Yesterday’s post examined how the USTA’s Move-Up/Split-Up Rule creates a kind of organized chaos within the Dallas 55+ tennis ecosystem. Today, we turn to another dimension of that discussion, which is considering whether roster size limitations might possibly be leveraged to reduce some of that disorder.
It is unusual for me to bury the lead until the middle of my weekend “Unplugged” series of posts, but this topic is actually the main event for this weekend. The idea was sparked during the most recent USTA Texas League Committee meeting at the Section’s semi-annual summit. One of the discussion topics was whether roster limits would be a good idea. Two particularly interesting points emerged from that exchange.
First was the claim that CATA (Austin) already had roster size limitations in place. When I looked into that, I found that their current league procedures do indeed contain a statement referencing a “maximum roster size.”
2B. Teams may add players to their roster, up to the league’s maximum, until two (2) weeks prior to the last scheduled match of the flight based on the original schedule.
CATA League Regulations, Rule 2B.
However, nowhere in the regulations is an actual limit defined. I did find a couple of places in a presentation delivered at a Captain’s meeting in August 2025 where caps were imposed. This included limiting 40+ rosters to 20 players and Tri-Level to 15. A closer look at recent Austin 55+ league rosters shows that teams there are every bit as large as those in Dallas, and in some cases even larger. That put a serious damper on my hopes that roster size limitations already in place might illuminate a path toward alleviating the roster chaos situation I wrote about yesterday.
The second key takeaway from that USTA Texas discussion was that the larger metropolitan areas, specifically Dallas and Houston, were philosophically opposed to any cap on roster size. Those areas benefit financially from large rosters because they collect a portion of every registration fee. The bigger the teams, the more players register, and the more revenue flows into the local league coffers.
The large cities allow and actually encourage players to register on multiple teams in the same division as long as the matches occur on different days. In the DFW area, many players don’t just double dip—they quadruple dip. The result is counterintuitively larger rosters and more registrations, but fewer actual tennis matches being played. Players spread themselves thin across multiple teams, and many rosters become bloated with players who seldom take the court.
When I first heard the roster-limit proposal at the USTA Texas League Committee meeting, my initial gut reaction was that it was an unnecessary idea. The fundamental question I ask when considering any new rule is what problem it is intended to solve. In the absence of a clearly defined problem (or at least an opportunity to exploit), there is no need for a new rule. However, after analyzing the split-up scenario described in yesterday’s post, I started to wonder if limiting roster sizes could possibly be used as a stabilizing force against that unique flavor of roster chaos.
If team sizes were capped off and forced to be smaller, the three-player split-up restriction would have a more balanced impact. Fewer total players per team would be subject to that rule, which means that fewer total teams would be required to absorb displaced players from split-up teams into new homes. Additionally, no one captain could stockpile a plurality of players to effectively squeeze out other new teams from forming in the league. Smaller rosters would likely encourage and support more captains as they form teams, which in turn would create more matches played. That would be beneficial for an organization whose core mission is to support the growth of tennis.
It’s a sensible fix, but one that’s unlikely to happen. The big cities enjoy their steady stream of registration revenue too much to agree to limitations, and those are the same people who predominantly make up the USTA Texas League committee. I find it sad that they’re laughing all the way to the bank while less tennis is actually being played, but it’s just the way the system is structured to work.
Tomorrow’s post will wrap up this exploration with a hypothetical scenario over what would happen if a team accidentally—or intentionally—violated the split-up rule. It’s actually somewhat murky.
- Capital Area Tennis Association (CATA) League Regulations, last revised 02/2024/ch.
Also adding to mix is when players register on two teams that might end up playing against each other in a playoff. Then, players must have declared which team is their chosen team long before the playoffs happen. That’s something else that captains must consider.