TIME: Almanac 1990/1990 Time Magazine Compact Almanac, The (1991)(Time).iso/time/082889/08288900.020

Text File | 1990-09-17 | 5KB | 89 lines

SPORT, Page 71

Beach Volleyball Nets Big Bucks

Once a laid-back pastime, a waterside game goes major league


    These are the good vibrations of August: soak up some rays on
the beach, sip a brew or two and slap a volleyball over a net. A
few years ago, Los Angeles beach boys thought it was cool if they
were given a couple of six-packs for winning a beach-volleyball
tournament. But times have changed. Last year Sinjin Smith, 32,
beach-volleyball's top professional, earned nearly $135,000 for a
season of bumping, setting and spiking out there on the sand, and
he may do even better this year. Predicts Christopher Marlowe, an
ESPN sports commentator and the 1984 U.S. Olympic volleyball-team
captain: "Next year a beach-volleyball player will make more than
the President of the United States ($200,000)!"

    Beach volleyball was once part of the laid-back Southern
California style -- a bunch of parking-lot attendants and cabana
boys devoting their spare time to fun in the sun. Today the game
is a hard-charging sport, complete with big-bucks sponsors, a
29-tournament tour of 13 states, an aggressive players'
association, lucrative television deals and mobs of loyal fans.
"Players used to party all night and wake up under a coffee table
an hour before the game," remembers Jay Hanseth, 37, a 19-year
veteran player. Now, he says, "there's so much money at stake,
players take it very seriously."

    Although it is called volleyball, there are some signal
differences between the seaside sport and the amateur game played
in schools and in the Olympics. Regular volleyball employs six
players a side on a hard-surface court, while beach teams consist
of only two usually bare-foot acrobats who charge through the sand
to get to the ball, giving the game the flavor of balletic
misdemeanor. The ball used on the beach is somewhat heavier than
the indoor one, mainly to counteract the effects of sea breezes.
The object of both games is to make the ball hit the floor -- or
sand -- on the opponent's side. Both sports are played in a 30-ft.
by 60-ft. playing area and use a net that is 36 ft. wide and 8 ft.
high. Outdoors and in, the first team to score 15 points wins.

    Beach-volleyball stars themselves were the ones who pulled
their sport up from the tide line. Back in the 1970s, tournaments,
such as they were, could offer top players no more than a free pair
of swim trunks, dinner in a local restaurant and perhaps a date
with the winner of the accompanying bikini contest. But in 1983 a
group of players who believed in the game's potential formed the
Association of Volleyball Professionals to fight for bigger purses
and better promotions. The group, which numbers 250 members, went
on strike during the 1984 World Championships in California's
Hermosa Beach to protest conditions. Since then, A.V.P. organizer
Leonard Armato, a former player and an attorney with a Los Angeles
law firm that represents such athletes as Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and
Ronnie Lott of the San Francisco 49ers, has helped the players win
control of tournament profits, concession sales, TV contracts and
endorsement fees.

    Central to their success is a lucrative contract with the
Miller Brewing Co. The deal reportedly provides most of the more
than $2 million in prize money offered this season. Miller sponsors
20 of the A.V.P. tournaments. All matches are arranged by the
association in cities that express an interest and have suitable
facilities. Between them, ESPN and Prime Ticket, cable sports
networks, air 25 tournaments on the tour, and they reputedly pay
the A.V.P. handsomely for the rights to do so. Armato thinks
volleyball does well on the small screen because it features "a lot
of action, the beach and a lot of tanned, great-looking people."
Formerly a big hit only between San Diego and Sorrento Beach, north
of Los Angeles, the tournaments are currently attracting crowds
that average 25,000 at waterside sites in Atlantic City, Chicago
and Cleveland. A.V.P. officials are thinking of charging admission
next year.

    The most startling result of all the action is that six players
made more than $100,000 in prizes last year. Smith, for instance,
who is president of the A.V.P., leads the league in endorsements.
He was awarded part of a beachwear company, owns a clothing store,
published an autobiography and will soon be featured in a
beach-volleyball video game. Says he: "Everyone is surprised at
what's gone on."

    They certainly are. For one thing, women can't seem to watch
enough beach volleyball. Players have become sex symbols who are
regularly asked to autograph arms, legs and other parts of bikinied
anatomies. "It's just outrageous how many girls go to these
things," says Hanseth. "For some of the younger guys, it's like a
sailor going into port." Male fans around the U.S. may soon have
the chance to swoon over sweaty women. Thanks to the success of the
A.V.P., some members of the fledgling Women's Beach Volleyball
Association have asked attorney Armato to help them kick up their
heels too.