GULF SHORES, Ala. – The city has agreed to provide up to $30,000 to help be a host to a national championship of sand volleyball for the second year in a row.

Gulf Shores was the site for the first AVCA sand volleyball championships April 27-29 and the services provided by the city left quite an impression on the volleyball world. Gulf Shores was chosen over three other cities vying for the 2012 event: Los Angeles and San Diego , Calif., and Orlando, Fla.

CBS rebroadcast the event in three one-hour segments and says 3.1 million viewers tuned in.

A local effort, led by coach Philip Bryant, has a bid in to be the host city for the next two years.

The city and Gulf Shores and Orange Beach Tourism are pooling support to land the tournament on city beaches again.

“That is us agreeing to fund an amount equal to the CVB budget funding not to exceed $30,000,” Mayor Robert Craft said. “This is a two-year commitment on our part. Specifically there’s two items. We’ll be funding up to that amount again, but we will also be approving at this point an assembly permit for this event. So they know they’ll have that funding for two years.”

Some of the money donated by the city will help distant teams with travel expenses.

“As I recall one of the obstacles to us getting this was that some of the west coast area teams, Hawaii and California, travel expenses to get here,” Craft said. “Part of this funding will be at stipend to support some of this. For us to continue to have an advantage over the California coast, where most of these universities are located, this is an effort to step up to try to get that here.

“This is an effort to step up to make sure we have a competitive bid for future years.”

Director of Recreation and Cultural Affairs Grant Brown said the city’s portion of the $108,000 will be roughly $28,000 but sponsorships are still be sought.

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

The bids were received by the AVCA on Monday and the group will announce the bid winner for 2013 and possibly 2014 on Wednesday.

TV coverage from CBS is included in the proposal.

“CBS Sports Network is part of this program, part of this package,” Brown said. “And that’s probably our largest key to this because they were so impressed with the show and the number of viewers that actually tuned in to the show.”