This is going to be very Inside Tennis (Business Division), but it seems to me that Lever 2000 coming on board as an umbrella sponsor for the U.S. Open Series is a significant development. It’s a sign of the times, a testament to the intrinsic appeal of the “series” concept, and – perhaps – a harbinger of things to come. Lever 2000 (that's William Hesketh Leverhulme, Lord Leverhulme to you, co-founder of Lever Brothers, in the picture) will have a variety of sponsor roles for every tournament in the series; this is a bold and major undertaking and investment.
The Lever 2000 deal is important in a number of ways. For one thing, it’s a huge vote of confidence in tennis – actually, in the U.S. Open Series – by a segment of the marketplace (in this case, package goods) that has steadily been pulling back from the sponsorship arena.
For another, it vividly demonstrates the increased pulling power the game has when:
A: Tournaments – no matter how prominent (the U.S. Open is pretty prominent, wouldn’t you say?) – shed their status as isolated, one-off events and become part of a larger, integrated system, or series.
B: The various constituents can be brought to the table and made to work together for the larger good of the game, as they were in the conception and creation of the U.S. Open Series.
Lever 2000, I'm told, is looking to promote a new soap that contains Vaseline Intensive Care lotion. Knowing what I do about swag and goody bags, I'm looking forward to some of my colleagues (tennis coverage being an international enterprise)on the U.S. Open Series trail showing up in the press room in considerably better hygenic trim than in the past!
Now, if you’re a European, or even a business or commerce-weary American fan, you may think this whole U.S. Open Series is just another marketing and revenue-generating scheme, rather than a potentially game transforming concept. I'm not that dismissive.
First of all, the U.S. Open Series can be both - transformative as well as prosperous. Second, I wouldn’t underestimate the natural beauty and sense of the “Series” concept any more than I would any longer scoff at the once dubious scientific concept of the "ecosystem". Tennis, really, consists of four ecosystems: they’re called the Grand Slam events.
Look at what’s happening in Europe at this very moment. The continent is in the midst of a fabulous tennis orgy known as the European clay-court season. But if you think about it (just read the comments on the last two of my posts below), you‘ll see that all the issues and speculations are driven by one overriding focal point: the upcoming French Open. Europe at the moment is reveling in The Roland Garros Series. The only thing missing is the use of the “Series” concept as a marketing and revenue-generating tool.
The way I see it, we already have two hefty Series. And there are real, concrete reasons for why the other two Grand Slams haven't been able to exploit the Series concept. Like ecosystems whose diversity is diminished because they’re short of some critical components, Wimbledon suffers from insufficient time (it takes place a mere month after Roland Garros, and on an entirely different surface). The Australian Open, by contrast, takes place too early in the year.
Hey – I’ve got an idea! Let’s change the name of Indian Wells from the Pacific Life Open to the Australian Open! It’s a joke, of course. But wouldn’t it make a lot more sense to end the early winter hard court season with a major, rather than kicking it off with one?
This discussion is particularly relevant at the moment because of the way the game is grappling with an overcrowded calendar and unreliable player commitment - issues that dominated the tennis news at the end of last year, much to the detriment of the game's credibility.
Those issues aren't going away, and they're not just winding-down, end-of-the-year problems. They've already raised their ugly heads in 2006. After playing that majestic Rome final last Sunday, the two top players (and drawing cards) in the world abruptly withdrew from this week’s Hamburg Masters Series event, knowing that playing Hamburg and hoping to enter Roland Garros fully fit and rested were mutually exclusive propositions.
Let’s cut to the chase here. The U.S. Open Series, despite it shortcomings (the disappointing lack of support shown by top men and women players last year) has been a great success. Television viewer ship has doubled from 2003 (pre U.S. Open Series) to 2005, from 20 million to 41 million. Live TV hours (national, U.S.), have jumped from 83 to 116 in that same span, and live attendance at events has increased by 5 per cent, to 973,000. The ecosystem approach works.
I say, wipe the calendar clean and create a Series for each of the Grand Slams. Link the prize-money at the majors to each Series, like the U.S. Open did when it ended up handing Kim Clijsters the greatest single payout in the history of women’s sports last year ($2.2 million for winning the U.S. Open Series and the main event at Flushing Meadow – want to debate equal prize money, anyone?).
Next, Come up with a reasonable eligibility requirement for scarfing up the bonus money, like having played at least two Series event plus the major they prefigure. Don’t the top players each play at least two of the Roland Garros Series events?
Of course, this is easier said than done. The real problem is that the ATP and WTA, wanting to be all things to all people (in addition to building a formidable power base), handed out a gazillion franchises, all over the word, during every month of the year, in an attempt to shock-and-awe the world into loving tennis.
But compare this approach to that of the major league sports in the U.S., the NBA, NFL and MLB. If the NBA took its cues from the tennis establishment, the league would have 680 teams, with franchises in places like Passaic, N. J., and Dubois, Id.
Think about it: sure there’s a seasonal component to the major American sports. But that isn’t really why you don’t have year-round basketball or baseball (in the era of indoor arenas, you could). The reason the NFL has just 32 teams, and plays from September through mid-January, is strategic; it’s purely a management decision.
In some ways, both of the player organizations were acting out their essential mandate in creating today's nightmarish calendar: creating jobs for their constituents. But in so doing, they’ve also diminished the overall credibility and market value of the sport.
Dismantling the system would be difficult; essentially, the tournament weeks are “owned” by the respective tournament promoters. This is why you heard so much talk in the winter of 2004 about how tragic it would be for U.S. tennis if Indian Wells were sold to, say, a group of Chinese investors. What they really would be buying is the exclusive promotional rights to that period of time, and the speculation was that they would simply close down IW and hold a tournament in that time slot in China.
This, BTW, is just an example. It would be just tragic if it were an overseas tournament (say, the Italian Open) being bought by U.S. investors bent on, oh, staging a red-clay tournament in Minneapolis. The bottom line is that the only real way for the ATP (or anyone else) to gain complete control of the calendar is by buying back the weeks, and that would be a very expensive proposition.
But maybe complete control isn’t needed. Besides, why not have tournaments going on in as many places as possible, for the overall promotion and good of the game? The NFL isn't the only football game in town; it co-exists with college football.
You could have it both ways, it seems to me, if you just reduced the number of events that really count (toward ranking, toward Series points totals, etc.). Build four ecosystems around the majors and the Series events leading to them., and let the entrepreneurs and promoters have a free hand on the border lands and unclaimed territories between those ecosystems.