HERMOSA BEACH, California — After a dismal, 0-3 efficiency on the World Championships for Tri Bourne and Chaim Schalk, coupled with a fourth-place finish for USA rivals Trevor Crabb and Theo Brunner, it wasn’t arduous to guess what the brunt of questions on this week’s mailbag episode of SANDCAST can be centered round: Did Bourne remorse his choice this previous December to dump Crabb and choose up Schalk?
True sufficient, practically half of the questions in our inbox revolved round on that very subject.
“Let me guess,” Bourne mentioned, earlier than I learn him the primary query, “do you remorse your choice?”
He laughed.
But it surely was truthful for the handfuls (and dozens) of followers to marvel: Did he?
“No,” he mentioned, leaning again. “I don’t.”
Then he thought for a second earlier than elaborating.
“I feel the factor that persons are lacking is the why,” he added. “Should you do issues for the best causes, then you must again your self by means of the highs and the lows. It’s really easy to have a look at Trevor enjoying properly and say ‘He’d be enjoying properly with you proper now, you’d be in a greater place.’ We have been simply in a spot the place I wanted change. I don’t need to do that anymore the identical manner, whether or not it’s tired of it or I need to strive new issues, I wished to try to go and take the subsequent step, which is extraordinarily arduous to do while you’re on the high degree. I hadn’t achieved that internationally, so I took that threat for the best causes on the proper time. I don’t remorse the choice.
“Sooner or later, I need to make selections the identical manner. Simply because it goes south doesn’t imply it’s the fallacious factor to do. It’s a threat it doesn’t matter what. It might have been a threat staying with Trev as properly. However you undoubtedly give it some thought when Trev’s doing good and also you’re not, you’re like ‘damnnn.’ You don’t deny that out of your head. You simply put on these ideas whilst you’re in your lows. For certain this has been essentially the most irritating, most troublesome emotionally, mentally, even bodily, simply attempting to determine it out realizing I put myself on this state of affairs. It’s tremendous troublesome.”
For the time being, Bourne and Schalk are No. 20 in the Olympic rankings, 4 spots behind Crabb and Brunner, although even that hole is deceiving, as Bourne and Schalk have two extra finishes to their complete. Among the many high 4 USA males’s groups within the race, they’re the one crew with no medal, and have but to even make a semifinal. On the AVP this season, Bourne’s prize cash was practically chopped in half from 2022 — he did play two fewer occasions, however his common per occasions was greater than $2,000 much less — and Schalk additionally noticed the same drop. Internationally, their common end has plummeted.
Neither participant is in denial: It has been an objectively tough season, notably given their expectations. Originally of the 12 months, they have been broadly thought-about to be the highest males’s USA crew. Now they’re scrambling to easily stay on the USA Volleyball stipend, given to the highest 12 gamers within the federation. This weekend’s Problem occasion in Haikou, China, is larger than most notice, with implications far past motion within the Olympic rankings.
There have been glimmers, indicators that an elite crew is in there someplace: A fifth on the Uberlandia Elite16, three great matches with the Czech Republic, Germany, and Sweden in Tepic, a win over Alex Brouwer and Robert Meeuwsen. It’s a matter of constructing these performances sustainable, with each Schalk and Bourne enjoying at a excessive degree on the similar time, one thing that has occurred sporadically, and by no means throughout a whole event.
So far as remorse, nonetheless, Bourne says he doesn’t have any. He preferred the method by which he made the choice.
They now have eight months left to make it the best one.
Why doesn’t the AVP use YouTube for broadcasting?
As we talked about on the podcast, we’ve tried to get somebody on the AVP on for so long as the present has been going — at this time marks our six-year anniversary, so at this time makes it six years of futility in that regard — however there hasn’t been curiosity. So this reply is barely our greatest hypothesis. As a common rule of thumb, nonetheless, anytime there’s a query on this realm, the reply is sort of all the time cash.
That’s the prism we’ll use to reply this query. Provided that lens, the numbers simply don’t make sense.
On common, YouTube pays roughly $6 per 1,000 viewers, which can also be the widely accepted fee for advertisers on tv as properly. The ladies’s finals of the 2022 AVP Chicago Gold Sequence, when it was streamed on YouTube, amassed 49,000 viewers and the lads hit 61,000. In Phoenix, the numbers have been even decrease: 30,000 for the ladies, 60,000 for the lads. Taken all collectively, Phoenix hit 394,000 views for all the event.
You don’t must have a math diploma to know that these numbers don’t work properly for the underside line when subtracting the income from the manufacturing and expertise prices, which may be substantial when producing a stream for, say, ESPN+.
The quandary smaller sports activities like seaside volleyball discover themselves in is that in addition they don’t work for linear tv, both. A time purchase on NBC or ESPN would even be a monetary loss, and it might additionally — and did in 2023 — tick off followers who couldn’t watch it dwell and in addition couldn’t return and discover the replays.
Streaming and tv is a much more difficult state of affairs than followers give the AVP credit score for. Volleyball World was sensible in packaging seaside with indoor on VolleyballTV, however the AVP doesn’t have that luxurious, because it doesn’t have an app, nor does it have an indoor associate (it might associate with VolleyballTV, one thing I feel most followers would love, however how the financials would shake out, I’m unsure).
What’s the answer?
There isn’t one.
To borrow a phrase from economist and writer Thomas Sowell: “There aren’t any options, solely trade-offs.”
When Steve Obradovich ran the inaugural Newport Beach Volleyball Invitational just a few weekends in the past, he initially wished to stream it. The McKibbin brothers suggested him in opposition to it, as an alternative pushing for a better high quality post-produced product at a fraction of the associated fee that may, actually, get extra views than in the event that they streamed it dwell. Their first video had 41,000 views in its first six days — greater than each girls’s AVP last that was streamed dwell on YouTube in 2022, matches which have had greater than a 12 months to achieve views.
With viewership of a post-produced product prone to surpass that of a dwell viewers, at a fraction of the associated fee, what are the tradeoffs? For one, sports activities are one of many final bastions of tv the place it’s important to observe it dwell. You possibly can miss each season of Recreation of Thrones and it doesn’t matter; you may simply binge it while you need. Even if you happen to’ve been uncovered to spoiler alerts, it doesn’t destroy the present (that is precisely what I did). But when you understand the outcomes of the Manhattan Seaside Open earlier than it was televised — as many did, given the tape-delayed nature of the televised product this 12 months — there may be little incentive for the informal fan to tune in. The superfans are nonetheless prone to watch, they’ll nonetheless need to know the way the outcomes got here to be. However the trade-off in a delayed stream or video is that a large chunk will shrug it off and never watch. There’s additionally no likelihood the McKibbins, or whoever, might produce each match all through a event; at greatest, they’d cowl the semifinals and finals, together with possibly the spotlight match of the primary few days.
What the post-produced matches would possibly do, nonetheless, is add additional incentive for followers to truly present as much as tournaments. If the one approach to watch the sporting occasion dwell is to attend in individual, it’s attainable the attendance would see a big increase. This might probably imply extra income on merchandise gross sales, extra eyeballs for the sponsor village, extra VIP gross sales, and finally a greater aesthetic for photographs and movies to pitch to future advertisers and sponsors.
It might be a greater look than the relative ghost-town that was a lot of New Orleans or Miami (the evening matches in New Orleans, nonetheless, have been positively electrical, however the finals have been dismal in attendance).
Is {that a} assure extra followers would present up? No, however I’d wager on it. And I feel seaside volleyball is definitely one of many few sports activities remaining the place it’s higher to observe in individual than it’s on tv.
Would folks be upset if this have been the trail taken? In fact. However folks will probably be upset no matter what the AVP does with its streaming and tv choices, so all of it actually boils right down to what tradeoffs the AVP is prepared to make.
What’s essential for followers to know, nonetheless, is that, as Sowell mentioned, there aren’t any options.
Solely trade-offs.
Any eventualities the place USA will get three girls’s groups within the Paris Olympics?
No. Sorry. I’d adore it if it have been attainable and Betsi Flint and Julia Scoles might then compete in Paris, however there are zero eventualities during which this could occur.
When Kelly Cheng and Sara Hughes won the World Championships, that didn’t open up one other bid for the USA; it solely assured one bid for the USA, and that bid isn’t even technically assured for Cheng and Hughes. USA can theoretically ship whomever it desires. Every crew can solely account for one bid. So if Cheng and Hughes qualify on factors and successful World Championships — which is sort of a certainty at this level — they’ll solely use a kind of bids. The opposite will trickle right down to the 18th ranked crew within the Olympic rankings.
Why don’t extra groups promote themselves in addition to TKN?
Kristen Nuss and Taryn Kloth do a beautiful job selling themselves. They’ve their very own Instagram web page. They promote merch. They only began essentially the most completely named podcast: Small Speak & Tall Tales.
Greater than something, nonetheless, they’ve two issues many groups don’t: A novel identification, and a complete lot of wins.
They’re the one high crew who has remained in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. Everybody else, proficient as they might be, is a bit identity-less, all lumped collectively as simply one other crew in Southern California. The south loves their sports activities, and the Louisiana neighborhood has rallied round Nuss and Kloth as in the event that they have been the Saints or Pelicans or LSU Tigers which, in fact, they’re. They play up the function of southern belles properly, terribly aggressive whereas remaining the well mannered, charming girls they’re.
They’re in contrast to anybody else within the USA.
Factor is: They may have the identification and the podcast and the merch and the vibe and none of it might matter in the event that they didn’t have the wins. As Kent Steffes likes to say: “Successful solves a number of issues.”
Successful is the best promotional instrument there may be. In the event that they have been dropping, it’s not arduous to look into the minds of followers. Many would look down upon their promotions as being grandiose, a bit massive for his or her britches. Who’re they, a middling crew, to be promoting merch? What are they considering, staying in Louisiana? That’ll by no means work! They should be a part of the highest groups in California! It’s the one manner!
See what I imply?
Successful is the final word promotion. Simply have a look at how the narrative shifted round Trevor Crabb. For years, he was #NeverTrevor, as a result of he was the king of self-promotion with out the wins to again it up. Now he’s #ForeverTrevor.
He hasn’t modified.
His file has.
And that’s modified every thing.
