Hi Steve,
Instant reply? Surely you're not going to start asking me my opinion of things -- it could be a long week. I do find the challenge system on replays a bit
frustrating, but really it's just part of a larger anomie.
Do you remember this from A Handful of Summers?:
This melancholy passage came floating back to my mind a few weeks ago, when the WTA Tour announced that it was going to try on-court coaching at a couple of tournaments this summer.
On-court coaching and no-ad scoring are the two things I'm most resistant to in pro tennis, and it's been depressing to see both making inroads recently -- no-ad scoring through the back door of doubles.
Both chip away at the core principles of the game, and the saddest thing is that neither change is really going to achieve anything. It's mostly self-validation for tour management.
Things that play well in press releases and facile columns rarely have much impact on the way tennis is experienced on the ground. The ticket-buying and television-watching public are tennis' third estate -- everything is done in their name but very little that's done is in their interests.
Take the site change in Toronto. The 2004 event opened to lots of articles in the papers about the great new stadium, the larger grounds, the new luxurious corporate suites, the plastic chairs with backrests, the video boards, etc. All true. But if you were the average ticket-buying fan, your primary experience of the new site was:
- your seat was almost twice as expensive
- if you were in the upper stands, your seat was almost twice as far away
- parking, which used to be free, was now $9
- the players used a private passage to get in and out of the stadium, which means no more getting autographs and pictures after a centre court match unless you were near the passage entrance
- no one on the grounds could tell you where the water fountain was
Still, at least those were all intended changes. How to explain that when the tournament began there were no stands for any courts except centre and grandstand, and you could see everything on those new video boards except -- the score. No one had thought to put parking lot numbers on the shuttle buses, which meant that at the end of the day they were crammed with hordes of people who had no idea where they were going to end up. A world-class event with a third-world transportation system.
Let's emphasize that most of those inadvertent problems have been solved, and there are some positive changes like practice courts that are open to spectators. The point, however, is that so many of the practical realities of attending an event aren't part of the consciousness of those running it.
What's the view from a bronze level seat? What's the price of a gallon of milk?
Yes, the new stadium looks much better. But the old stadium had two great features that weren't retained -- the corporate suites were at the top (where corporate suites belong), and there was a walkway halfway up where people with seats further up could stand and watch. The new stadium has a walkway too, but punctilious guards now keep people in the upper stands from entering.
In sum: every year the tournament gets bigger and better, but the fan experience becomes more distant and diminished.
Now take the US Open Series. It has three parts to it -- television, money, and gimmickry. Guess the only one that actually matters? Television -- the fact that there's now a coherently-presented schedule that puts tennis on TV at a regular time on a regular basis.
No one tunes in because there's a bonus pool. Even the players don't really care. No one tunes in because they want to see who's going to take the lead in the trumped-up series rankings this week. Do you know who's leading the men's standings so far? Dmitry Tursunov.
No, the only reason they tune in is because they want to see tennis, or tennis players. The US Open series allows them to do more of that, and that's the only reason why it matters. The extraneous trappings are there just there to create a buzz angle for the marketing and media machines to grab on to.
But a bonus pool is at least harmless. When gimmicks like on-court coaching and no-ad scoring are trotted out to create buzz, the integrity of the sport is being peddled for cheap publicity that isn't even very compelling (news about a sport changing its rules is a yawner). It's governing in bad faith; doing the wrong things for the wrong reasons. Surely there are enough real problems to work on.
The way instant replay has been handled is similar. Firstly, we haven't really been shown that the system is really accurate. I'm perfectly willing to believe that it is accurate; I just don't think we should have to accept it on faith.
Next, assuming it is as accurate and fast as stated, why limit its use to two challenges? Checking marks on clay has worked just fine for years. The whole idea of instant replay is to eliminate bad calls. The challenge system creates barriers to eliminating bad calls as a way of creating artifical excitement. Again, if it was done in good faith, I think the whole thing would have been implemented differently.
It often seems that the powers-that-be are spending most of their time and effort on gimmicks like this, instead of pushing for things that really make a difference to fans and spectators (and players) -- television match selections, TV coverage, camera angles, tournament accessibility, injuries, press coverage, etc.
I know you don't feel the same way about on-court coaching. But I'm curious: what's a development in tennis over the last few years that's really improved things for you? Is it something like instant replay or the removal of bonus points, or something like the Tennis Channel or live scoring on the internet?
Kamakshi