GULF SHORES – The city will be front and center in the volleyball world this weekend when the inaugural NCAA Women’s Beach Volleyball Championship comes to the beach.

For three hours on Friday and Saturday and two on Sunday, matches will be broadcast nationally. Officials at the Gulf Shores and Orange Beach Sports Commission, an arm of the tourism bureau, are understandably happy.

“Live from Gulf Shores, Ala., NCAA National Collegiate Championships,” crooned Vice President of Sales Beth Gendler. “Isn’t that cool? We’re real excited.”

On Friday and Saturday from 2-5 p.m. matches will be played live on truTV and on Sunday championship matches will be broadcast live on TBS from 1-3 p.m.

If you want to see the championship-caliber matches up close and personal there are several levels of tickets available. General admission for a day pass is $15 and $40 for a three-day pass. Courtside tickets are $25 for a day pass and $70 for the weekend.

A $150 NCAA Experience all-session pass will get you a spot on a raised, covered platform to watch the matches as well as complimentary snacks, water and Coca-Cola products and access to a full-service cash bar. Reserved shaded, beachside seating is located just outside of the covered area for viewing the Championship Courts.

“The site’s being set up now, practice is Thursday and is open to the public,” Gendler said. “It’s a ticketed event on Friday, Saturday and Sunday but it’s open 9 a.m.-4:45 p.m. to the public on Thursday.”

Also going on at the same time west of the collegiate will be tournaments put on by the Gulf Coast Region of USA Volleyball featuring 250 boys and girls teams.

“You can get out of your car at the beach, look one way or the other and you’ll see volleyball nets from here until you can’t see anymore,” Gendler said.

Gulf Shores is also the site for the 2017 tournament, but this summer the city and others will have to bid on winning the tournament for 2018 and beyond.

This is the 90^th championship event sanctioned by the NCAA and the 45^th for women. Beach volleyball is the fastest-growing NCAA sport with 47 sponsoring schools.

“We are thrilled to bring the very first NCAA Beach Volleyball Championship to Gulf Shores,” Marilyn Moniz-Kaho’ohanohano, chair of the Beach Volleyball Committee and associate athletics director at University of Hawaii Manoa.

“Gulf Shores provides a location where the sport originated ocean side and will provide a great experience for our student-athletes.”

The Sports Commission, the city and the Hangout have helped successfully produce the American Volleyball Coaches Association’s national championship for the past four years.

“Our community has been supportive of this amazing sport for the four years the AVCA has hosted its championship here, and we are proud to help place the sport in the national spotlight even more as the NCAA begins conducting this championship,” Gendler said.

Gendler says having the NCAA sanction takes everything up a notch.

“There’s a lot of planning that goes into a new event and it’s a brand new sport and brand new championship to the NCAA,” she said. “It’s been a learning experience for everybody. But everybody has been super to work with, the city, the Hangout production crew, the NCAA championship department, everyone’s been really great.”

The host institution for the inaugural beach volleyball championship will be the University of Alabama at Birmingham.