Good morning, beach volleyball fans,
And greetings from somewhere over the Atlantic, I think, although my flight from Frankfurt to Atlanta (and then from Atlanta back to Tallahassee) may still be hovering over Europe. Couldn’t tell you, really. What I can tell you, however, is that my first trip to Europe this year was a memorable one.
It was my first trip to Ostrava.
What an event! What a venue! How long had I been watching tournaments here and not been? Too long, is the correct answer. It is, as I wrote, a true major in this sport, a place that maximizes every drop of its natural potential and multiplies it by how well it’s run.
Of course, it helps when you get a Norway-Sweden final, which, per usual, lived up to the billing as Sweden won its first gold in six events (that is long for them). But the crowd, honestly, would have been there regardless, for it was there from qualifier day on Wednesday. I wrote about all of it and then some — Victoria and Thamela should be considered one of the best in the world, Germany’s deep federation, Hendrik Mol and Mathias Berntsen finding some consistency at last, the Verge-Depre sisters making a poetic podium, Kingers proving to be no fluke, and a whole lot more — in a lengthy recap style I’m experimenting with this season, similar to Peter King’s MMQB at Sports Illustrated or Stewart Mandel’s final thoughts NCAA football column at The Athletic. Let me know what you think.
And, if you only have time for one piece of beach volleyball content, I actually suggest you make it our podcast with Alvaro Filho and Cesar Benatti, one of my favorite of the year, and potentially a top-10 all-time for me.
The week in SANDCAST Studios
This past week’s podcast featured Alvaro Filho and Cesar Benatti, both Brazilian beach volleyball geniuses, one a phenomenal player and even better man, the other a tremendous coach and also an even better man. We cover all things Brazilian beach volleyball greatness, coaching, and being dads:
Alison: The GOAT Partner
One of my favorite snippets from that episode with Alvaro Filho was when he waxed poetic on what made Alison such an incredible player: His ability to be the best partner on the court. This is such a fun part of the episode.
Photo Galleries!
We have more photo galleries this week.
- Rick Atwood dropped by the first AVP League stop to grab some excellent shots. Take a look here.
News Around the Beach
- The AVP TV numbers are in. The first 30 minutes of AVP Palm Beach drew 409,000 viewers, which I was quite impressed by. Larry Hamel, a former writer for VolleyballMag who has since launched his own Substack called All Volleyball, was not. His take was more on the attrition rate of the viewers, which dropped from the near-half-million to 167,000, for an average viewership of 261,000. You can determine what you’d like from there, and Hamel has his thoughts and of course Kent Steffes has his, which he wrote on his prolific Facebook blog of sorts. I have no thoughts, really, other than I think 409,000 is a decent number and a 261,000 viewership is about 250,000 more than they were drawing on YouTube. Without details of the financials behind the TV deal, whether CW and CBS paid the AVP for the rights or the AVP paid CBS and CW for the time slot — Hamel seems convinced of the latter — it’s difficult to measure what is a success and what is not. While we’re on the topic of Steffes…
- Kent Steffes made a beach volleyball documentary. So tired was Kent, it seems, of being asked by a billion different people to participate in their beach volleyball documentary or docuseries, only for it to go up in smoke, that he just did it on his own, as we did with our book, Kings of Summer. What’s the documentary called? Kings of Summer, of course, focused on the golden era of the sport, including interviews with Hov and Sinjin and Kevin Cleary and several of the other old school legends. Here’s the link if you want to watch for $5. Be warned: It’s 5 hours, so I’d recommend you turn it into a docuseries.
- Beach Pro Tour takes a break. Just a couple of Futures this weekend before it gets busy again with Challenges in Turkey and Poland and then an Elite in Gstaad, the Masters of beach volleyball and the most wonderful week of the year.
- We now have an ad free tier for audio. Tired of listening to ads? I saw a bunch of comments on the ad frequency in Rogan podcasts, and figured I’d give our listeners an ad-free option. For 5 bucks a month, you no longer have to listen to ads, and you support the show. Win win. Here’s the link where you can become a patron.
- Watch SANDCAST Episodes Early! Become a member of our YouTube Channel and you’ll get every piece of content days before anybody else.
- Coming up on Wednesday we have my good friends and adopted parents, Brooke Niles and Nick Lucena, talking all things NCAA Beach Volleyball, FSU, being a husband-wife coach combo, and more. Fun one.
Where You Can Follow The Pod
- We’re essentially working to become the new VolleyballMag. A big part of that is building a Facebook presence, so we’re building a page. Would be awesome if you could follow us there!
- Spotify, obviously. Linked below
Much Love to the sponsors
We’ve been with Wilson Volleyball since day one, and we love the products they make — the best ball on the market, hands down, no questions asked. Use our discount code: sandcast-20 for 20 PERCENT OFF.
Watch VBTV for 10 percent off using our discount code, SANDCAST10.
We’ve got SANDCAST merch! Get yourself some swag.
SANDCAST adds another year with AG1. One of our longest-running sponsors, AG1, is back on the pod for another year. We’ve re-signed with the brand, and have changed our model with them, to a fully affiliate-model. So if you want to stay healthy AND help the show, please order with this link, which comes with a full year of Vitamin D for FREE, as well as five totally FREE travel packs!
We’re officially partnered with Better at Beach! If you want to get Better at Beach, use our code SANDCAST for 10 percent off all of their products, from online classes to in-person camps and more.
Appreciate y’all for listening, reading, and loving the beach like we do.
Have a great week!
SHOOTS!
SANDCAST Team
