HERMOSA BEACH, California – As Taylor Crabb, Andy Benesh, Miles Partain and I sat on 16th Street in Hermosa Beach, cooling off after a serve and pass prior to the AVP Laguna Beach Open, I asked Crabb if this was it. His last weekend of the 2026 beach volleyball season.
With Benesh’s son due later this fall, and no AVPs or Beach Volleyball World tournaments on the horizon, it seemed a perfect cap to a wildly successful year for Crabb.
Yes, he acknowledged, a season of traditional, two vs. two beach volleyball was finished.
“Now,” he said, smiling, “it’s fours season.”
Fours beach volleyball is a throwback to a bygone era of the sport. Once, in the 90s, there was a thriving four-man tour, with gargantuan prize money and packed stands. While a tour is no longer, a pair of tournaments have established themselves to create an unofficial fours season of sorts: This weekend’s George Brett 4 v 4 Volleyball Showdown in Kansas City, and the Newport Beach Volleyball Invitational October 17-18 at Blackie’s Beach.
It’s hard to think of a more fitting – and more welcome – close to a season than fours, especially as the high wire act of Olympic qualifying is set to begin this December in Itapema, Brazil.
For one, it’s fun – as much fun as you’ll see players have on a beach volleyball court, playing in a style that melds the best of indoor and beach onto one playing surface. The most talented players in the country come together in what feels like an All-Star Game or Pro Bowl – only, in this case, unlike the now-defunct NFL Pro Bowl and the apathetic NBA All-Star Game, the players actually care to put on a show.
The massive prize money makes it easy to care.
In Newport, $200,000 will be disbursed, more than any domestic event this year, and similar-sized checks are issued in Kansas City.
It’s a win for players and fans alike.
“This event was created to celebrate everything that makes beach volleyball special—the athletes, the competition, the history and the incredible community surrounding the sport,” Kevin Martin of Eagle Four Partners and co-founder of the Newport Four-Man said in a statement on the website. “Each year, we have continued to raise the bar, and in 2026 we look forward to bringing another extraordinary field of players to Newport Beach for a weekend of competition unlike anything else in the sport.”
The fields for both events are, to continue the Pro Bowl or All-Star Game metaphor, dripping with talent you’d expect to see at the highest level.
So while, yes, there is a three-month break from traditional beach volleyball, a perfectly suitable replacement is coming.
It’s fours season.
