Tennis Technology Tuesday
When I played junior tennis there were two ways to enter a tennis tournament. One was to visit the host facility of the event to register and pay the entry fee. The other was to fill out a physical entry form and mail it into the host organization with a check. This is the point in the story where the umpire I gave birth to usually interjects to ask about the stone tablet postage rates for those entry forms.
Some tournaments would mail post cards back to the players with the date and time of the first match time for each event entered. Sometimes you would have to call the host facility to get that information. Players would never see the draw until “check in” for the tournament when they were handed a manila envelope that contained a photocopy of the draws, maps to the facilities, and maybe a coupon or two for a local restaurant.
In my conscripted labor days with the umpire who gave birth to me, I also experienced the back office side of that entire process. I performed all sorts of menial tasks like sorting the entry forms into the divisions and filling out the postcards for the players. We hosted player packet envelope stuffing parties at our house.
With that background perspective, TennisLink is a big improvement over those days. However, TennisLink as a platform doesn’t hold up to modern mobile application and consumer engagement standards.
Up until this point in time I have been a little hesitant to write about TennisLink. One reason for this is because I am aware that there is new software coming out for the tournament directors next year. That fact was mentioned in the “USTA Adult Tournament Changes for 2021” webinar. I was guessing that the tournament software update might also portend an update to TennisLink. A couple of weeks ago I submitted a question to the USTA inquiring about the future of TennisLink. That question was never answered.
As I wrote about yesterday, the USTA restructuring effort is oriented around five strategic imperatives. One of these is to “Build and Optimize Best in Class Digital Infrastructure and Platforms.” TennisLink is clearly in this category. At the same time it is also a far cry from “Best in Class.” Digital platforms have become the predominate way consumers engage with services. TennisLink is exceedingly poor at creating that engagement.
A couple of days ago, I stumbled across and external link to the USTA web site with information about the new platform “Serve Tennis.” At this time many of the link destinations are stubbed out, but the very existence suggests that TennisLink is being phased out. This is long overdue. TennisLink is a square peg in a round hole made to fit with a sledge hammer.
USTA players always seem to be surprised when I mention that TennisLink is not a USTA owned or controlled platform. The “Processed by ACTIVE” verbiage and a logo is visible at the top right of every page. Additionally, when people register for for a tournament or a league, there are check boxes on whether or not the registrant wants to receive the Active email newsletter. That newsletter contains advertisements and content largely unrelated to tennis and not sourced from the USTA.
ACTIVE Network is a event registration company that is a subsidiary of Global Payments Inc (NYSE: GPN). Basically they are a back office platform for processing registration and payments. I was familiar with the ACTIVE platform prior to my return to tennis because that platform is used to manage registration for “fun” runs and races. Yeah, it kind of buries the lead, but I used to register for an occasional race from time to time. Race… is probably not the right word to describe my participation. Neither is fun, now that I think about it.
For a local organization that puts on a fun run once a year as an annual fundraiser, usage of the ACTIVE Network platform makes a lot of sense. They completely handle the registration and payment processing for the event in exchange for a cut of the entry fees. There is no economy of scale benefit for an organization to create systems to do those things “in house” for a single annual event.
The USTA, on the other hand, interacts with the tennis consumer through recurring event registration. This is where economy of scale lives, thus investing in an in house solution makes sense. Giving a third party a percentage of each and every transaction is a horrid business deal both from a USTA and a consumer perspective.
I can’t recall what the ACTIVE Network “non refundable processing fee” is for tournaments in TennisLink, but with all the COVID-19 cancellations in the spring I have clarity that for leagues it is $3 per player registered. That a 10% cut of every $30 league fee. Thinking about the total dollar amounts of the league and tournament fees currently being skimmed off the USTA by a third party makes my head hurt.
Additionally, the ACTIVE.com payment processing system has a depressive effect on consumer behavior associated with USTA tennis. It was recently observed that many players wait until the absolute last minute to register for tournaments. This, in turn, either fails to attract or discourages other players from entering because it appears that there will not be enough players for a draw. The general sentiment among my local player community is that if more players would enter earlier that there would be increased participation overall.
While I understand that conceptually, under TennisLink I am not going to change my personal consumer behavior. The reason for this is that once the entry deadline has passed, the only way to get a refund of the entry fee is directly from the tournament. In my experience, getting a refund can be an ordeal. There have been many tournaments where I just give up and eat the loss.
Even when successful in recovering the entry fee, the “non-refundable processing fee” from ACTIVE Network never comes back. It irks me to lose money to a third party for the privilege of registering for an event that never occurred. That is a negative consumer experience.
I am happy to learn that a new platform is coming. It is long overdue. There is a lot more wrong with TennisLink than the financial arrangement with the ACTIVE Network. I genuinely hope that the effort also addresses some of the other inherent structural flaws in TennisLink rather than simply replicating the same architecture on an in-house platform.
The consumer experience is increasingly based on the public facing digital infrastructure and apps. Tennis is no exception. The digital consumer interface to the USTA consumer should genuinely be “Best in Class.” I will probably be spending a few more Tuesdays re-imagining what “Best in Class” would look like to me.
- 2021 Adult Tournament Changes, USTA National Webinar, undated.
- USTA Adult Tournament Changes for 2021, USTA National Website, viewed 7/25/2020
- Serve Tennis: New Tools for a New Future, USTA National Website, viewed 8/3/2020.
- USTA Announces Sweeping Plan to Reorganize and Prioritize Its Structure, Events, and Activities to Grow the Game and Service the Broader Tennis Industry, USTA Official Press Release, hosted on Open Court website, viewed 8/2/2020.
- “Our Story“, ACTIVE Network, viewed 8/1/2020.
- Withdraw Event Registration, USTA Web Site, viewed 8/1/2020.
