The Back Story Behind Beach Volleyball in Ocean Beach

By Geoff Page

At the request of some long-time OB locals, The Rag took a look at the volleyball situation on OB’s beaches. After years of observing volleyball on the sand, it never occurred to this writer that it was all a business. And it actually is a money-making business.

VOLO

A company named VOLO has the current permit for use of the sand to play volleyball.

There was a question about VOLO having changed its name recently from VAVi to VOLO. It is possible more people are familiar with the VAVi name, which was the former company that had the volleyball contract with the city. There was no name change, VOLO simply acquired VAVi.

VOLO organizes and manages an odd collection of league sports in 12 locations in 11 cities across the country. It is an odd collection in that it seems to manage sports such as volleyball and softball as well as drinking games. On the VOLO website, they claim to have with over 60,000 players.

The list of sports leagues varies from city to city. VOLO covers almost everything from Bar Games to Yoga to Sailing to Axe Throwing to Flip Cup, along with traditional sports.

Here is VOLO’s San Diego list of 13 sports leagues:

Basketball
Bowling
Cornhole
Dodgeball
Flag Football
Golf
Happy Hour
Kickball
Pickleball
Soccer
Softball
Tennis
Volleyball

Seems they consider Happy Hour to be a league sport.

VOLO has a $20-a-month membership program described as follows:

Become a Volo Pass member for $20 a month to get insider access to Volo’s nationally recognized programming. Play unlimited pickups, drop-ins, clinics, and tournaments! Get discounts on leagues and access to exclusive member events.

It is not necessary to be a member to participate.  The volleyball sessions, with names like 4×4 Intermediate Volleyball, 4×4 Social Volleyball, and 2×2 Competitive Volleyball, have varying prices. The cost for eight weeks varies from $105 per person to a low of $55. Membership allows for a discount on the session fees.

A list of scheduled sessions is on the VOLO website. It appears to be an evolving list. Each event has an interactive display like the one in the following picture.

This shows pricing varying from a regular price to a membership price and an early bird price. Pricing is by individuals or by teams.

It is possible to sort the VOLO list on the website by location. It currently shows 18 sessions from March 18 to April 14. Each date is the beginning of an eight-week session at the advertised times. But, the VOLO website does not show all of the dates they have been granted by permit. Those dates go out to August 18.

The VOLO website is here. https://www.volosports.com/San-Diego/.

The Permit

On November 2, 2023, the Parks and Recreation Department approved the permit for “Volo Sports and Social Inc.”

The permit lists 43 dates for seven hours each day from 7:00 a.m. to 2:00 p.m. totaling 301 hours. The first date is 2-18-24 and the last date is 8-18-24. It covers seven courts on the sand.

It is curious in that the dates VOLO shows for its sessions, do not match the permit. The website currently shows two early February dates and four March dates that are not in the permit list. The permit lists nine March dates, none of which show on VOLO’s website.

For all that usage of a public beach, the city charged VOLO only $4,217.22. That is $14 an hour for 301 hours. Compared to what VOLO is charging participants, the city’s fee seems a tad low.

The leagues are no doubt popular. If people accept the commercialization of the beach, at the very least the city should be collecting a percentage of the revenue the business brings in instead of a small permit fee. Or, put the permit up for bid and let the market decide what the beach is worth that way.

Problems?

There are two main issues. The first issue is public access to the beach. OB’s beach area is not very large compared to other beaches. Should a private company be able to monopolize a portion of the beach for a narrow interest sport and not have it accessible to the public?

The second issue is commercializing public property. Who benefits from this? VOLO benefits greatly because it is making money and it does not have to create its own venue for the sport.  With no facility to maintain, overhead is very low. Certainly, there is very little financial benefit for the residents of the city as that small permit fee shows.

Beyond that, there are complaints from residents about parking issues when everyone shows up to play. There are some complaints about noise and loud music.

So, Ocean Beach — let’s at least discuss these issues about private use of the public beach.