The AVP beach volleyball tour now has team play. But will it be a (Dallas) Dream or (Miami) Mayhem?

When Chase Budinger was playing in the NBA, he had a locker room full of teammates who were working together to win and support each other off the court.

Since switching to beach volleyball, it’s always been just him and a single partner.

That's changing this season on the AVP tour, with a new league format that is bringing a team concept to the two-person game, and with it a home city and a nickname and all of the other trappings of the more traditional team sports.

“It just brings that team atmosphere, that team bonding that is something that I’ve missed from my basketball days,” Budinger said in a recent telephone interview as he moved on from the Paris Olympics to the AVP’s new league.

“It’s something that I kind of feel again, where you’re cheering on your teammates and really have another team’s back,” said Budinger, who played seven years in the NBA before reaching the Olympics in beach volleyball. “It’s really cool, because it’s something so different than normal beach volleyball.”

Although it has long been the most prestigious beach volleyball tour in the United States, the AVP has struggled to find footing in the sand as it tries to carry the sport's quadrennial Summer Games spotlight through the non-OIympic years.

The new format is an attempt to solve some of the problems that may be hindering the sport's growth, including shorter matches that are more TV-friendly, and more predictable pairings to capitalize on the name recognition of its biggest stars.

Most visibly, the AVP league departs from traditional beach volleyball, where twosomes traveled and competed for themselves, by teaming a men’s pair with a women’s pair and assigning them a city in the hopes of fostering hometown support. Teams don't play for tournament titles, but to move up in the season standings and reach the end-of-season championship in Los Angeles Nov. 9-10.

“It’s a total shakeup from what’s been happening for the last few decades,” said Brandie Wilkerson, a Canadian who won the silver medal at the Paris Olympics with Melissa Humana-Paredes; the pair now plays for the AVP’s Palm Beach Passion, teamed up with 2008 gold medalist Phil Dalhausser, and Avery Drost.

“The team camaraderie is interesting,” Wilkerson said. “I’ve never had to really think about another teammate other than Melissa. So that’s been fun and we’re getting into it, we’re getting to know these players better. We get to support each other.”

Other teams include the San Diego Smash, New York Nitro, Dallas Dream, Austin Aces, Miami Mayhem, LA Launch and Brooklyn Blaze. So far, the league has bounced from Los Angeles, where it played in the UCLA Tennis Center, to Miami’s Hard Rock Stadium.

“Playing cities just like other professional teams do and having big crowds in stadiums — what’s not to like about that?” said Olympic gold medalist Alix Klineman, who plays for Miami.

“It takes time. I don’t think people overnight all became Laker fans,” she said. “It was learning to love the organization and the players, and as they got better, more people became fans. Hopefully this format has the staying power that everybody hopes it does, and then I think fans will get on board.”

The competition heads this weekend to the Honda Center, home of the NHL’s Anaheim Ducks. While beach volleyball events are often held away from the shore on trucked-in sand — including in the Champ de Mars under the Eiffel Tower at the 2024 Paris Olympics — existing stadiums offer conveniences that aren't always possible at Manhattan Beach or Copacabana.

“It feels professional,” said April Ross, a three-time Olympic medalist who won gold in 2021 with Klineman in Tokyo. “We have air conditioned locker rooms, player lounges. I really enjoy those venues.”

It’s different on the court, too, with sets that go up to 15 (instead of 21). The fast-paced play keeps the fans interested, and it doesn’t hurt that the matches can more reliably fit into a TV window. (A traditional beach volleyball match can last from 30-something minutes to well over an hour, meaning a two-match broadcast would time out of a two-hour TV window just when things are most exciting.)

“It’s definitely a big sprint,” Ross said. “It’s intense, I’ll say that. I think it’s fun to watch, and every point matters a lot. Strategically, it’s tough: If you have a slow start there’s not a lot of room for changing your strategy and staging a comeback.”

This year’s season was scheduled in the fall, to build off of the Olympic bump; in 2025 it is expected to move back to the summer. There are three women’s teams from Paris: Kelly Cheng and Sara Hughes, and Taryn Kloth and Kristen Nuss, as well as the Canadians. The men's side features both American pairs from the recent Olympics: Budinger and Miles Evans, and Andy Benesh and Miles Partain, and former Olympians such as Dalhausser and Brazil's Alison.

An AVP spokesman declined to provide attendance figures except to say they have increased each week through the first six events of the season. The players — many of them Southern Californians — say they are hoping that the format helps grow beach volleyball as the sport's birthplace prepares for the Olympics to return in 2028.

“L.A. has their work cut out for them, to try to top Paris,” Klineman said. “I’m excited for L.A. I think our city has a lot to offer. But we also have to step it up, to do something like Paris.”

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FILE - The Eiffel Tower looms in the background during play in the women's beach volleyball bronze medal match between Australia, left, and Switzerland, right, at the 2024 Summer Olympics, Aug. 9, 2024, in Paris, France. (AP Photo/Louise Delmotte, File)

FILE - United States' Chase Budinger, center right, shoots against Spain's Pablo Herrera Allepuz, left, in a beach volleyball match at the 2024 Summer Olympics, Aug. 2, 2024, in Paris, France. (AP Photo/Robert F. Bukaty, File)

FILE - April Ross, bottom left, of the United States, and teammate Alix Klineman, bottom right, celebrate after winning a women's beach volleyball gold medal match against Australia at the 2020 Summer Olympics, Aug. 6, 2021, in Tokyo, Japan. (AP Photo/Felipe Dana, File)

FILE - Canada's Brandie Wilkerson returns thea ball in the women's beach volleyball gold medal match between Brazil and Canada, at the 2024 Summer Olympics, Aug. 9, 2024, in Paris, France. (AP Photo/Louise Delmotte, File)

DAVOS, Switzerland (AP) — The European Union’s top official on Tuesday called into question U.S. President Donald Trump’s trustworthiness, saying that he had agreed last year not to impose more tariffs on members of the bloc.

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen called Trump’s planned new tariffs over Greenland "a mistake especially between long-standing allies.”

She was responding to Trump's announcement that starting February, a 10% import tax will be imposed goods from eight European nations that have rallied around Denmark in the wake of his stepped up calls for the United States to take over the semi-autonomous Danish territory of Greenland.

“The European Union and the United States have agreed to a trade deal last July," Von der Leyen said at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. “And in politics as in business – a deal is a deal. And when friends shake hands, it must mean something.”

"We consider the people of the United States not just our allies, but our friends. And plunging us into a downward spiral would only aid the very adversaries we are both so committed to keeping out of the strategic landscape,” she added.

She vowed that the EU’s response “will be unflinching, united and proportional.”

Trump has insisted the U.S. needs the territory for security reasons against possible threats from China and Russia.

Earlier Tuesday, U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said America’s relations with Europe remain strong and urged trading partners to “take a deep breath” and let tensions driven the new tariff threats over Greenland “play out.”

“I think our relations have never been closer,” he said.

The American leader’s threats have sparked outrage and a flurry of diplomatic activity across Europe, as leaders consider possible countermeasures, including retaliatory tariffs and the first-ever use of the European Union’s anti-coercion instrument.

The EU has three major economic tools it could use to pressure Washington: new tariffs, suspension of the U.S.-EU trade deal, and the “trade bazooka” — the unofficial term for the bloc’s Anti-Coercion Instrument, which could sanction individuals or institutions found to be putting undue pressure on the EU.

Earlier Tuesday, Trump posted on social media that he had spoken with NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte. He said "I agreed to a meeting of the various parties in Davos, Switzerland,” which is hosting the World Economic Forum’s annual meeting this week.

Trump also posted a text message from Emmanuel Macron in which the French president suggested a meeting of members of the Group of Seven industrialized democracies in Paris after the Davos gathering.

Later, however, Trump posted some provocatively doctored images. One showed him planting the U.S. flag next to a sign reading “Greenland, U.S. Territory, Est. 2026.” The other showed Trump in the Oval Office next to a map that showed Greenland and Canada covered with the U.S. Stars and Stripes.

In a sign of how tensions have increased in recent days, thousands of Greenlanders marched over the weekend in protest of any effort to take over their island. Greenland Prime Minister Jens-Frederik Nielsen said in a Facebook post Monday that the tariff threats would not change their stance.

“We will not be pressured,” he wrote.

In his latest threat of tariffs, Trump indicated that the import taxes would be retaliation for last week’s deployment of symbolic numbers of troops from the European countries to Greenland — though he also suggested that he was using the tariffs as leverage to negotiate with Denmark.

Denmark's minister for European affairs called Trump's tariff threats “deeply unfair." He said that Europe needs to become even stronger and more independent, while stressing there is "no interest in escalating a trade war."

"You just have to note that we are on the edge of a new world order, where having power has unfortunately become crucial, and we see a United States with an enormous condescending rhetoric towards Europe,” Marie Bjerre told Danish public broadcaster DK on Tuesday.

Speaking on the sidelines of Davos, California Gov. Gavin Newsom slammed Europe’s response to Trump's tariff threats as “pathetic” and “embarrassing,” and urged European leaders to unite and stand up to the United States.

“It is time to get serious, and stop being complicit,” Newsom told reporters. “It’s time to stand tall and firm, have a backbone.”

European markets opened sharply lower on Tuesday and U.S. futures fell further as tensions rose over Greenland. Benchmarks in Germany, France and Britain fell about 1%. The future for the S&P 500 lost 1.5% and the Dow future was down 1.4%.

With U.S. trading closed Monday for a holiday, financial markets had a relatively muted response to Trump’s threat to put a 10% extra tariff on exports from eight European countries that have opposed his push to exert control over Greenland. Jonas Golterman of Capital Economics described the situation as a lose-lose one for both the U.S. and the targets of Trump’s anger. He said, “It certainly fells like the kind of situation that could get worse before it gets better.”

In another sign of tension between allies, the British government on Tuesday defended its decision to hand sovereignty of the Chagos Islands to Mauritius after Trump attacked the plan, which his administration previously supported.

Trump said that relinquishing the remote Indian Ocean archipelago, home to a strategically important American naval and bomber base, was an act of stupidity that shows why he needs to take over Greenland.

The United Kingdom signed a deal in May to give Mauritius sovereignty over the islands, though the U.K. will lease back the island of Diego Garcia, where the U.S. base is located, for at least 99 years.

AP writers Sylvie Corbet in Paris, Jill Lawless in London and Elaine Kurtenbach in Bangkok contributed to this report.

Riot police clash with protesters after a rally against the World Economic Forum in Davos and the visit of US President Donald Trump, on Monday, in Zurich, Switzerland, Jan. 19, 2026. (Michael Buholzer/Keystone via AP)

A fisherman navigates past ice in the sea off the coast of Nuuk, Greenland, Monday, Jan. 19, 2026. (AP Photo/Evgeniy Maloletka)

European Union foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas, center, greets Minister for Foreign Affairs and Research of Greenland Vivian Motzfeldt, right, and Denmark's Defense Minister Troels Lund Poulsen, left, prior to a meeting at EU headquarters in Brussels, Monday, Jan. 19, 2026. (AP Photo/Geert Vanden Wijngaert)

People protest against Trump's policy towards Greenland in front of the US consulate in Nuuk, Greenland, Saturday, Jan. 17, 2026. (AP Photo/Evgeniy Maloletka)

Scott Bessent, US Secretary of the Treasury, holds a speech at the USA House during the Annual Meeting of the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, Tuesday, Jan. 20, 2026. (AP Photo/Markus Schreiber)