Old Lady, young lady and sharp USTA

by Javier Palenque

When you see the optical illusion above you see first (depending on your age) a young woman or an old lady. This is about how the same image (situation) can have different interpretations depending on who is the one doing the observing. The reason I chose to write this mini-article is that when I write a good article a couple of thousand people read it over a week. However, if I publish a 1-minute video in a few minutes the video is hit and seen the same number of times as the article over a week. This relationship of time and hits or articles read is of course the essence of the difference between the USTA executives and my vision for the sport. A two-hour match bore (USTA’s only product — they don’t have another one) will no longer entertain the young audiences, and this means that the broadcasting rights are coming down and big time. This means no money in the future to support the out-of-market salaries for incapable friends of friends and of course less money for the actual mission. This simple fact is of course not understood by the brilliant executives and board who with the failed vision of the game, they think that as an organization if they do all the same things as years ago everything will be OK and that the public must change and adapt to their lack of vision or intelligence. Another absurd thought they have is how to capture the supposed millions of players that are now playing in parks? Reason would tell you that if they existed, they were not motivated to play at all by the USTA’s lack of vision, and now that they do play, USTA has nothing to offer. If that is still not clear, USTA missed them twice, when they were not playing and when they were playing. That is it. That is the problem. The market though has a final say and the market says NO to USTA!

For those who dislike my honest and candid tone if it still is not clear, let me elaborate. It makes no sense to invest over $1B in properties that no longer have the interest of the population at large. Furthermore to in-debt the organization for years and years for a declining and aging fan base when the broadcast rights are up and when you know for a fact that audiences are declining. This is simply stupid and irresponsible. (Have you seen Indian wells empty stadiums this week? This means that the event is seasonal, and that no one will go bother to go…