Trying to spike interest in sport
Walsh Jennings starts series for beach volleyball
For far too long, Kerri Walsh Jennings has been the dominant face of beach volleyball.
Who’s complaining about that? Kerri Walsh Jennings. “I’m sick of myself,” she said in a phone interview. “We need to make new stars.”
With that, and a lot of other concerns about her beloved sport in mind, Walsh Jennings is trying to do something about it. To challenge the status quo. She is launching p1440 — an event series that she hopes will breathe new life into her sport, push competition and revitalize beach volleyball.
This weekend, the inaugural p1440 event will take place at Avaya Stadium in San Jose, not far from where Walsh Jennings grew up and attended Archbishop Mitty High and just down the freeway from where she played at Stanford.
The event is a sports festival/ experience, deriving its name from Walsh Jennings’ goal to live all 1,440 minutes of each day with a purpose. Her vision is built on four pillars: competi-
“I’m sick of myself. We need to make new stars.” Kerri Walsh Jennings, three-time Olympic gold medalist
tion, health and wellness, personal development and entertainment. The three-day event at Avaya will include a professional beach-volleyball tournament, with a $300,000 purse prize, live music, guided meditation, yoga sessions, inspirational talks, nutrition information and more. The series has a telecast deal with ESPN/ABC and Sunday’s final will air live on ABC.
“This is our showcase,” Walsh Jennings said. “This is an expo of mind, body and spirit. If it’s just another beach-volleyball event, we’ll fail. We want to bring new eyeballs to the sport.”
Walsh Jennings, 40, and her husband Casey, along with business partners Dave and Kasia Mays — who have an entrepreneurial and business background — are the forces behind the event. Walsh Jennings has been dissatisfied with the trajectory of her sport, which she thinks can be more than something that gets noticed once every four years, at the Olympics. So she decided to break with the Association of Volleyball Professionals and start her own tour.
“This has been a long time coming,” she said. “I was unsatisfied with the growth and management of the sport and tour. I disagreed with the plan and the vision.”
One of the instigating factors was her contract disagreement and resulting lawsuit with AVP. She said her “take-it-or-leave-it” contract negotiations with AVP were disappointing. With only eight events per year, Walsh Jennings objected to AVP’s exclusive rights to her competition within the United States. She said she won her lawsuit, had her contract paid in full and the two sides now are arguing over lawyers’ fees.
“The lawsuit is probably about one-fifth of the situation,” she said of her motivation to break away. “I want to fight for what’s right. We need a collaborative effort. We need a healthy domestic tour, not just eight events.”
Walsh Jennings, once dubbed “6 feet of sunshine,” has joked that she has turned into Darth Vader, turning on the tour that helped make her so successful.
“Well, Darth Vader has a good heart, right?” she said. “I have a history of standing up for my sport. Players are too afraid of the powers that be.”
Walsh Jennings, who lives in Manhattan Beach (Los Angeles County) with her husband and three children, left indoor volleyball after the Sydney Olympics and then enjoyed the most successful beach-volleyball career in history. In 2004, she won the first of her three gold medals with partner Misty May-Treanor. Walsh Jennings won her last gold in London when she was five weeks pregnant. In Rio in 2016, with new partner April Ross, Walsh Jennings finished with the bronze.
The Olympics are her passion, but she realized the Games have played a role in restricting her sport. The domestic tour has shrunk. According to Walsh Jennings, the top players in the sport make only $38,000 a year.
“When I had the realization the Olympics was keeping us small, it was a punch in the stomach,” she said. “Every top player only chases gold medals. We’re only relevant every four years.
“We need more opportunities to compete, to sharpen our skills, to market ourselves.”
Walsh Jennings is trying to be respectful of AVP, not scheduling any conflicting events. She has partnered with the international governing body — FIVB — and the Las Vegas p1440 that will be held next month will be an Olympic-qualifying tournament, giving participants a chance to earn qualifying points for Tokyo 2020.
Walsh Jennings is still playing. This weekend, she will play with Switzerland’s Anouk Verge-Depre. Walsh Jennings hasn’t announced a domestic partner, but expects to do so soon as she points toward trying to qualify for her sixth Olympic Games, when she will be almost 42.
“I have audacious goals,” she said. “I want to be the No. 1 team in the world again.”
Walsh Jennings is sick of herself. But not sick enough to retire.
Or to stop working to change her sport for the better.