In the 1920s, beach volleyball started to be played on the beaches on Santa Monica, California. The sport gained popularity throughout the United States and the world in the 1980s.

Enter the AVP, the first professional beach volleyball tour in the U.S.

What Does AVP Stand For?

The acronym AVP stands for Association of Volleyball Professionals. It is a beach volleyball tour that was founded in the United States on July 21, 1983.

Many of the world’s most famous volleyball players have competed on the AVP, including Olympic gold medalists Karch Kiraly, Phil Dalhausser, Kerri Walsh Jennings, and Misty May- Treanor and fresh faces such as Kelly Reeves and Amanda Dowdy.
At the start, only men played on the AVP, while the women had their own tour, the Women’s Professional Volleyball Association (WPVA). However, the WPVA struggled on and off in the early 90s and the AVP hosted women’s tournaments in 1993 and 1994 before adding women’s competitions full-time in 1999. The WPVA folded in 1997.

The AVP has also gone in and out of business throughout the years. Most recently, Donald Sun purchased the tour in 2012. That year there were only two tour stops -- the Cincinnati Open and the AVP Championships in Santa Barbara.

In 2017, the AVP has eight tour stops planned, with the tour championships taking place August 1 to September 3 in Chicago.You don't need to be a professional to play on the AVP. The AVP has a developmental program called AVPNext. It serves as a qualification circuit for amateur players. Those competing in the program have the ability to earn AVP qualification points, which rank them nationally. Joining AVPNext makes a pair eligible to play for a bid into the main draw of the AVP Manhattan Beach Open.