ESPN will televise the NCAA Division I beach volleyball championships for the next five years.
The NCAA and ESPN have reached a multiyear agreement to telecast the NCAA Women’s Beach Volleyball Championship. The championship will be held Friday through Sunday, May 4-6, in Gulf Shores, Alabama. The event's hosts are the city of Gulf Shores, the Orange Beach Sports Commission and the University of Alabama at Birmingham. ESPN will televise the event for the next five years, spanning 2018 through 2022.
ESPN will provide live whip-around coverage of every match throughout the tournament across the ESPN family of networks. Duals 1-8 will be played Friday, May 4, and duals 9-12 will take place Saturday, May 5. Championship Sunday will showcase duals 13 and 14. Additionally, ESPN 3 will provide full coverage of every individual match from all five courts.
“We are extremely thrilled to have ESPN telecast the championship for the next five years,” said Kelcey Roegiers, chair of the NCAA Women’s Beach Volleyball Committee and associate athletics director at Georgia State. “The coverage ESPN will provide for the championship allows great exposure for the sport, the hard-working student-athletes and the growth and excitement surrounding the NCAA Women’s Beach Volleyball Championship.”
“The NCAA Women’s Beach Volleyball Championship adds to our offering of more than 20 NCAA Championships we provide fans each year,” said Dan Margulis, ESPN senior director, college and high school sports programming. “Beach volleyball is an emerging sport with untapped potential and ESPN looks forward to helping increase its national profile.”
Beach volleyball is one of the fastest growing NCAA sports and is currently sponsored by 69 institutions. The championship has an eight-team bracket that will be played in a double-elimination format. Teams consist of five pairs of female student-athletes. Competition will observe standard beach volleyball rules with the five pairs playing five-set matches. The winning team needs to win three of the five pair matches to win the dual and advance to the next round.
For more information on the NCAA Women’s Beach Volleyball Championship, visit ncaa.com/beachvolleyball.
