Atlantic Yards gets plug at AVP Brooklyn Open

So the AVP pro volleyball tour has come to the beach at Coney Island, and the temporary stadium just west of KeySpan Park brings a bit of Southern California to the boardwalk. Forest City Ratner, via its affiliate Brooklyn Sports & Entertainment, is one of several sponsors of the Brooklyn Open--the stadium is a logo-fest--and, as noted, Atlantic Yards has been added as a sponsor.

Despite some good publicity for the tournament, attendance last night was paltry--the stands were less than one-quarter full, and that's including those with VIP and volunteer passes. I had prepurchased tickets and got a call earlier in the week encouraging me to upgrade to a higher priced bracket for no service charge

Perhaps the attendance will be higher today and Sunday, when the action will be taped for television. Still, it seems that the tour sponsors made a pricing error. At $20 for the cheapest seats, the tournament--unlike, say, a Brooklyn Cyclones game--was beyond the means of many families and impulse purchasers.

That's too bad, because beach volleyball is a terrific sport--fast, acrobatic, and with barely-clad, taut-bodied athletes of both sexes. (It seemed a little retro to have the cuervy Cuervo Girls toss t-shirts to the crowd not long before the bikini'd but kickass women's volleyball players took the court. Olympiac gold medalist Kerri Walsh dominates the net like, say, Shaq during his younger days.)

Given the number of passers-by who tried to get a peek at the action through the fence, and the number of people in Coney Island generally, there's definitly a market out there.

Also part of the mix: a table next to the ticket booth promoting season tickets for the Nets--not the New Jersey Nets but the basketball Nets, who would move to Brooklyn at some time in the unspecified future.

(Below, a view of the cheap seats and, above it, a VIP section. As the sky darkened, the iconic Parachute Jump was lit, and it's a great backdrop for a night in Coney Island.)