Beach volleyball is one of the largest growing sports in the world, and this holds true for any level because it's fun. Adults have been competing in co-ed after work beach volleyball leagues for many years. As more volleyball clubs are owning and leasing facilities, Club Directors are realizing the demand for indoor and/or outdoor sand courts. During off-peak times when your teams are not practicing on the sand courts or your club is not hosting a beach tournament, running a beach league is the perfect way to increase the bottom line while bringing new customers to your facility. Here are some ways to get started.
The format of the league usually comes down to limitations for the available courts and the lighting situation - for example, you may be like Bradford Beach in Milwaukee that has 35 courts but no lights, or you may have a smaller facility with 4 sand courts, but proper lighting. This will change the overall availability of how you can schedule the matches.
It is recommended to place all teams in a division (12U,14U, Men's A, Women's Open, etc) into a round robin that ideally runs for "# Teams-1" Weeks, that way you can assure each team plays the other teams once. Sometimes that can't be achieved, and in those cases, you can make adjustments. It's perfectly fine for each team to not necessarily play each team, as long as you have enough matches to properly seed a playoff.
Double-headers are also an interesting option to give players more chance to play.
Another consideration to make especially with doubles is the fact that if one player can't make it, a team has to forfeit, so an integrated Free Agent list is a Godsend in that situation, so that folks can just look for a sub for a single night just in case someone has to be missing.
A final consideration to make is whether to do rotating times or static times. The largest leagues use rotating times, meaning that from week to week you may play at any of the predetermined times (6:00 pm, 7:00 pm, 8:00 pm, etc). Some of the smaller leagues will do static times, meaning every week, you play at 7:00 pm. The benefit of static times is largely convenience for the teams in that league: you never really have to worry about checking what time you play each week. The benefit of rotating times is the ability to grow (something I find the static time folks are unable to do). It's easier to grow with rotating times because *everyone* wants to play the 7:00 pm matches - gives folks plenty of time to get there from work, but you're not out too late. The side effect is that less people will be willing to play at 6:00 pm (due to work) or 9:00 pm (maybe they get up early), and as a result, 7:00 pm and 8:00 pm will sell out, and 6:00 pm and 9:00 pm will languish. Rotating times allows an organization to say: "hey, you're going to play a relatively even number of 6:00 pm, 7:00 pm, 8:00 pm and 9:00 pm matches every week", and they know in advance. Then *everyone* can sign up, and only have to worry about maybe being late 2 times, or staying out too late 2 times, and so on.
One of the features BracketPal is managing is a King of the Beach League, where each player will be partnered with a different partner each week.
Here are a couple of live practical examples:
Wasatch Beach in Utah runs adult doubles leagues using double-headers over 4 timeslots for adult leagues. Click here to view.
You can also view an example of a completed league with the double-elim bracket from last season here.
New Berlin Ale House is a great example of a large casual league. Click here to view. They run one of the largest leagues in Wisconsin with approximately 450 teams in the summer. And they run the 3-to-25 format mentioned above.
Hopefully, this gives you some ideas to get your league started. If you can secure a location and get the word out in advance, your beach league, if run successfully, will be a huge success.
The JVA is an association of Junior Club Directors and Coaches who are dedicated to all facets of junior volleyball and have a desire to offer the best programming possible to their members. We are the leaders and forward thinkers in Junior Volleyball Programs and we are a voice for junior clubs. Our number one goal is to help club programs and events thrive.