The 2025 Beach Volleyball Event of the Year is the World Championships in Adelaide, Australia
Honorable Mention
- Ostrava Elite
- Gstaad Elite
- Joao Pessoa Elite
- Montreal Elite
On the second day of the World Championships, the staff at Beach Volleyball World was bored.
Bored because there were no fires to put out. Bored because everything was going so smoothly.
Bored because Adelaide, and the wonderful hosts of the tournament, had done such a tremendous job in the setup, operations, and organization of the event that there were no problems to fix, no hiccups to cure, nothing to solve.
It was a perfectly organized and run event.
It is an understatement of gargantuan proportions to say that hosting the World Championships is a massive undertaking, and an even bigger risk. Here you have the biggest event not named the Olympic Games, hosting 96 total teams from all continents and cultures and languages, hauling in staff, referees, TV, media, and everything else that goes into putting on a world class sporting event. And not a single thing went wrong.
Not only that, but the place sold out its final three days of competition, creating the electric atmosphere you see above, with 6,500 fans packing the house three straight nights. The evening atmosphere was excellent all 10 days, and the only complaint from the players came from the Australians themselves, who apologized profusely “for the shit weather, mate” — when the weather was a perfectly acceptable sunny and breezy with the occasional spattering of wind and rain.
In other words, they were apologizing for beach volleyball weather.
You could say it’s easy to make the World Championships the event of the year, but I’d argue it’s even easier to flop, as it is the event with the most eyeballs, the most pressure, the most financial risk.
Adelaide did not flop, not even a little, which is why it was the runaway 2025 Event of the Year.
2023 Event of the Year: World Championships, Tlaxcala, Mexico
2024 Event of the Year: Paris Olympic Games
