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AVP Pro Beach Volleyball Inks Groundbreaking Contract With Top Athletes

Posted on: Wednesday, 22 July 2009, 08:00 CDT

LOS ANGELES, July 22 /PRNewswire/ -- AVP Pro Beach Volleyball has signed a new contract with its top-ranked athletes, it was announced today. The four-year agreement is effective immediately and has been signed by the top American players and many of their counterparts, including US Olympic gold medalists Kerri Walsh, Todd Rogers and Phil Dalhausser and others.

"We are thrilled to have a long-term deal with the AVP and are committed to forming a true partnership with the new management team to grow the sport - the momentum that we are seeing is exciting," said Kerri Walsh, two-time Olympic gold medalist and member of the AVP Players' Committee. "We want to grow together and bring our sport to an even higher level. We all love beach volleyball and look forward to operating as a united front with our tour."

Signing a new agreement with the athletes was the top priority for the new management team, led by new CEO Jason Hodell.

"We are very excited to have completed a four-year agreement with our players," said Jason Hodell, CEO, AVP Pro Beach Volleyball. "Only genuine teamwork between the players, their representatives and our management team made this agreement possible."

The new agreement features progressive revenue-sharing, profit-sharing into bonus pools, a joint focus on important growth initiatives for the sport, and defined transparency and cooperation on sponsor marketing and activation initiatives, to include sponsor category-sharing and coordinated exclusivity.

"The player contract extension provides a foundation for the players to work closely with our tour to achieve great things in the future," said Todd Rogers, who along with his partner Phil Dalhausser won a gold medal in Beijing. "The AVP tour represents the best of beach volleyball in the US and in the world - and we are excited for the future of the sport."

"We look forward to further forming a strong, productive partnership between AVP management and athletes. Working together, we can really build and enhance the sport we all love," said Al Lau, Vice President of Sport Development and Player Relations for the AVP.

"The players have a shared vision with AVP management and with RJSM pertaining to the consolidation and promotion of the sport of volleyball. There are significant growth opportunities present in the sport right now that we intend to capitalize on in partnership with the AVP pro tour," said athlete representative Ryan Morgan of MAG. "We are looking forward to the next four years and beyond."

For more information about the AVP, please visit AVP.com.

About AVP, Inc.:

AVP, Inc. is a leading lifestyle sports entertainment company focused on the production, marketing and distribution of professional beach volleyball events worldwide. One of the fastest growing entities in the sports world, the AVP operates two of the industry's most prominent national outdoor touring series, the AVP Pro Beach Volleyball Tour (1983) and the AVP Hot Winter Nights Indoor Tour (launched in 2008). The AVP is set to stage more than 35 events throughout the United States in 2009 and features more than 150 of the top men and women competitors in the sport. AVP athletes won both the women's and men's gold medals at the 2008 Games in Beijing, marking the first gold medal sweep by a single country in the history of Olympic Beach Volleyball. AVP is headquartered in Los Angeles, Calif. For more information, please visit www.avp.com.

SOURCE AVP, Inc.

Source: PR Newswire

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