Late again USTA, late again.
By Javier Palenque
When you fail to understand who your customer is, of course, you will focus on the wrong things. Take the last 20 years of internet and apps and cloud services, brilliant USTA developed nothing as it saw the US Open as a driver for fans. Having cool drinks and clean bathrooms was a strategy instead of focusing on the customers and technology. Along comes, UTR with a solution for customers, in need of money, and of course in typical myopia USTA closes the door on them. Today 11 years later that competitive market is UTR’s as is the college market and soon the adults’ leagues and all web applications and communications for tennis. In stark contrast, USTA has no software and all it has is a branded effort to be late for innovation, closed to ideas, and of course a failure to see the market changes and act on time. All they do is show themselves as dated old folks who have simply no idea what to do. You are late to the party people, it finished some time ago.
Four years ago I started requesting meetings to present to the board what I thought they were missing parks was one of those missing pieces as the data in private clubs is clear, they are decreasing, college participation (decreasing for Americans and increasing for foreigners), coaches getting older, and of course, park coaches not having enough business as the competition system is broken and…
