Beach Volleyball Nets Big Bucks

By J.D. Reed

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.

With reporting by Dan Cray/Los Angeles