GULF SHORES — The price of staging the national sand volleyball championships is going up. It will cost the city $25,000 more than it was first expected.

But, a city official says, the reward is more TV time on Gulf Shores’ sandy beaches.

“We have a situation that is a good thing,” Director of Recreation and Cultural Affairs Grant Brown told the City Council. “CBS sports network, which is broadcasting the national sand volleyball championships in May, this year they plan to actually double the amount of broadcasting for the same $30,000 fee that the organization pays CBS to broadcast.

“They’re going to do two championship courts and broadcast both the team event and the pairs event. Last year they only broadcast the team event.”

Originally the city was to spend about $30,000 in a two-year deal, but had hoped that amount might be less depending on sponsorships garnered to cover the costs.

Brown said in October the city’s portion of the total $108,000 needed to stage the tournament would be roughly $28,000 but sponsorships were being sought.

“The $28,000, that’s just a place holder,” Brown said in October. “If we move forward once the bid is awarded and we’re able to start producing and promoting and they continue to aggressively seek out sponsorships, there’s a pretty good chance we would never even need up to the $30,000 number.”

But the budget grew to $120,000 and the city’s portion eventually went up to $40,000, but that was before CBS made a request for coverage of two courts instead of just one. Now the staging budget has grown to almost $200,000 and three partners – the city, Gulf Shores and Orange Beach Tourism and the Hangout – have to kick in another $25,000 apiece.

On Monday the council agreed to pay the additional costs.

“We’re having to set up a second court,” Brown said, “which will be another tower and another station for their cameraman for their additional expenses incurred, plus other items that are related to this as well.

“We are in a situation where Gulf Shores Orange Beach Tourism handles the production of this through an agreement where we’ve appropriated $40,000 already to go toward this which is equal funding among all the parties.”

The sponsorships never materialized so the three partners are footing the bill for the new expenses.

“Now we’re asking for an additional $25,000 that each of us will contribute and put into this making our co-contribution $65,000 which is also equal to the other entities who are putting money into this,” Brown said.

The partners had hoped the extra TV time would lure in some sponsorships.

“I think there were some incorrect assumptions made and the assumption was that with addition of this extra court and extra tower and extra television coverage that that would facilitate more sponsorship sales,” Mayor Robert Craft said. “It did not.”

Councilman Jason Dyken said he completely supported the event, but questioned why no sponsorships were found.

“I think it’s a great event and I’ve said all along we couldn’t buy the amount of exposure this event creates,” he said. “I’m not questioning the dollar amount, I’m questioning more the process and making sure for whatever event it is in the future we make sure we have those loose ends tied up before we get into another situation like this.”

Brown said it wasn’t the city’s responsibility to get the sponsorships.

“The original goal was to sell sponsorships to be able to come up with additional funds,” he said. “The original budget was about $120,000. Which is three parties at $40,000 each. But the budget is $191,000 so there’s the short fall.

“We had anticipated getting that shortfall made up by additional sponsors. That is not happening. Sponsor sales have not been there. There’s still a chance that some sponsorships could occur. We need to go ahead and start ordering and making plans to do this.”

With a three-year deal in place with the American Volleyball Coaches Association, Brown says this is an investment in the future that could pay off for years in the sand volleyball community.

“As the additional colleges fund sand volleyball, there’ll be an NCAA national championship event played someplace,” Brown said. “And they start paying us for the event. They actually pay the site and venue to be able to host the event.

“Our hope is that in a couple of years as we deem the Gulf Coast and Gulf Shores the sand volleyball championship venue that we will continue with this into the future with funding. Plus the exposure we will get.”

Also on the horizon is the chance for BP funding. Brown said Volleyball USA’s Gulf Coast Regional Commissioner Philip Bryant was going through the process of applying for the next round of BP marketing and tourism grants and, if successful, would greatly help funding for the next two volleyball championship events.