Details continue to unfold regarding Kerri Walsh Jennings‘ new volleyball tour meets health seminar and concert series event, p1440.
The latest bit of news reveals that the series will be just midway between the FIVB four and five star events in terms of prize money. Each of the four events will feature a $300,000 prize purse, split evently between the men’s and women’s players, $150,000 for each gender, totalling $1.2 million for the year.
Prize money is set for $28,000 for first place, $18,000 for second and $12,000 for third.
“One of p1440’s goals is to provide professional beach volleyball athletes with an additional opportunity to play the sport and support their careers financially so they can continue to focus on their craft and skills for competing,” Dave Mays, p1440 managing partner, said. “With a large prize money pool, we hope to achieve just that and elevate the sport as whole.”
Comparatively, the Fort Lauderdale five-star contested in February awarded $40,000 for first, $32,000 for second and $20,000 for third.
Meanwhile, the Xiamen four star in April handed out $20,000 for first place, $16,000 for second and $10,000 for third.
The competitive prize money is another way that Walsh Jennings and p1440 is acheiving it goal of serving the game, its athletes and making professional beach volleyball a viable career.
“As a whole, the sport of volleyball is very strong—there’s an extensive and long standing grass roots movement and abundant, meaningful opportunities for youth, high school and collegiate players— these factor into making it the number one sport for young female athletes to play,” Walsh Jennings added. “However, at the elite level, professional beach volleyball has significant struggles; p1440 wants to fix that. Our movement was created with the athletes in mind. Through p1440, we want to help players prolong and elevate their careers and truly become professional athletes by providing them with additional opportunities to compete and win prize money. We also want to be a home for developing athletes, fresh out of college, who are chasing their dreams—whether they are making the transition from indoor to beach or wanting to progress their career in beach volleyball. We want to support them as much as possible.”
P1440 is set for four stops in 2018 beginning in San Jose, Sept. 28-30 and continuing on to Las Vegas, San Diego and Huntington Beach.
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