Americans trade the comforts of home for cold hard cash - Volleyball Magazine, Oct. 09

"Adventure Capitalists - playing overseas is a life-changing experience"
by Jim Wojciechowski

It’s not every day you get an invitation to Siberia.

Reid Priddy received one by e-mail from his agent, Luca Novi, the preeminent dealmaker in men’s volleyball.

When Priddy, a Southern California surfer, golfer and beach lover, says “it was so far out from anywhere we wanted to be,” he’s not just speaking geographically.

“So I just hollered to my wife in the other room. I said, ‘Hey, Lindsay, what would it take to get us to Russia − Siberia?’ She paused and then she said a number and then I started typing it,” Priddy said. “And then she increased it to, like, craziness. I was like, all right, and I just wrote it.

“Three days later they accepted and we were signing. We were just blown away. They knew what it was going to take to get foreigners to start believing in their league. Now, everybody wants to be in Russia.”

Priddy is about to begin his third season after signing a two-year extension with Lokomotiv Novosibirsk of the Russian Volleyball Super League. In one of the coldest places on Earth, the charismatic 32-year-old (as of October 1) outside hitter has warmed to the notion of stability after playing in Italy, Austria, Greece, and South Korea.

“As opposed to feeling like you’re the hired hand, kind of a mercenary, now it feels like they’ve made a significant commitment to us for the long term,” Priddy says. “That’s a different feeling.”

Russia’s stupendous six- and seven-figure salaries and high caliber of competition also attracted U.S. national-team players Lloy Ball, Gabe Gardner, Kevin Hansen, Rich Lambourne, Sean Rooney, and Clay Stanley, as well as Brazilian superstars Gilberto Godoy Filho (Giba) and Dante Guimarães Santos do Amaral (who recently announced he will play in Brazil this year for personal reasons).

The 37-year-old Ball is beginning his 13th season of professional volleyball overseas and fourth with Zenit Kazan in Kazan, one of the country’s largest cities. Ball also played in Japan, Italy, and Greece, and said Russian volleyball has ascended since its native players returned to play at home following the 2004 Olympics.

“Russia has just become the juggernaut of club volleyball,” Ball says. “For one, they have about 200 of their own players who are unbelievable. And then you throw two of the best players in the world on every team, which makes for not only great teams but great competition.”

Zenit Kazan had the highest payroll in the 12-team league last year: $10 million for a 12-player roster, according to Ball. For a player making $1,000,000, that’s more than $45,000 a match for a 22-date regular-season schedule.

Ball, a four-time Olympian and 10-year national captain, planned to retire after the 2004 Olympics, but the financial rewards kept him in the game.

“It’s just been an awesome volleyball experience,” Ball says. “Obviously, living in Italy and Greece is easier than living in Russia − I’m not going to lie and say it’s not. But, financially and being on probably the best club team I’ve ever been on makes volleyball at my age still real fun to play.”

Zenit Kazan, which has won the past two Russian championships and a European title, sweetened Ball’s deal this year by including a $40,000 stipend for an American teacher to accompany his family to Russia and provide schooling for 8-year-old Dyer Ball. The teacher also received an apartment, car, and airfare to and from the U.S. Additionally, the club will pay for the family and teacher to accompany Ball to France for a four-day trip.

Top players typically receive free housing, transportation, airfare, and performance bonuses.

Intense fan interest, widespread media coverage, and wealthy sponsors make volleyball a premier sport in many countries. “It’s a very, very, very good time to be an indoor volleyball player,” Priddy says. “I would be surprised if there’s anybody on the 12-man indoor roster not making six figures.”

Today’s players owe a debt of gratitude to Hall-of-Famers Karch Kiraly and Steve Timmons, who made U.S. men’s volleyball credible with Olympic gold medals in 1984 and ’88 and who then signed big contracts with Il Messaggero in Italy.

“I’m fortunate to be part of this era of volleyball,” says Sean Rooney, who is playing his third year in Russia and second with Fakel Novy Urengoy in the Arctic Circle region. “We’re hoping it lasts but we don’t know that it’s going to. So right now we’re trying to make the most of it and trying to make the sport grow and trying to do anything we can to keep it going so that we can have these new experiences and this great lifestyle.”

Rooney, a 6’10” outside hitter, was prepared to take a corporate job after graduating from Pepperdine in 2005 because he wasn’t impressed with his volleyball options. However, an “amazing job offer” surprisingly came from South Korea’s Hyundai Capital Skywalkers in the first year of eligibility for foreign players in the V-League.

Rooney led the club to two championships, was the league’s most valuable player twice, and became a celebrity in South Korea. “My dad came out both years and I’d take him out to dinner in Seoul and—non-stop—people would be coming to the table for autographs, or pictures, or anything,” Rooney sayd. “The look on his face is what was incredible to me.”

The money doesn’t appear to be flowing as freely in the women’s game. As of mid-August, only three members of the U.S. national team had signed contracts, according to Lindsey Berg. The two-time Olympic setter is returning to Italy following a year off after microfracture surgery on her left knee. She will be playing with Carnaghi Villa Cortese, in northwest Italy, which features star hitter Taismary Agüero of the Italian national team.

“I am pretty picky of the location where I want to be, what country,” Berg says. “I’m not playing for money. I don’t choose my team because of the money. I won’t play in Russia, which is a personal decision I’ve made. It’s definitely where I could get more money. I’m more in front with the experience and being happy where I am.”

Berg expected many of her U.S. teammates to play in Puerto Rico.

Stacy Sykora might not be so fortunate. The three-time Olympian didn’t expect to return to Europe for an eighth season because of budget cuts.

“I was one of the only foreign liberos to play abroad in the past and now there is only one or two,” Sykora wrote in an e-mail while traveling with the national team in Asia for the FIVB World Grand Prix. “… I am honestly not worried about it. I had my time; I enjoyed it. I am fine staying in America and just training with the national team, and if something comes up I will go from there.”

The market might be tightening for high-priced players, but there appear to be more opportunities worldwide for American players, according to USA Volleyball CEO Doug Beal. Agent Tim Kelly says he places players in as many as 40 countries.
“We seem to be transferring more athletes each year, total, men and women,” Beal says. “Not only more athletes but to more different countries. Places we never thought of as locations for viable professional leagues with decent money and a quality experience are all of a sudden more available.

“Turkey is a great example. Until a couple years ago I’m not sure we’d ever had a player go to Turkey. All of a sudden it’s one of the more popular locations.”
Kelly, who represents about 300 players, says the vast majority of his clients are not star-caliber and make $850 to $1,500 a month in their first year. A far cry from the $55,000 Priddy received from an Italian team after his career at Loyola Marymount.

“It’s not a ton of money but it’s pretty great for a 22-year-old,” Kelly said. “We tell them: If you do really, really well we’re going to be able to help you double your contract but you’re going to have to leave.”

Visa restrictions in European countries have made it more difficult to place players, according to Kelly.

“The income tax to hire a foreigner for a job like that is literally up to 90 percent in some countries,” Kelly says. “So it’s just completely limited where these people can play.”

International volleyball is not for everyone. It requires adapting to new cultures, dealing with language barriers, accepting “sexy” marketing, and coping with loneliness.

“I couldn’t imagine what it would be like to be getting the same amount of money and be able to live in Huntington Beach [Calif.] and still have all of the outlets that I have here,” Priddy says. “I feel like I would play forever.”

Players also face the risk of not getting paid.

In Stacy Sykora’s case, “Some sponsor would promise this and that and then bail out randomly. I felt a lot of feelings like anger, helplessness and sadness but it always seemed to work itself out in the end.”

“The players really aren’t all that well-protected and all of a sudden the season ends and they haven’t been paid since September,” Kelly says. “So they’re out 80 percent of their salary and there’s nothing they can do about it and then the team goes bankrupt.

“That’s the ultimate horror story. Last year we had that happen three times. The recession took some teams out that in a million years I wouldn’t have believed would actually have problems.”

Sykora said she had “no idea” what she was getting into when she first signed with a European team after an All-American career at Texas A&M, but adds that her time overseas changed her life. “I have friends for a lifetime,” she says. “It is not about volleyball, it is about life.”

Professional volleyball seems to be good for U.S. volleyball, too. By extending players’ careers, the U.S. has been able to stock its national team rosters with veterans like Ball and Stanley and benefit from younger players gaining valuable experience with their club teams.

“We wouldn’t have won a gold medal (in 2008 Olympics) without it,” Ball says. “No matter how much training we can do there in Anaheim, which is good especially because most of the guys are from there, you can never get the game-type experience you’re getting playing day-in and day-out abroad.”

“You don’t take for granted the opportunity to play together as Americans,” says Priddy. “I think there are some things that are very positive about our culture that have trickled into athletics, like determination.”

Beal says the challenge the U.S. national-team coaches face is putting together championship-caliber lineups when their best players aren’t available due to professional commitments or time off. He notes the absences of Priddy, Ryan Millar, and Riley Salmon this summer.

“It’s frustrating and it makes their job much more difficult because they have to manage the movement of athletes in and out of their program on a much more regular basis than if there was a league here and they had much more control,” Beal explains. “Certainly when I coached the national team 25, 30 years ago when essentially no U.S. players were playing abroad, my job was infinitely easier because if you wanted to play volleyball at a high level you either played on the national team or you did nothing.

“To get the best players and have them under the control of the national program for a very long period of time was the only option for the players,” says Beal. “From a coaching perspective that’s a pretty ideal situation. But in terms of really growing the sport and creating a large base of talented players what we have today is a better situation.”

Professional indoor volleyball is booming in places like Russia, Italy, Greece, Turkey and South Korea, but it's largely been a bust in the United States.
The last serious American venture, the United States Professional Volleyball League for women, folded after its only season in 2002 because of financial problems. The league featurded teams in Chicago, Grand Rapids (Mich.), Rochester (Minn.) and St. Louis. It averaged more than 1,600 fans per match, had a wealthy founder in Chicago-area builder William Kennedy, and prominent sponsorships. But the league couldn't overcome a reported $1 milion in operating expenses per team.
The USPV planned to add forur teams every year for a total of 20, but never mde it to Year Two.
Professional volleyball remains on the radar of USA Volleyball, the governing body for the sport in the U.S. The subject was discussed at USAV's annual meeting last May in Minneapolis, but progress is "nothing exceptional at this point," according to USA Volleyball CEO Doug Beal.
If professional leagues are ever going to start and be successful they have to be closely aligend to USA Volleyball and, more importantly, to the national programs," Beal says. "If professional leagues were started arbitrarily by some entity outside of the USA Volleyball, there would be a much longer learning curve."

- Lloy Ball, four-time Olympian: "Never. I stopped being an optimist on that a while back. I know guys like Reid [Priddy] are real fired up about it, but I've come to the realization that we're second-class citzens in this country."
- Doug Beal, three-time Olympic coach: "The economic model of starting a professional league in this country is extraordinarily difficult. I'm not saying it's never going to happen, but it's just extraordinarily difficult. You have to do everything right. I think lots of sports have found out how difficult it is. We're interested and we are still discussing professional leagues on a fairly regular basis within USA Volleyball."
- Lindsey Berg, two-time Olympian: "I think it helps that both of us [U.S. men's and women's teams] and beach volleyball did very well at the Olympics and got exposure that way. It is going to take more exposure... Once we get people there they come back."
- Tim Kelly, an agent since the late 1990s: " I think it's going to be a couple of years before you get somebody to try again and I don't think our public cares about it enough."
- Reid Priddy, two-time Olympian: "I think it's 100 precent viable here in the States. I just think it's going to take some really smart people and deep pockets that are committed to the long term."

Matt Anderson’s story

Get rich quick or slide further into debt.

It sounded like a no-brainer for Matt Anderson, who was offered a six-figure contract to join the Hyundai Capital Skywalkers in South Korea after leading Penn State to the 2008 NCAA title his junior year. In reality, it was a very difficult decision for the 6’ 10” outside hitter.

Anderson’s performance with a U.S. training team in Japan in May 2008 and with the national team at the America’s Cup in Brazil in September made him a hot property. He hesitated when a Japanese team first made him an offer and was bypassed. He took his time again when the South Korean team called before finally accepting.

“It took him three weeks to decide what he wanted to do,” says Penn-State coach Mark Pavlik. “The way he went about doing it—talking with his family, talking with his teammates, talking with veteran USA guys that had been in similar situations from the start of their pro careers, talking with USA Volleyball—Matty gathered information very, very well. And I think in the end he made the best decision for him and his family.”

Anderson, 22, says he had “a great life” at Penn State. He was named the American Volleyball Coaches Association co-player of the year as a junior and was 36 hours short of graduating with a degree in kinesiology. The Nittany Lions were poised to challenge for another NCAA title with Anderson in the lineup.
But Anderson was only on a half-scholarship (NCAA men’s team are permitted 4.5 total) and was paying approximately $15,000 a year for out-of-state tuition. By leaving Penn State, Anderson became the highest-profile player to turn pro before his college eligibility expired. He hopes it doesn’t become a trend among the top college players.

“The deal came and it was too tempting,” he says. “Volleyball-wise, it was a big opportunity to go play internationally and it would definitely improve my game more than it would if I would have stayed in school for another year.”

After his first season in South Korea, Anderson played with the U.S. national team’s World League entry until late June when he was sidelined by pneumonia and a life-threatening infection in his chest cavity, which required surgery. Anderson resumed training in August with plans to return to the Hyundai Capital Skywalkers in October for a second season.

He’s had to adjust to a different lifestyle in Asia. The team lives and trains together at the same facility. If Anderson wants to do something socially he has to clear it with team officials. “It’s volleyball 24/7,” he says.

“Watching Matty over the first three weekends of World League, physically it looks like he’s making good strides to be pretty successful at that level,” Pavlik said. “He just needs to play and gain experience.”

source: Volleyball Magazine