This week the AVP brings the beach to the Hudson River, taking over the new Gansevoort Pier just off NYC’s High Line for the Manhattan Open. From coast to coast as we head into an Olympic year, the AVP continues to grow their business. We asked CEO Donald Sun to give us a breakdown.
On how the AVP stays relevant in a growing niche sports marketplace: We don’t see other sports as challengers, necessarily. We are all offering something different to show off the culture we live in and are proud to be part of. We are all about bringing the Southern California beach culture to other parts of the country. You can get close up and personal to the action and the athletes are pretty accessible to the fans.
On how the business leverages the Olympics: The Olympics is a key milestone and ultimate personal achievement for any athlete’s career and any sport – no question. However, it is every four years and cannot be the end all, be all for an athlete’s career. The AVP Pro Tour happens every year for the entire summer and there are year-round opportunities at the AVP for the athletes to be involved in and grow their exposure. The momentum we use to build the sport comes from the dedication and hard work from everyone who works on the brand to elevate the domestic tour, find sponsors and have opportunities to be sustainable for the long run – that’s the focus.
On a growing partnership with Amazon for broadcast: Amazon Prime Video has done a solid job in promoting the AVP Pro Tour and features us as one of the top shows to watch. They’ve really invested in working with us to bring on the right talent and bring their best production team to produce the best content that reflects and elevates beach volleyball the way we feel it should be. They have helped us reach the audience that linear isn’t reaching as much anymore and has put us at the forefront of that offering. And same goes with NBC – there is still an audience who has not converted to streaming and may never convert, so we feel like we are covering our bases as well as we can. The key is being flexible and identifying where our consumers interact and are engaged.
On the involvement of Kingston as the key investor in the business: We are very fortunate to have Kingston as our parent company and partner in business. Our focus has been to steadily grow and elevate the AVP every year by offering new benefits and perks to the athletes who are committed to our brand and tour. Now with the support of Kingston, we have already been able to deliver the first tier of new benefits to 2019, which is increasing prize purse across the board and being able to help offset some expenses associated with travel. We are also able to take advantage of Kingston’s well-established infrastructure and team to take the AVP to that next level.
