The Beach Volleyball Major Series (or Beach Major Series and formerly the Swatch Beach Volleyball Major Series) was an international series of beach volleyball tournaments from 2015 to 2020. The tournaments consisted of Tour Stops and formed part of the FIVB Beach Volleyball World Tour. The series concluded with the FIVB World Tour Finals. Each tournament in the series had a prize pool of US$300,000 per gender, except for the World Tour Finals which had a prize pool of US$400,000 per gender.

History

The Beach Volleyball Major Series arose out of a joint-venture between Austrian companies Red Bull and the ACTS Group. Red Bull was established in 1987 by

Dietrich Mateschitz Dietrich Mateschitz (; 20 May 1944 – 22 October 2022) was an Austrian billionaire businessman. He was the co-founder and 49% owner of Red Bull GmbH. In April 2022, Mateschitz's net worth was estimated at US$27.4 billion. Mateschitz worked in ...

. Aside from the energy drink, Red Bull's direct marketing focuses heavily on sports and lifestyle. ACTS Group is a marketing agency founded in 1990 by Hannes Jagerhofer. It offers services including event-marketing, event-organization, external-communication and public relations. The group has also been responsible for the organizing beach volleyball tournaments, including the FIVB Grand Slams in

Klagenfurt Klagenfurt am WörtherseeLandesgesetzblatt 2008 vom 16. Jänner 2008, Stück 1, Nr. 1: ''Gesetz vom 25. Oktober 2007, mit dem die Kärntner Landesverfassung und das Klagenfurter Stadtrecht 1998 geändert werden.'/ref> (; ; sl, Celovec), usually ...

, Carinthia, Austria.

Swatch Swatch is a Swiss watchmaker founded in 1983 by Ernst Thomke, Elmar Mock, and Jacques Müller. It is a subsidiary of The Swatch Group. The Swatch product line was developed as a response to the "quartz crisis" of the 1970s and 1980s, in which ...

was the title sponsor of the Swatch Beach Volleyball Major Series between 2015 and 2017. The Series will not continue because of the

COVID-19 pandemic The COVID-19 pandemic, also known as the coronavirus pandemic, is an ongoing global pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The novel virus was first identi ...

Relation to the FIVB

The competition was overseen by the FIVB, the international governing body for the sports of indoor, beach and grass

volleyball Volleyball is a team sport in which two teams of six players are separated by a net. Each team tries to score points by grounding a ball on the other team's court under organized rules. It has been a part of the official program of the Sum ...

. In the category of Beach Volleyball, the FIVB oversees three competitions, namely: the FIVB Beach Volleyball Continental Cup, the FIVB Beach Volleyball World Tour and lastly the

FIVB Beach Volleyball World Championships The FIVB Beach Volleyball World Championships is the double-gender world championship for the sport of beach volleyball organized by the ' ( FIVB) the sport's global governing body. The first official edition of the event was held in Los Angele ...

. The Beach Volleyball Major Series formed part of the FIVB Beach Volleyball World Tour.

Olympic qualification

Beach volleyball was formally recognized as an Olympic discipline in 1996. In order for a beach volleyball athlete to participate in the Olympics, minimum requirements must be met and one of these requirements as stipulated by the FIVB is that all athletes must have participated in a minimum of 12 official FIVB Olympic qualification tournaments as an individual. Also an athlete hoping to participate in the Olympics must earn FIVB World Ranking points which tallies up to make up the Olympic Ranking. Participation in Major Series tournaments counts towards Olympic qualification tournaments and also earns athletes FIVB World Ranking points. An exception is the FIVB World Tour Finals – participating teams do not earn FIVB World Ranking points for this event. In 2016, the smart Major Hamburg was the final tournament where Olympic ranking points for the

2016 Olympic Games ) , nations = 207 (including IOA and EOR teams) , athletes = 11,238 , events = 306 in 28 sports (41 disciplines) , opening = 5 August 2016 , closing = 21 August 2016 , opened_by = Vice President Michel Temer , cauldron = Vanderlei Cordeiro d ...

Rio de Janeiro Rio de Janeiro ( , , ; literally 'River of January'), or simply Rio, is the capital of the state of the same name, Brazil's third-most populous state, and the second-most populous city in Brazil, after São Paulo. Listed by the GaWC as a ...

could be obtained.

Tournaments

2015

The first Beach Volleyball Major Series began in 2015. There were Tour Stops in Poreč, Croatia; Stavanger, Norway and Gstaad, Switzerland. The Swatch Beach Volleyball FIVB World Tour Finals took place in Fort Lauderdale Florida, United States.

2016

The 2016 Major Series schedule began in Hamburg, Germany, and took in further stops in Croatia, Switzerland and Klagenfurt in Austria. The Series culminated with the Swatch Beach Volleyball FIVB World Tour Finals in Toronto.

2017

The 2017 Major Series schedule was released in October 2016. As part of the FIVB World Tour, the Swatch Major Series did include trips to Poreč and Gstaad. The 2017 tour began in February in Fort Lauderdale, the site of the 2015 World Tour Finals. The 2017 Finals were held in August in Hamburg. The Swatch Major Series was also responsible for the organization of the

in Vienna in July and August.

2018

2019

2020

Due to the

, all three tournaments as well as the whole Beach Volleyball Major Series have been cancelled .

Mascot

The Major Series' official mascot was Marnin. Unveiled prior to the 2016 season, Marnin is described as a cross between a kangaroo and a fox. Marnin made his debut courtside on the FIVB Tour at the Hamburg Major.

References

External links

Official website
{{Red Bull Beach volleyball competitions Sports competition series Red Bull