THE CHARADE IS OVER USTA! By Javier Palenque

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For the past decades, we have watched a great charade play out before us. The Ol’ boys have been ruling tennis over us and have succeeded at controlling the sport and failed miserably at growing the sport. So, the winners are them as they still have the sport hijacked and under their control, but the losers are the sport, the parks, the parents, the kids, the coaches, the clubs, and the country overall. This is unacceptable to me and of course to most decent tennis-loving Americans.

These boys have portrayed themselves as something they were not, decent, caring for the game, protecting the assets of tennis, funding programs, etc. Many of them said they were for the mission when they were actually wolves in sheep’s clothing, looking for nothing more than free benefits and maintaining the deception to the country of the false, not-for-profit, the USTA. Why do I say that? let me elaborate so it is clear in everyone's mind:

• When sections use 97% of grants in administrative salaries, please understand not coaches. It is not a not-for-profit entity.
• When Player Development is categorized as a charity and they wasted in the last ten years $245M, half of which is payroll and they can't teach a world-class forehand to anyone. It is not a not-for-profit entity.
• When all the?$28M marketing budget is only for a 14-day show full of foreigners to entertain Wall Street types. It is not a not-for-profit entity.
• When the $88M yearly payroll is for a show that is only 3% of the year’s time (two weeks, what do they do for the rest of the 50 weeks)? It is not a not-for-profit entity.
• When there is no money for programs but plenty of it for keeping the failed status quo in control of the game. It is not a not-for-profit entity.
• When they pay an in-house counsel over $1M and most of the legal work is outsourced as part of the $28M budget in professional work, the same with marketing. It is not a not-for-profit entity.
• When the institution gives the foundation $3.5M per year for a nation of 60M kids, it is the same amount as the salaries of the CEO, lawyer, and tennis head. It is not a not-for-profit.
• When the CEO and PR person claim all profits are reinvested in tennis but fail to say that there are no programs to fund, but rather the money goes to payroll and to sustain the US Open. And when in the last decades the profits are so pathetic they are almost nonexistent. It is not a not-for-profit entity.
• When you hide participation numbers from your own USTA data, and as a leadership team you collectively agree to deceive the public for your own survival, you are a fraud. You cannot possibly be a not-for-profit entity. You are a scam. Let me help you with the proper definition of a scam: to deceive and defraud (someone)
• When after a pandemic, the USTA claims that there are 4.5M new kids playing and a 22.5% jump in adults playing and yet the revenues of membership are at a decade's low of a pathetic $13M. You know they are deceiving you. It is not a not-for-profit.
• When you allocate for Professional services $28M and your marketing budget is also $28M and both are the same amount as you give all sections, $56M. You know it is not a not-for-profit.

Yes, you may say that I have a problem, this is not the way to fund a not-for-profit or a mission, quite the opposite. You see, where I come from your word matters, your mission matters and if for some lucky reason you are better off than others, you must help others. This I learned when I was in kindergarten. Of course, if the best-funded sports not-for-profit is run the way it has been run (self-serving a few), it is an atrocity to be granted the not-for-profit status and to have the executives exude such brashness from the absolute failure of a regime is mindless, arrogant, and stupid. This is a problem as I see it.

Well, I am here to proclaim that the charade in tennis is over, the truth is that unless they publish the real participation data, they are still deceiving the government, the sponsors, the parents, the kids, and the public. Why would any parent choose to invest in such a non-serious entity or sport? is a fair question to pose. The charade must end Dr. Hainline, we are in the internet age, the transparency age, the deception cannot last very long when you are obligated to file 990 forms to keep your nonprofit status, which anyone can check just how poorly tennis is run by you and your friends! Your position is indefensible and yet all of the executives try to defend it, but it is not possible to do so. The financial results, debt levels, and market conditions state what I have said for the past five years, the USTA is a failure to the sport and you have been at the decision table for way too long.

Decades ago, this deception was OK to do as no one would question the leadership, and since in the dark ages one had to accept the ordinance of the leaders, no one questioned them. Eugene Scott did, and he referred to the USTA executives and leadership as "bozos" if you recall. Now in the internet age, (20+ years, a period in which it never occurred to anyone at the USTA to have new technology for the sport?, imagine having an $88M yearly payroll budget and it occurs to no one to have software for the sport), everything is open, and you need to be transparent exactly what the leadership despises and will not do. This is called tyranny for those who do not know. Tyranny of the inept, imagine how sad that is. How else do you explain, millions of dollars of revenue are available every year and yet the Ol' boys managed to be in debt for $725M, with no programs, no innovation, and no returns on the money for the sport? How on earth do they allow such nonsense if they were capable professionals?

Dr. Hainline has a moral choice to make, to continue with the charade and deception under his tutelage or to change course and promote the game for all, not with words, but with funds. Need he be reminded that we have 42,000 zip codes and 60M kids between the ages of 5 and 18? the USTA has only 100K kids and only 330K adults registered. Last year membership revenue has been at the lowest level ever, only a mere $13M was received. Why do we think that is? because the system adds people or because it subtracts people?

So whatever your participation numbers are, they are pathetic. We need to see the work and the investments spent in the decade Dr. Hainline has been on the board in the context of its funding. This data point is what all the chairmen hide, shy away from and pretend the question is never asked. In English the word they fear is accountability. It is time to get serious as I am calling you all out Doctor Hainline, your charade has to end.

We see the gifted executives of the USTA for who they are- self-serving, idealess people, who seek to not change anything or improve access to the game but to keep their bloated salaries as is, and could care less that they have been ignoring the game and limit its access to a broader spectrum of people in the process. This is why they never publish real participation numbers and are so smart that they are proud that a once-in-a-century pandemic can do what none of their collective intelligence can do which is to promote the game. The obvious question then becomes, why pay those people if they do nothing of value for the sport and if all they do is self-serve? Doctor?

This modus operandi has been going on for decades, and as of late, their fakery has been found out and exposed. The numbers do not lie. Like naked people, they have nothing to hide behind; no lie or deception is big enough to stand against the truth that the facts reveal. The USTA is a for-profit entity, benefiting from the not-for-profit status and being held to no accountability by anyone, so it works wonders for the Ol’ boys. ?It may be hard to fathom, but there truly has been an orchestrated plot to maintain the status quo, the deception against accountability that has been formulated to benefit from the US Open for a long time. And on the way to the slow destruction of the sport, we have been enslaved along the way through absurd mandates, incompetent leadership, ridiculous tournament structures, mindless investments, unimaginable losses, decades-long debt acquisition, and what is worse of all, no innovation of any kind in an era of innovation. How is this even remotely acceptable Doctor Hainline?

Those of us who stand for righteousness must continue to stand until we see the manifestation of the end of their incompetent rule. Selling the Cincinnati open to cover losses is a mistake, choosing a non-tennis CEO is a mistake, having massive debt is a mistake, not considering the aging of the white population is a mistake, continuing to fund everything but programs is a mistake, letting pickleball take over our courts and limit where our coaches make a living is a mistake, etc.

All one must do is pause and think and conclude easily that all they do is a mistake, yet the board looks the other way and pretends it is ok to continue with this idiocy. I hope they realize that when they pass the cost of learning tennis to the public and continue to pay for people who cannot possibly help the sport, all they are doing is helping the slow destruction of the sport, and the slow lack of a viable economic tennis market for the supply chain overall. If there are no people, there is no market and if there is no market there is no incentive to work. This is also mindless. Need I remind Dr. Hainline, that he runs the best-funded sport in the country with the least amount of kids and young adults and the oldest adults? this means no future if this concept is not clear.

Dr. Hainline, unless you come to terms with the fact that all you have done is a failure for the sport (please note the sport is one thing, the US Open is another), your legacy will be one of doing nothing for the sport, while having the power to improve it and yet siding with your friends who collectively hide data and pretend all is good when the opposite is true. To validate what I have said, simply tell America, what have you done for the sport that does not involve the two-week show? Well, I am here to tell you that NO, all is NOT good. A very poor legacy if you ask me when you fail to have the vision, team players, and funds to do what is right for the sport. In ten years you could not figure this out? and chose to only focus on the show in NY. What makes you think you can do anything in the next two for the sport? if the same wrong people keep taking resources from the sport and you keep putting that money where there is no chance to grow the sport? This is also another failure of vision and allocation.

It is your time to do right by the sport, the status quo must end. The charade is over! What will you do? go with your friends or the sport? the status quo or the sport? The choice is so clear for anyone with a kindergarten education, and yet, I still have to attempt to steer the incapable to what is obvious to anyone, simply pathetic leadership. The ball is inyour court Doctor?, what will you do?

I say No to Ineptitude and yes to growing the game

?I can be reached at [email protected]