At 1:00 p.m. Aug. 11, any couch potatoes tuning to NBC to watch
the Manhattan Beach Open, crown jewel of the Association of
Volleyball Professionals Tour, saw what appeared to be a parking
lot somewhere in New York.
The field of cars at the Sirius Satellite Radio at the Glen,
NASCAR’s morning race in Watkins Glen, New York, had been
halted by a red flag. Eventually, Tony Stewart crossed the finish
line and about 20 minutes later the network got the green light to
switch to Manhattan Beach.
On the surface, auto racing in New York and beach volleyball in
California are polar opposites in the sports world.
Beach volleyball ““ even the Manhattan Beach Open, one of
the AVP tour’s biggest events ““ carries little weight
outside of the West Coast. The men’s winners, Eric Fonoimoana
and Dax Holdren, hail from Manhattan Beach and Santa Barbara,
respectively. The four women in the tournament final all went to
UCLA.
NASCAR, meanwhile, traditionally creates much less buzz in Los
Angeles than in the southern and eastern parts of the country.
Perhaps the biggest difference between NBC’s coverage of the
two sports lies in the fact that NASCAR coverage fetches $2.8
billion per the contract signed last year with NBC, TNT and
Fox.
The AVP, meanwhile, did not get paid for NBC’s television
coverage of the Manhattan Open, as the network is auditioning
volleyball for its summer sports timeslots.
On Aug. 11, NBC demonstrated the two have one thing in common:
neither sport is groomed for the SoCal television market.
The all-UCLA women’s final provided a much more dramatic
storyline than did the men’s. While Fonoimoana and Holdren
dominated Mike Whitmarsh and Canyon Ceman, it was a tug of war
between the Holly McPeak-Elaine Youngs team and underdogs Jenny
Johnson-Jordan and Annette Davis.
McPeak and Youngs had not lost a match all year until Saturday;
volleyball people will be talking about their loss all year.
Unfortunately, viewers saw only the third set of the
women’s final, but saw all of the men’s.
Particularly depressing for UCLA fans was the fact that alumnus
Karch Kiraly, arguably the greatest beach player ever, had been
eliminated the previous day. All UCLA fans were left to watch was
the left leg of grad student Ceman. Ceman is beset by a rare
syndrome (similar to that which besets golfer Casey Martin) that
balloons his left leg to a whopping eight pounds heavier than his
right. It was obvious to the camera, and it obviously affected his
performance.
The narration of color commentator and volleyball legend Mike
Dodd left something to be desired.
“A universal truth about volleyball fans: they want to see
more volleyball,” he said.
While NASCAR perennially struggles in the television ratings on
the west coast, NBC’s delivery of the Manhattan Open was
unpolished, and volleyball needs to shine out west.