Seems like ESPN has been doing some last minute housekeeping on the tennis site, so my post isn't up yet, but I will be doing the 2 P.M. chat, as billboarded there. In other news, it appears that I will be getting together with Andy Roddick sometime in early December to do a substantial Q-and-A piece for Tennis, which also means I'll blog the interview session while saving the red meat of the actual interview for the dead-tree product. Also, I may get together with Brad Gilbert and Andy Murray for a similar session on the same Florida swing. Who says it will be slow around here during the off-season?
In case you haven't checked the Comments at the post below, it looks like Murray's off-season training base will be in sunny Florida, rather than, oh, the Hebrides. That's a good plan, because there isn't any good salmon fishing in Scotland until Spring anyway. . .
I had an email today from TW's Spiritual Advisor, the Federer-esque Miguel Seabra. By popular demand, he's cautiously agreed to blog for us from Shanghai - how much and on what subjects is somewhat clouded owing to his multiple assignments there, but he's already promised to focus on the players who will be most likely to be receptive to engaging the Tribe. In typical fashion, Mikey has compiled a list of where all the Virginia Slims/WTA Year-End Championships have been held (Incidentally, it was he who caught my error in the Staples Center Syndrome, where I incorrectly identified Switzerland as the site of the 2001 Sanex WTA-Tour YEC, when in reality it was Munich).
Here it is:
Polo Club Boca Raton, Fla -- 1972-73
Los Angeles Sports Arena, Cal -- 1974-76
MSG, NY -- 1977
Oakland Coliseum, Cal -- 1978
MSG, NY -- 1979-2000
Olympiahalle, Munich -- 2001
Staples Center, LA, Cal -- 2002-2005
Madrid Arena, Madrid -- 2006
He added these thoughts:
And there's something to remember -- that abortion called Grand Slam Cup also had a women's event held in Munich. I went there once. The men's event ran from 1990 til 1999, the women's I guess from 1998 to... 1999, with a prize-money of about 2,5 million -- Seles won it in 1998 and Venus in 1999, I think... I couldn't find a trace of that ill-fated event in this year's Media Guide...
If you look at today's calendar, where did the Deutsche Marks go? Back then it was ATP Championships, Grand Slam Cup x 2, the World Cup at Dusseldorf, plus Hamburg, Munich, Berlin, Dresden, Filderstadt, etc etc...
Thanks, Miguel.
It's too early to pass judgment on Madrid right now. I just took a peek at the The Kooze and Elena Dementia slugfest and it looks like the highest concentration of live bodies is on the court. In all fairness, though, even during the heyday of Virginia Slims, weekday matches during working hours were a very tough sell to the live audience. We won't really know until later in the week what to read into the setting an ambiance at Madrid. Personally, I like the color-scheme of the court.
When you think about it, almost all of the substantial criticism leveled at the tours these days can be traced back to the calendar and related issues of tournament timing. So I'm more convinced than ever that, with their hold on the public's imagination tenuous and skidding downward, the chieftains of tennis need a wake up call. There has never been a better moment for them to engineer a bold move (like re-structuring the calendar), because I don't believe either game has ever had more to offer, on most fronts that matter, than today; at the same time, I can't remember a time when the game's structure has seemed so internally flawed and led to so much frustration among fans and even the media, which to begin with abounds with tennis-haters.
Based on the history of both YEC's in recent years, here is my jumping off point: For people who are not bone-deep tennis KADS (that leaves most of you out, but most of the rest of SportsWorld in), the tennis year ends with the last Grand Slam event, the U.S. Open. It is nothing less than a curtain-dropper. Curiously, folks are sufficiently conditioned to accept Davis Cup (or not) whenever the heck it is played, and that's really the only other event of long-term consequence that occurs after the final major.
So my first move in re-doing a calendar would be moving the YEC's to a slot where they can live up to their names: deep into December, perhaps right after Christmas. This would add further distance at a time when a lot of people (including media) have overdosed and are hibernating after the U.S. Open. It could be billed as a year-end festival of tennis and, if the players had sufficient time off for the holidays, it might even provide a valuable jump start for their Australian Open ambitions. In any event, a YEC should be a YEC, not an AYEC (Almost Year End Championship). And a round-robin format in a small field is very player-friendly in all the ways that really count for the top pros and their overall aims and goals between seasons.
One other thought on the subject: the YEC's should stop following the money (for that's all they're doing, despite the rhetoric) and firm up a long-term site for each YEC. Go into business with a city or nation that is willing to make a long-term (5 years is good, 10 even better) commitment to growing an event. A big part of the YEC's problem is obvious: Imagine if the chieftains moved, oh, Wimbledon around, depending on where they were offered the best money, or saw the most opportunity. I can't think of a successful business that gets uprooted, broken-down, re-packaged and moved with the frequency of the YECs.
Well, I'm off to a Communications committee meeting for the Atlantic Salmon Federation, a great outfit dedicated to wild salmon conservation. Tonight we also have the annual ASF New York dinner/auction at Cipriani's, which raises millions for the salmon conservation cause. I donated some signed copies of my novel, The Trout Whisperers, to the silent auction, but I won't have the guts to check on the bids.