Posted by: site admin @ 8:17 pm
Association of Volleyball Professionals (AVP) has launched new ads for 2009 and they’re down to the skinny again. Like a few years back when the ladies of volleyball were told to wear g-string bikinis to help increase attendance, a set of sexy ads recently released show close-up shots of players’ behinds and other body part to lure in an audience and try to sell what’s basically a game of skill and athleticism with sex. Frankly, it didn’t work then and it doesn’t work for me now. Either you are going to watch volleyball because you like it or not. You can slap some mud pools in the center beach ring and get some ladies mud wrestling in skimpy swim suits. But short of that, the top volleybally players are Olympic competitors with muscles of steel and hard bodies built for maximum play. Exposure is not necessarily what’s needed to increase V-ball appeal. Nor is the addition of ticket sales that made the game less available to the average joe last year.
Print and online advertisements, plus outdoor advertisements include photos of Holly McPeak, Tyra Turner, Kerri Walsh, Phil Dalhausser, Mike Morrison, Todd Rogers and Sean Scott in various states of skin. Stomachs, shoulders, backs, chests and arms of the players in action, and the butt of a model shown above all seek to entice the public out to something tintilating, exciting and inviting. An ad campaing spends its 2009 budget of over half-a-million dollars under the direction of Torrance agency Project Design to presents an attention-grabber.
“It’s a very sexy sport,” Holly McPeak says of volleyball, and adds that AVP players are comfortable “in our skins”. “Because we compete in bikinis and the men compete in board shorts. Those are our uniforms. When you’re diving in sand and have to cover a huge amount of space, the less material the better,” she adds. “It’s a functional uniform.”
The 2009 AVP tour dates include March 27-29 in Panama City, Fla., with stops in Atlanta, Chicago, Cincinnati, the Hamptons, Houston, Las Vegas and San Francisco in addition to mainstay Southern California sites like Huntington Beach and Manhattan Beach. The tour ends in Glendale, Ariz., Sept. 24-26.
South Side of Huntington Beach Pier
285 Pacific Coast Highway Huntington Beach,CA 92648
Huntington Beach is one of the big Southern California stops that is a crowd favorite on the AVP Crocs Tour.
Schedule
Thursday, May 21, 2009
Men’s and Women’s Qualifier Competition
Gates open at TBD
Start time 12:00 AM. End Time (Approx) 12:00 AM.
Friday, May 22, 2009
Men’s and Women’s Main Draw Competition
Gates open at TBD
Start time 12:00 AM. End Time (Approx) 12:00 AM.
Saturday, May 23, 2009
Men’s and Women’s Main Draw Competition
Gates open at TBD
Start time 12:00 AM. End Time (Approx) 12:00 AM.
Sunday, May 24, 2009
Men’s and Women’s Main Draw Competition
Gates open at TBD
Start time 12:00 AM. End Time (Approx) 12:00 AM.