The answer is YouTube.
The AVP season will kick off Friday in Austin, Texas, and the way to watch the $125,000 AVP Pro Series Austin Open live is on the AVP YouTube channel.
The domestic pro-beach volleyball organization announced:
“Each of the Pro Series and Gold Series events, as well as the Championships, will be televised, with nine tournaments totaling 44 hours of television coverage on FS1, Bally Sports regional sports networks (RSNs) and Tennis Channel. During Pro Series and Gold Series events, all matches from the stadium and one other court will be streamed live on the AVP’s YouTube channel (@avpbeach). Veteran broadcasters Dain Blanton and Camryn Irwin will call all the AVP action.”
Blanton is in Gulf Shores, Alabama, where he is the head coach of top-ranked USC, which is competing in the NCAA Beach Championship. Irwin will be joined by Kyle Friend and Matt Bishop to call the event.
There will be a recap show with two broadcasts — May 10, at 10 p.m. Eastern on FS1 and May 14 in Bally Sports, with times varying by region.
More from the AVP:
The top-seeded men’s team, Tri Bourne and Trevor Crabb, enter Austin having won two of the last four events on the AVP Tour and have been in the semifinals in all six tournaments in 2020 and 2021. Previously the highest seed the pair has had was third. Individually, Bourne has held the top seed twice before, both times with John Hyden in 2014, and he finished third both times. Crabb was seeded first in New York in 2016 with his brother Taylor Crabb (placed third), the only previous time in his career. Seven of the last 10 season openers have been won by the top-seeded team.
For the women, Melissa Humana-Paredes and Sarah Pavan have earned the top seed. This marks their 10th AVP event together and the first time as the number one seeds both as individuals as well as a team. The duo has two AVP wins, two seconds and two thirds. The Austin tournament marks their third AVP event played somewhere other than California or Hawai’i, and they finished 17th in New York in 2018 and fifth in Chicago in 2019. The good news for the team is that in the six AVP tournaments the past two years, the number one seeded team has won five times.
Among those not competing in Austin are USA Olympic gold-medalists April Ross and Alix Klineman. Ross has played in two Volleyball World events with Emily Day but is recovering from an injury, and Klineman is recovering from shoulder surgery. Ross-Klineman have won 11 of the past 17 AVP titles.
Among the top men’s pairs are second-seeded Andy Benesh and Phil Dalhausser, third-seeded Chaim Schalk and Theo Brunner, and fourth-seeded Troy Field and Chase Budinger
On the women’s side, Kelly (Claes) Cheng and Olympics teammate Sarah Sponcil are no longer together but are right behind Pavan and Humana-Parades. Cheng is paired with Betsi Flint as the No. 2 seed, Sponcil is with Terese Cannon as the third seed, and Sara Hughes is paired with Kelly Kolinske at No. 4.
Click here for the complete men’s and women’s entry lists.
And more from the AVP:
The 2022 AVP schedule looks vastly different than years past in several regards. This season’s slate has 16 tour stops, the most the AVP has had since 2009 (also 16 that year), and more than the past 3 years combined. While there have been several years with more men’s events, the 16 women’s tournaments has been surpassed just twice (18 in both 2007 and 2008). The 12 different states that the Tour is visiting is the most since the 2008 season (also 12 different states). Two tournaments will be held in November, which marks a first for the AVP Tour, as previously October was the latest that an event has ever been held up to this point. Three locations are slated to have night sessions (New Orleans, Atlanta, and Phoenix). The combined total of $1,975,000 in prize money also features the most the Tour has distributed since 2009.
For more about the AVP season as it moves forward into 2022 with Bally’s as its new owner, read our story from last month when we interviewed Adi Dhandhania, Bally’s senior vice president for strategy and interactive, and AVP CEO Al Lau.
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