Fiend at Court Unplugged
At the Cotton Bowl tournament over the holidays, I had an interesting conversation with someone who is a “near sider” to the USTA organization. That person dropped this truth bomb on me: The USTA thinks that the lack of participation in the 20-40 year old demographic is because younger players don’t want to play with older players. That’s right Seniors… the USTA is blaming you for the historic lack of participation in the younger demographic.
It is an outlandish claim that seems ridiculous on the surface. If true, however, it does explain why the USTA continues to pursue age based restrictions associated with NTRP play in both leagues and tournaments. They aren’t trying to protect older players competitively, but rather segregate them from the youngsters. In other words, a demographic with low participation rates would suddenly start playing again if the USTA can just get rid of all those pesky old people.
From my own experience, I can see the through line on the potential logic. When I aged out of my Junior tennis days, I had no interest whatsoever in playing NTRP tennis. If you would have asked me why not, at the time I probably would have said that I don’t want to play old person tennis. It is not a stretch to think that if the USTA collected anecdotal data from the younger players today, that they might hear the exact same sentiment.
However, people who say that they don’t want to play old person tennis probably aren’t referring specifically to old people, but rather a style and format of play. It is not an necessarily indictment against competing with and against older people.
This is one of those areas where clarity about root cause of the problem is essential. If the USTA has decided that Senior players are responsible for the lack of participation in another demographic it is simply an unforced error. That leap in logic is not substantiated by published data.
If the USTA has actual data that suggests that people don’t want to play old person tennis, it is also very likely the root cause of problem is that the tennis product has an image and marketing problem. If the USTA was truly interested in participation in the 20-40 demographic, investment is needed to try to retain juniors as they age out instead of allowing them to exit the sport when they age out of juniors. In other words, help them develop a positive image about Adult tennis before they exit the ecosystem.
Taking the existing NTRP tournament framework and chopping it up into age restricted divisions doesn’t solve the problem. If anything, it reinforces the idea that NTRP tournament play is for persnickety old people who only want to play other people just like them. In fact, my own data analysis of the impact of adding 50+ NTRP divisions in tournaments revealed that participation continued to decline after those initiatives were implemented.
I have dwelled a lot on this topic. “USTA NTRP Identity Crisis: Age Tiers,” “NTRP Tournament Age Divisions: Cold Hard Data,” “More USTA NTRP Tournament Participation Data” and “NTRP Age Divisions and USTA Tournament Participation” provide more information anyone who is interested.
If the USTA is really committed increasing players in the 20-40 age range, then there are some very simple steps they can start to take to make that happen. It is another of those topics I have written about in the past, but will revisit with a fresh lens this weekend. Spoiler alert! Chasing off older players will not solve the problem.
Editorial Note: I originally planned on writing about the tournament pyramid for Age-Group Open Tournaments this weekend, but decided that this was a higher priority. Those posts are still coming.
We have known this for decades! That is why the USTA did not offer a National championship for 65+ Teams. My husband and I play 18+ when we play mixed doubles and we receive suggestions that we might want to look at the senior and super senior draws. But we enjoy the play against the young ones.
I think the USTA has to also realize that a lot of people are raising families between 20-40 and are more focused on taking their kids somewhere rather than indulging their own sport interests. I always say that the 40+ women’s leagues are the most difficult because the women have usually gotten their kids into senior high school or college and are now freed up to get back to their own interests and they certainly do that with a vengeance!