The FIVB has organized an international beach volleyball tour since 1989 for men and 1992 for women, running events across multiple continents each year to build a genuinely global ranking and qualification system rather than a single national circuit. In 2022, the FIVB and its commercial partner Volleyball World relaunched the tour under a new name, the Volleyball World Beach Pro Tour, consolidating and rebranding the previous FIVB Beach Volleyball World Tour structure while keeping its role as the sport's primary international pathway and Olympic qualification system.
Olympic beach volleyball has been a full medal sport since the 1996 Atlanta Games, following a successful 1992 Barcelona demonstration, and has grown into one of the most popular ticketed events at each Summer Olympics, often held in temporary stadiums built in prominent city locations specifically to showcase the sport's outdoor, festival-like atmosphere to a wide television and live audience.
A qualification pyramid built on ranking points
Olympic beach volleyball qualification is driven substantially by results accumulated across the FIVB's international tour over an extended qualification period, giving the tour's regular events direct stakes beyond their own prize money and titles, and making consistent performance across many tournaments, not just a single big result, central to a pair's Olympic hopes.
A tiered tour structure
Like many professional tours, the Beach Pro Tour is organized into multiple tiers of event based on prize money, ranking points on offer and field strength, ranging from smaller Futures-level events aimed at developing pairs to top-tier Elite events that draw the sport's best-ranked teams. This tiered structure gives newer partnerships a realistic pathway to accumulate ranking points and experience at a lower level before qualifying into the tour's most competitive, highest-stakes events.
