 15:18:37 GMT -5
I know it is the offseason, but this is the quietest the AVP and this board has been that I can remember - even more than when the AVP folded pre-Donald Sun back in 2010-2012. Makes you wonder what is next.
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Post by larry on Jan 19, 2024 17:39:15 GMT -5
AVP needs to take notes on how pickleball was made into a household name.. I don’t think it came from their tournament format. 🤔 I am familiar with the names of virtually all of the star players in the NFL, NBA, NHL, big-league baseball, college football, college basketball, tennis, golf, auto racing (NASCAR, IndyCar, F1 and drag racing), horse racing, boxing. skiing, bull riding, rodeo, track & field, swimming and gymnastics (the last three at the Olympic level), one or two MMA fighters and maybe even a few volleyball players. I could not tell you the name of one pickleball player. I'm sure that a lot of people enjoy playing pickleball. And I do see that it has carved a bit of a niche on linear TV. But "household name"? What pickleball player is a household name?
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Post by 23flavors on Jan 19, 2024 18:48:05 GMT -5
I'm not a business person and I don't know all the reasons behind why something is successful or not. However, in the AVP heyday, sponsors were Miller Lite and Cuervo. Pickleball has Carvana, Humana, and a couple wealth management companies just to name a few of many. Current AVP sponsors, Corner Bakery and Klenskin. Just saying, it has to be part of the failing business model over the years
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Post by guest2 on Jan 19, 2024 20:43:18 GMT -5
I thought I remembered a second SoCal event, presumably Huntington since I think there was a thread or discussion somewhere that Hermosa won't be happening in 2024? It's a sad little schedule either way, unfortunately. Not too optimistic about the league idea from what I've heard so far. It could be cool with larger "teams" for each city - say two women's teams and two men's teams playing a college-style format - but if it's one team of each gender per city, it seems like the matches will be pretty uninteresting. There's a reason World Team Tennis has never taken off like the Grand Slams. Exactly. One and done matches won't get the crowd interest. I think FOUR city/team two game mini-tournaments on parallel courts would get greater fan interest. Losers play losers & winners play winners. A four-hour event for fans with beer & hot dogs & vegan food. The only down-side is that there's just one home team per gender. Maybe if there are some really aggressive hosts/promoters in these cities, but the timing is just so bad for any kind of new sporting event.
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Post by larry on Jan 19, 2024 22:41:44 GMT -5
I'm not a business person and I don't know all the reasons behind why something is successful or not. However, in the AVP heyday, sponsors were Miller Lite and Cuervo. Pickleball has Carvana, Humana, and a couple wealth management companies just to name a few of many. Current AVP sponsors, Corner Bakery and Klenskin. Just saying, it has to be part of the failing business model over the years Why would major sponsors want to buy time on the AVP when the metrics show it is not delivering significant viewership? During the season the AVP was putting its matches on YouTube as its primary media outlet, any sponsor could look at the view count of the videos (40K was a good number) and clearly see that the AVP had a minuscule fan base. Sponsors from companies willing to spend real money don't desire to be in long-term "audience creation mode," they want to be able to tap into an existing audience of potentially new customers that could be enticed to buy their products. How can the AVP hope to cultivate significant sponsors when the owners continue to run the product out less than a dozen times a year on an inconsistent schedule? Enough critical mass simply does not exist under that scenario, and even the new league format seems unlikely to fill that bill.
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Post by sandband on Jan 21, 2024 7:27:03 GMT -5
AVP needs to take notes on how pickleball was made into a household name.. I don’t think it came from their tournament format. 🤔 I am familiar with the names of virtually all of the star players in the NFL, NBA, NHL, big-league baseball, college football, college basketball, tennis, golf, auto racing (NASCAR, IndyCar, F1 and drag racing), horse racing, boxing. skiing, bull riding, rodeo, track & field, swimming and gymnastics (the last three at the Olympic level), one or two MMA fighters and maybe even a few volleyball players. I could not tell you the name of one pickleball player. I'm sure that a lot of people enjoy playing pickleball. And I do see that it has carved a bit of a niche on linear TV. But "household name"? What pickleball player is a household name? I was referring to the sport itself of pickleball (not specific athlete names) being a household name. It started decades after beach Vb and it seems to be more mainstream with the general public. I don’t have stats to back to this up, it’s just something I’ve noticed. It seems like pickleball would be mentioned more often at the dinner table than bvb. Side note, I bet if we looked up an AVP match on YouTube and compared it to a pro pickleball match on YouTube, the avp video would have more than half the views. 🤷
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Post by larry on Jan 21, 2024 14:16:36 GMT -5
I am familiar with the names of virtually all of the star players in the NFL, NBA, NHL, big-league baseball, college football, college basketball, tennis, golf, auto racing (NASCAR, IndyCar, F1 and drag racing), horse racing, boxing. skiing, bull riding, rodeo, track & field, swimming and gymnastics (the last three at the Olympic level), one or two MMA fighters and maybe even a few volleyball players. I could not tell you the name of one pickleball player. I'm sure that a lot of people enjoy playing pickleball. And I do see that it has carved a bit of a niche on linear TV. But "household name"? What pickleball player is a household name? I was referring to the sport itself of pickleball (not specific athlete names) being a household name. It started decades after beach Vb and it seems to be more mainstream with the general public. I don’t have stats to back to this up, it’s just something I’ve noticed. It seems like pickleball would be mentioned more often at the dinner table than bvb. Side note, I bet if we looked up an AVP match on YouTube and compared it to a pro pickleball match on YouTube, the avp video would have more than half the views. 🤷 You must be confusing me with somebody who wrote that beach volleyball has more mainstream popularity than pickleball. That's not what I wrote. After reading this, I checked out a couple of the pickleball matches posted on the Pro Pickleball Association's YouTube Channel that has 70,400 subscribers. Most of the match videos on the channel had viewerships between 10,000 and 25,000. I scrolled down to the Tour Finals and these videos had been on the site for a month. The largest number of views I could find was 96,000. I also found a "recap" clip that had been viewed by 755 and a match with 249 views. I took a quick gander at 3-4 of the match videos from two tournaments (the recent Masters event and the Tour Final) to see what the venues might look like. From a seating standpoint, the stands looked about the same as what the AVP puts up for its Gold Series events, particularly in Chicago, which has elevated 15-row bleachers on one sideline and one end zone. Meanwhile, even though the AVP's YouTube channel ceased being a prime delivery mechanism for its matches in 2022, the channel still numbers 112,000 subscribers, 59% more than the official channel of the Pro Pickleball Tour. The video with the largest viewership was the men's final of the 2022 New Orleans Open with 104,000 views. The 2022 Hermosa Beach men's final had 84,000 views. This certainly is not typical, and the pickleball channel does have a lot more videos with views exceeding 20,000 than was the case when the AVP put its matches on YouTube. But nothing about these comparative number suggested that pickleball as a spectator sport was vastly more popular than beach volleyball. I am not at all suggesting that the AVP has anything close to widespread mainstream awareness. However, since it is an Olympic sport and one of the most popular with American TV viewers, odds are pretty strong that some mainstream sports fans might recognize the names Phil Dalhausser and April Ross. The views numbers indicate that professional pickleball and beach volleyball are in the same ballpark in mainstream awareness. The size of the venue that the pro pickleball tour chooses to use also suggests that it is not even as popular as the PBR bull-riding tour that typically books its events in major basketball arenas and holds its World Finals at AT&T Stadium, the football place Jerry Jones built for his Dallas Cowboys. The PBR tour event last weekend in Chicago attracted a TV viewership on CBS of 1.162 million. I have followed bull riding closely for three decades but would never suggest that the sport is widely popular with mainstream sports fans. Now back to your original point: How is pickleball a "household name"?
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Post by spideas on Jan 21, 2024 16:34:45 GMT -5
I was referring to the sport itself of pickleball (not specific athlete names) being a household name. It started decades after beach Vb and it seems to be more mainstream with the general public. I don’t have stats to back to this up, it’s just something I’ve noticed. It seems like pickleball would be mentioned more often at the dinner table than bvb. Side note, I bet if we looked up an AVP match on YouTube and compared it to a pro pickleball match on YouTube, the avp video would have more than half the views. 🤷 You must be confusing me with somebody who wrote that beach volleyball has more mainstream popularity than pickleball. That's not what I wrote. After reading this, I checked out a couple of the pickleball matches posted on the Pro Pickleball Association's YouTube Channel that has 70,400 subscribers. Most of the match videos on the channel had viewerships between 10,000 and 25,000. I scrolled down to the Tour Finals and these videos had been on the site for a month. The largest number of views I could find was 96,000. I also found a "recap" clip that had been viewed by 755 and a match with 249 views. I took a quick gander at 3-4 of the match videos from two tournaments (the recent Masters event and the Tour Final) to see what the venues might look like. From a seating standpoint, the stands looked about the same as what the AVP puts up for its Gold Series events, particularly in Chicago, which has elevated 15-row bleachers on one sideline and one end zone. Meanwhile, even though the AVP's YouTube channel ceased being a prime delivery mechanism for its matches in 2022, the channel still numbers 112,000 subscribers, 59% more than the official channel of the Pro Pickleball Tour. The video with the largest viewership was the men's final of the 2022 New Orleans Open with 104,000 views. The 2022 Hermosa Beach men's final had 84,000 views. This certainly is not typical, and the pickleball channel does have a lot more videos with views exceeding 20,000 than was the case when the AVP put its matches on YouTube. But nothing about these comparative number suggested that pickleball as a spectator sport was vastly more popular than beach volleyball. I am not at all suggesting that the AVP has anything close to widespread mainstream awareness. However, since it is an Olympic sport and one of the most popular with American TV viewers, odds are pretty strong that some mainstream sports fans might recognize the names Phil Dalhausser and April Ross. The views numbers indicate that professional pickleball and beach volleyball are in the same ballpark in mainstream awareness. The size of the venue that the pro pickleball tour chooses to use also suggests that it is not even as popular as the PBR bull-riding tour that typically books its events in major basketball arenas and holds its World Finals at AT&T Stadium, the football place Jerry Jones built for his Dallas Cowboys. The PBR tour event last weekend in Chicago attracted a TV viewership on CBS of 1.162 million. I have followed bull riding closely for three decades but would never suggest that the sport is widely popular with mainstream sports fans. Now back to your original point: How is pickleball a "household name"? My thought on how pickleball became a household name (and do we agree that there are no pickleball "Stars"? If you are not at a tournament with Pickleball fans.. no one in the general public would know who their top athletes are).... It is accessible... Casual fans watch it and think.... I could do that (and by the hundreds of thousands they are....) It is easy to have in the background if you are just lounging around in front of a screen and they have captured the attention (and must be delivering return on investment) of the Sponsor community... Look forward to hearing thoughts of others
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Post by ajm on Jan 28, 2024 15:34:32 GMT -5
In his latest video, Kent says the Miami AVP event is in trouble. Apparently they were counting on the King of the Court to build out the infrastructure for the event like they did last year, but now that might not happen either.
Last year it was in mid March, so I’m guessing if it does happen it’ll be later in the year, with or without KOC.
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Post by spideas on Jan 28, 2024 16:44:19 GMT -5
In his latest video, Kent says the Miami AVP event is in trouble. Apparently they were counting on the King of the Court to build out the infrastructure for the event like they did last year, but now that might not happen either. Last year it was in mid March, so I’m guessing if it does happen it’ll be later in the year, with or without KOC. Does that mean King of the Court is not doing the Miami event?
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Post by ajm on Jan 28, 2024 17:29:53 GMT -5
In his latest video, Kent says the Miami AVP event is in trouble. Apparently they were counting on the King of the Court to build out the infrastructure for the event like they did last year, but now that might not happen either. Last year it was in mid March, so I’m guessing if it does happen it’ll be later in the year, with or without KOC. Does that mean King of the Court is not doing the Miami event? Good question. It wasn’t clear from the way he said it, but that was the impression I got. KOC is in Tenerife in a couple of weeks but no mention of any events after that. Last year both KOC Miami and the AVP schedule were announced the first week in February. I’ve seen a few IG posts from players recently asking/wondering when the schedule will be announced. Not a good sign if there’s been no communication.
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Post by spideas on Jan 28, 2024 17:40:22 GMT -5
Does that mean King of the Court is not doing the Miami event? Good question. It wasn’t clear from the way he said it, but that was the impression I got. KOC is in Tenerife in a couple of weeks but no mention of any events after that. Last year both KOC Miami and the AVP schedule were announced the first week in February. I’ve seen a few IG posts from players recently asking/wondering when the schedule will be announced. Not a good sign if there’s been no communication. Thanks for the update... No, that is not a good sign... That Tenerife event is going to be fantastic.. I know it is early season but they have commitments from all the top European teams... Looking forward to that!!!
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Post by beavis on Jan 29, 2024 12:45:04 GMT -5
I wonder if the smaller events like the Boatride up in Waupaca, Wisconsin will be on the schedule this year, or if all of those will be erased. Its kinda fun to drive up there, stay in our motorhome, and play in the grass tournament in addition to watching some of the lower-level pros play.
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