Tennis News You Can Use
Last week on Sport’s Illustrated podcast “Beyond the Baseline,” host Jon Wertheim interviewed Donald Dell. Dell is a former professional player, broadcaster, and agent. He is also a former US Davis Cup Captain and represented Michael Jordan. Dell made a bold statement that caught my attention given my current exploration on growing the game. The context was in attracting young athletes to the sport of tennis.
Dell claimed that the USTA pulls in $350 million from the US Open and distributes 85% of it to the 17 USTA Sections. Continuing this thread, he asserts that the USTA has to make sure the sections are using the money effectively to promote tennis to young players.
The cited numbers don’t fully align with the most current financial data, but I don’t think it invalidates the basic idea. In 2019 USTA revenues from the US Open were almost $400 million, but we have to remember that there were expenses of more than half of that total. The net profit for the US Open was more like $157 million.
As for the amount paid out to the sections, the 2019 IRS 909 is not yet posted for USTA National, but based on the one from 2018, it looks like grants paid out run about $74 million each year. That’s more like 47%.
Returning to the point about promoting tennis to young players, Dell made the following statement.
Who is promoting tennis? In my judgement, there’s one group that promotes tennis, certainly in America effectively, that’s called the Tennis Channel. If we didn’t have the Tennis Channel what would tennis look like on the media scale? Absurd.
Donald Dell on “Beyond the Baseline”
That is the thread I want to explore. Is it plausible to claim that the Tennis Channel is doing more to promote the sport of tennis than the USTA?
As an agent and former Davis Cup captain, Donald Dell is very much focused on creating future professional tennis players to represent the United States. Only a small, small fraction of players who take up the sport will ever play professionally. However, some of those players may take up the sport for life which is the lifeblood of the USTA.
Dell also spends some time in in this episode focusing on why kids typically take up tennis. He himself played because his mother played. The Bryan brothers played because their mother and father played. My brother and I played because the umpire who gave birth to us played. Tennis is like a family. We need to make sure that family isn’t completely inbred.
The only way for me to receive the Tennis Channel is to subscribe to the most expensive channel package from my cable service provider. This annoys me because I do not watch any of the other channels in the top tier. This knowledge makes me believe that the Tennis Channel is probably not reaching the majority of households in the United States.
Even when available, someone has to turn the TV on and tune to that channel. I don’t see how that happens if someone in the household isn’t already interested in tennis. The only reason I watch the Tennis Channel is because I am already invested in tennis.
I have been trying to remember the last time I saw a promotion for tennis outside of a tennis venue. Certainly there are ads for tennis on the Tennis Channel. I see promotion of tennis when I walk into a tennis center. Promotion of tennis activities is visible when I visit a USTA site.
I do not remember seeing promotion of tennis anywhere that is not already associated with tennis. Ever.
I may not be exactly representative of the general population. All of my time is basically spent working, playing tennis, or working on this site. I wouldn’t happen across all the great tennis promotion that might be going on external to the tennis world because I really don’t go there very often.
I’m going to start actively looking for promotion of tennis outside normal tennis venues. Wish me luck.
- Donald Dell on How Tennis Can Build a Strong American Audience, Jon Wertheim, Beyond the Baseline Podcast, Sports Illustrated, June 30, 2020.
- United States Tennis Association Incorporated and Affiliates, Consolidated Financial Statements, Years Ended December 31, 2019 and 2018.
- United States Tennis Association, IRS Form 990, 2018.
I think the local CTAs are at the heart of engaging youth in tennis. I know from personal experience that Manfield Area Tennis Association have more programs for youth than for adults. Most of the grants we receive from USTA were to promote youth tennis and maintain or build tennis courts.
When I first started this project, I would have claimed that I am not particularly interested in youth tennis since my kids are beyond that point. In the interim I have come to understand that building youth tennis is essential to the future.