Good morning, beach volleyball fans,
Ever since Netflix came out with Drive to Survive, a tremendous, all-access look at F1 racing, the volleyball community, beach and otherwise, has been clamoring for a docuseries of similar weight and heft. It has been pitched — and pitched and pitched — no less than 10 times to me alone in the past two years. Small production companies have shot pilots, recorded interviews, put together sizzles. We loosely partnered with one such individual, Chris Wong, who followed the Beach Pro Tour for a year and offered our YouTube Channel as a platform if he couldn’t find a buyer. We put up a few trailers — here’s the Czech Republic’s, and here’s Sweden’s — but he’s understandably still shopping the project for a buyer, so that’s been tabled for now. We hope he finds one, because what he was able to shoot was awesome, and Chris is a good dude we loved working with.
But, long story short, after all of those pitches and aborted projects, we just decided to do it ourselves.
Now, I won’t dip too deep into the hyperbolic waters here and claim that what Daniel Freitas and our team is doing with our new series, Beyond The Sand, is anywhere close to the realm of a Drive to Survive or Full Swing or Break Point. It’s not. But, as I wrote yesterday, Frito is capturing the most powerful moments nobody ever gets to see, the jubilation of the wins mixed with the dejection of losses, and the deeper meaning behind them.
If you missed the first episode, A New Beginning, you can watch it here, and if you haven’t yet caught up with the second episode, Jubilation and Dejection, you can watch that here. The best thing you can do, if you like the show and what we do here at SANDCAST, is to share it out.
We have more coming.
The next one, as a little carrot dangle, will be overseas. As will next week’s podcast. For this past week, however, I stayed home, chatting with two of my favorite people in the world: Nick Lucena and Brooke Niles, my adopted Florida parents.
The week in SANDCAST Studios
This past week’s podcast featured Nick Lucena and Brooke Niles, my Tallahassee family and the coaching staff at Florida State. We talk about all things NCAA Beach, and Nick weighs in on the current state of professional beach volleyball.
In Or Out? The Call with No Answer
In Ostrava, I watched the single-most bizarre and difficult challenge I’ve seen yet in professional beach volleyball, a serve that, to the naked eye in real time, looked unquestionably in. Yet when Sweden challenged the serve, it looked out. The call was confirmed as in.
This is the blue dress-gold dress debate of beach volleyball in 2025.
Watch and decide for yourself.
News Around the Beach
- A balanced beginning to the AVP League. AVP San Diego happened this past weekend, and I haven’t yet seen the TV numbers, but the in-person attendance was ghastly, which is a bummer, because the play was fun to watch. After two weeks, of the League, we have four teams at 2-2 and four teams who have yet to play. This is a different story from a year ago, when the New York Nitro — Taylor Crabb and Taylor Sander, Sara Hughes and Kelly Cheng — were obliterating everyone. Here are the full standings. The League heads to Miami this weekend, and if you need a refresher for who’s on what team, here you go.
- Beach Pro Tour heads to Alanya. There are only two Challenges remaining in the summer of 2025, beginning this weekend in Turkey. The qualifier is Wednesday and will feature Brook Bauer and Maddie Anderson, Savvy Simo and Abby Van Winkle, Carly Kan and Devanne Sours for the women, and Miles Evans and Chase Budinger, Hagen Smith and Logan Webber, Tim Brewster and Ryan Ierna, Dave Wieczorek and Lev Priima, and Jordan Hoppe and Derek Bradford for the men. Directly into the main draw for USA Volleyball are Kim Hildreth and Teegan Van Gunst, Deahna Kraft and Xolani Hodel, and Hailey Harward and Molly Phillips.
- Was that SANDCAST on Netflix?? Yes, that was us, making a cameo appearance on the new Brett Favre documentary, The Fall of Favre. Kinda fun, but the documentary itself, though, is one to miss, as I wrote here.
- 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 go international with Stefan Boermans, Mr. Boom Boom himself, as we chat from the Ostrava Elite. So, so, so good. All-timer.
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
