THE WAFFLE HOUSE AND THE DYING USTA. By Javier Palenque

• (article number 279, year six, all articles are in LINKEDIN and the USTA board still refuses to be held accountable)

This past week I was traveling all over the west coast of Florida with my kids. One of their favorite breakfast places is the famous Waffle House, to those unfamiliar with this 24/7 hrs. restaurant it is an easily accessible, no wait, great affordable place to get a decent breakfast. Once there you will discover that the menu is the same as it was decades ago, and the servers are usually older people who like to work in this people-friendly restaurant. What my kids love about this place are the actual memories of us going there over the years when both of my kids competed all over Florida, we used to have match strategy meetings there before matches at the famous Waffle House.

The comparison with the USTA is of course that this small restaurant has never really changed its offerings and what has happened is that it has aged with the times without adapting to the new changing demographics of the nation. So the customer base is usually the same, low-income individuals and older folks who are on a tight budget. If one looks around many of the patrons are blue-collar immigrant workers on their way to an early job somewhere.

Please make no mistake this is a $1B business that nets roughly around $150M per year, (compared to USTA which has revenues of $485 and nets a miserable $5M if it makes that). As a comparison also know that the CEO of this for-profit…