PARIS—What do you hear when you walk onto the grounds at Roland Garros? There may be a d’accord to your left or a mais non to your right. In the distance, past the trees and over a stadium wall, you might catch an “Egalité” or a “Jeu Djokovic” intoned by an impassive chair umpire. As you walk a few steps farther, the pop of a tennis ball and the light clapping of an audience will float in from somewhere unseen. If you get there late in the day, when a French player is deep in battle, you'll probably hear a whistled-filled roar of disturbing intensity.
What won’t you hear on these grounds? You won't hear a PA announcer, in a shiny, slippery voice straight fresh from PA announcer school, advise you to stay hydrated. You won’t hear him tell you, erroneously, that one of the show courts is filled and that you should “enjoy the doubles action on the side courts,” while not forgetting to stop by the food court and a T-shirt vendor while you’re at it.
What else won’t you hear? You won't hear a jazz-funk band or someone fiddling on an electric violin as you walk toward the main stadium. You won't hear REM or Fleetwood Mac or any other musical acts that have been scientifically proven to make people who are over 40 and have disposable income feel warm and fuzzy enough to empty their wallets on a collectors’ baseball cap and an $8 hot dog. In fact, no music at all is played during changeovers at Roland Garros. There is also no jumbo-size scoreboard training its eye on you and haranguing you into kissing the person in the next seat. There is also no roving camera looking for people who are attempting to dance, jump, pogo, wave their hands in the air or do whatever else is necessary to see themselves on a jumbo scoreboard. Somehow, the French don’t seem to have discovered Cotton-Eyed Joe, either, or created their own Cotton-Eyed Jean in imitation.
When the players sit down, the audience sits along with them. Scores from other courts flash silently on the scoreboard. Then the players get up and play again. Over the course of the first week, as far as I can tell, no one has gone from fully alert to fast asleep in the 90 seconds of a changeover. I’m also guessing that no one has become so bored that they wished that they had a chance to throw their hands in the air or play air guitar to some heavy metal. The tennis match seems to be enough. In fact, with no other distractions, the drama of the contest in front of us is heightened. We watch the players. We think about what's happened and what's coming up. If it's beautiful, we look at the sky.
I’m not saying that the French Open is superior to our sporting events in the States, or that we have it all wrong and they have it all right. My friend Chris Clarey tells me that many French people like the extra entertainment when they visit arenas in America. It’s a novelty, the same way the silence here is a novelty to me. This may also explain the “oddly proud gusto” that I noted in the Paris crowd when they do that most heinous of all American fan inventions, the Wave. With no Cotton-Eyed Joe or Kiss Cam, the French have to entertain themselves; apparently, the tennis itself only takes them so far.
What I am saying is that Americans, or American producers of sporting events, don’t trust sports or their fans. They seem to believe that the games we play, from baseball to football to basketball to tennis, are no longer fast-paced and action-packed enough to draw the no-attention-span multi-taskers of the IM generation (or whatever no-attention-span youth are being called these days; I think I was part of the video-game generation). These are games from a different time, designed for more leisurely days. Supposedly, we now need more home runs, so we juice the ball. We need more offense on football, so we make rules that will give it to us. We want dunks and dunks alone in basketball, so we make traveling with the ball virtually impossible.
I thought of all of that last night while watching a soccer game in Paris. Barcelona vs. Manchester United was viewed around the world. During its 90 minutes, there was plenty of action, but there were only four goals. This actually seemed like a high-scoring game, from what I know of the sport. Nevertheless, even though nothing of game-changing significance may happen in a soccer match for 45, 50, 60, 80 minutes at a time, it remains by far the world’s most popular sport. Rabid fans the world over don’t seem to need more scoring or more stimulation than they’re currently getting. Soccer's drama may also be heightened by the lack of commercials during games. There are no breaks for 45 minutes at a time, no chance to do anything but watch the players play.
Roland Garros is undeniably commercialized. You don’t have to look any farther than the giant BNP Paribas logo on the wall behind Roger Federer. But for the most part there’s a separation between the tennis and consumerist elements. There are no bars or stores in Chatrier, the way there are inside Ashe Stadium at Flushing Meadows (maybe that will part of the renovation, who knows). Tennis in the States, and especially in New York, is part of a bigger show, an entertainment package, and during night matches that really can enhance the viewing experience, even for the hardest core fan (as long as you’re close enough to actually see the court). But as one of those hardest core fans, I wish I were trusted a little more to stay awake during changeovers. When I'm at a tennis tournament, I like hearing the sounds of tennis more than anything else.