AVP Names Its Chicago Championship Field
Twelve pairs, two titles and single elimination at Oak Street Beach on 5 and 6 September. Six of the ten matches are on Saturday and none of them has an announced national broadcast.
AVP named the twelve pairs for its league championship on Wednesday. The event is at Oak Street Beach in Chicago on 5 and 6 September, and it is single elimination the whole way.
The top two seeds in each draw have byes into the semifinals. Miami Mayhem and Palm Beach Passion hold them on the men's side, Palm Beach Passion and Austin Aces on the women's, so Palm Beach is the only club sitting out a quarterfinal twice.
The women's quarterfinals are Brooklyn Blaze against Dallas Dream at 10 a.m. Central and Miami Mayhem against San Diego Smash at noon, and the two winners meet the two byes in the semifinals.
The men's are New York Nitro against Austin Aces at 11 and San Diego Smash against LA Launch at 1. Clubs field a team in each draw, which is why the same names turn up twice.
Taryn Brasher and Kristen Cruz are in the field three weeks after winning Manhattan Beach. So are Kelly Cheng and Megan Kraft, Taylor Crabb and Andy Benesh, Melissa Humana-Paredes and Brandie Wilkerson, and Phil Dalhausser.
Six of the ten matches are on Saturday and none of them has an announced national broadcast.
CBS Sports Network has Sunday from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. Eastern and The CW has 2 to 4 p.m., off a schedule AVP published on 2 June. Saturday's four quarterfinals and the two semifinals played that afternoon are not on it.
The other two semifinals are on Sunday morning at 10 and 11 Central, an hour and two hours before the women's final, with the men's final last at 2.
Neither the field announcement nor the event page carries a prize figure, and none has been published anywhere this season, which is the one number a beach fan would want before Labor Day weekend.
One warning for anybody searching. There is a 2025 page on avp.com for the same event, at the same beach, in the same week of the calendar, and it still outranks the real one.
It names 2025 pairings, which is how a reader ends up with Brasher alongside Kristen Nuss instead of Cruz.
Doors are at 9 a.m. and first serve at 10 on both days. The one number still missing is the money.
Correction. This article originally said Palm Beach Passion was the top seed in both draws, and that both semifinals were on Saturday. Miami Mayhem is the men's top seed and Palm Beach Passion the men's second, and two of the four semifinals are on Sunday morning. AVP's own field announcement and its event page both say so.
