Sports Business Digest » The AVP is bringing sexy back…to TV

The AVP is bringing sexy back…to TV

Posted on June 10th, 2009. Written by Emmett Jones.

Who wouldn’t want to see hard-bodied, half-naked people frolicing in the sand? Right?

The AVP is betting that you’re going to want to stay in and watch those half-naked athletes on television, as they’ve increased their television exposure with some new deals.

AVP Pro Beach Volleyball today announced two new media agreements with Universal Sports and selected Comcast regional sports networks to televise men’s and women’s beach volleyball events for the remainder of the 2009 season. The deals mark the fourth and fifth outlets that will air AVP events this season, along with other sports powerhouses NBC Sports, Fox Sports Network and VERSUS.

Universal Sports, available in more than 45 million homes, will show the semi-finals live for events in Coney Island, Hermosa Beach and the Cup Championship in Chicago as a pre-cursor to the finals airing on NBC Sports. UniversalSports.com will also live stream each semi-final event on their website, with on-demand video of each match available for two weeks after the event airs. Universal Sports will offer re-airs of the finals after they are shown on NBC Sports.

Comcast’s regional sports networks in Atlanta, Chicago, New England, the Mid-Atlantic region, Philadelphia, Portland OR, Sacramento, and San Francisco will re-air at least ten of the AVP Crocs Tour events that will originally air on the VERSUS Network, reaching close to 35 million viewers across their regional platform.

Seems strange to say, but is any sport making more moves in terms of generating exposure and press in recent months than Volleyball? They launched their sexy ad campaign a few months ago, they just signed a deal and picked up the fifth outlet airing their product…who else is making moves like this? You could argue that they are getting the opportunity to have more eyes view their product than the NHL, (or at the very least, comparable numbers) which is borderline crazy/impressive.

Of course, just because people have the opportunity to view your product, doesn’t mean they will actually view it. It is those television ratings numbers that will ultimately make the biggest deal to the immediate future of the AVP on television. But, they’ve obviously done a more than admirable job of giving their sport every chance possible of being a success.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, June 10th, 2009 at 11:22 am and is filed under Fringe Sports. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.