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In a transaction that gives them more content for their burgeoning regional sports networks and online properties, Bally’s Corp. has purchased the Association of Volleyball Professionals, the premier beach volleyball tour in the United States.
It’s expected that Bally’s will broadcast AVP events across their growing broadcast network, which are in more than two dozen U.S. markets. They have deals currently with MLB, the NBA, and NHL for programming.
Last year, Bally’s entered into a media partnership with Sinclair Broadcast Group who owns Fox Sports regional networks and relaunched them under their own brand. They’ve also promised a streaming channel in 2022 to serve as a home for their growing roster of sports and gaming content.
The company is quickly driving their way into the sports betting and content market. In 2020, the company, which was previously known as Twin River Worldwide Holdings, bought the name Bally’s from Caesars Entertainment. A month later, the new Bally’s purchased Bet.Works, a sportsbook technology provider, to serve as the backbone of their online sports gaming enterprise.
The Checkered History Of AVP Beach Volleyball
The acquisition provides a security blanket for the AVP, which has survived alternating periods of success and difficulty the last decade. Founded in 1983, the tour was a fringe operation with a passionate core of fans until cable network deals helped boost its popularity in the 1990s. In the early 2000s, a group of dynamic players and their success in the Summer Olympic Games helped the AVP grow rapidly. Still, in 2010 the AVP declared bankruptcy and was spared extinction when Donald Sun, a California-based technology executive, purchased it.
Despite the international and domestic success of Olympic champions Misty May-Treanor and Kerri Walsh Jennings in the 2000s, the AVP has still struggled to find sponsors and steady itself. The pandemic was a blow, limiting the AVP to only one major event in the 2019 and 2020 seasons. The tour has three events scheduled for 2021.
