Larry Scott surprised the tennis industry this week with his announcement that he’s resigning his post as CEO of the WTA tour to become the commissioner of the NCAA’s Pac-10 conference. But what I find even more surprising is how everyone, it seems, is praising Scott as the greatest leader of women’s tennis ever.
He probably is. But is that saying much, given his more recent predecessors?
Scott deserves massive credit for filling the tour’s coffers. He fought successfully to get the women players equal prize money at Roland Garros and Wimbledon, which was long overdue. He signed the largest sponsorship deal in the history of women’s sports—$88 million over six years—with Sony Ericsson, and he inked another massive deal, valued at $84 million, with the year-end WTA championships.
If we’re to measure Scott’s success by the size of the WTA’s war chest, which by all accounts is overflowing, he is indeed worthy of all the praise coming his way. But when I look back at his six-year tenure, I don’t see the record of a visionary whose decisions were governed by passion for the sport or its fans. Instead, I see an exceptional businessman who too often put cash ahead of credibility.
For starters, doesn’t anyone find it a bit unsavory that a portion of the tour’s financial success has come from moving tournaments to areas of the world where women’s rights (among other political rights) aren’t exactly a top priority? And when the WTA’s head honcho has the gall to then suggest that this strategy will help bring about social change, does anyone else just want to wretch? Obviously, it’s good business to broker deals that will put women’s tennis on sound financial footing, but at what cost to the tour’s integrity?
Clearly, the days when the tour had a moral compass are long gone. Billie Jean King, once the tour’s conscience, has fully supported Scott’s cash-first policies. Her silence over the Dubai controversy was particularly deafening.
And where was the outcry over Scott’s 2009 Road Map, which included a loophole that would make Capitol Hill politicians proud? The Road Map was supposed to be the crown jewel of Scott’s tenure, a battle plan years in the making that would reshape women’s tennis. But it’s evident it will do nothing to change the tour’s diva culture. The top players are notorious for showing up at tournaments when it’s convenient for them, and the Road Map was supposed to force them to honor their obligations or risk fines and suspensions. Then we learn that there’s an escape clause that allows players to “honor” their commitments without even turning up at events.
Perhaps it’s too much to ask Scott, or anyone in his position, to actually tell the players what to do and expect them to show a sense of pride and obligation toward the tour. Perhaps the players are too rich and pampered to care. Then again, the mandatory tournament requirement works, for the most part, on the men’s tour. So it can be done.
And for all the money the WTA tour has made, can you think of one successful women’s-only event on TV in the U.S. that isn’t on some low-rent cable channel at a ridiculously inconvenient time? Yet it’s understandable if American broadcasters aren’t jumping at the chance to show women’s tennis when the tour cannot deliver its best players.
Of course, you have to start somewhere, and Scott has done a terrific job of improving the tour’s ability to grow from a position of unprecedented financial strength. I just hope his successor can use that money to make substantive change on the court, and put credibility ahead of cash.
James Martin is Editor in Chief of TENNIS.