You can’t hide the sun USTA!

By Javier Palenque

$200,000,000.00 million in perspective is the equivalent of 67M cans of balls, or if you wanted to cover a surface area it is the equivalent of 8 square miles, FYI Central park is only 1.3 square miles so 8 square miles is 6 central parks, that is a lot of money. So, what is the point of pointing to these $200M and the USTA?

Let us get to that, USTA has lost in 2020 $181M (see page 7) 2021 financials are not out yet, but I imagine that the losses are an additional $30M. This means that they are in debt the equivalent of 6 central parks covered in cash. Now let me make my second point. In 2031 they have to pay the principal on a $200M loan that is 15 years interest only (see page 27 Notes C). Well, that is very hard to do, if you have an executive team that cannot understand the mission, a board that rather than bring in expertise to fix the problem prefers to shield itself from criticisms. Both are negligent for paying no attention to the marketplace and seeing it disappear before your very eyes. Please also note that by the end of 2022 they will have no reserves? how on earth are you going to save or put aside $22M per year to save for the principal due on the C series notes in 9 years? Well, the budget for player development is $23M per year so just shut it down and the money is there, right? Well, it is not that easy, I fully support shutting down…