THE WISDOM OF ENLIGHTENMENT FOR THE DEPLORABLE USTA BOARD. By Javier Palenque

Let us face it: The tennis entertainment business landscape and economy have changed dramatically in the last decades, and I can assure you it will never return to its heydays of the 70s and 80s. It is important to understand the age of the internet and its birth date (around January 1983) and the proliferation of social media in the same subsequent two decades. Boards need to reinvent their work while the tennis and entertainment market faces unprecedented challenges, and any decision the board makes can have a make-or-break outcome for a generation or two. Choosing the next CEO is such a decision and the USTA has already again made a poor choice, a fellow who knows nothing about tennis, relies on people who have steered tennis wrong and what is the worst part of it all in his tenure in 12 years, revenues have increased roughly 5% per year, yet debt has increased roughly 90% per year. This article is a pragmatic attempt to enlighten the USTA’s board, which I consider below par (given its results). Next, I distill ten governance principles for easy implementation at the USTA. These ten points are based on personal boardroom and client and career experiences over the years as well as a long list of reference material from consulting work all over the world. The failure to implement these principles is the leading cause of “Why the USTA…