TARGET, THE MIDDLE CLASS, AND THE INCAPABLE USTA BOARD by Javier Palenque

Target, a $107 billion yearly retailer, caters to America’s middle class. While shopping there yesterday, I visited the sports section and noticed an increasing amount of retail space dedicated to pickleball. As the USTA's lead salesperson, ?it troubles me that its CEO has no issue lying to the public about participation rates and imaginary growth plans, which are mathematically impossible to achieve if you understood elementary-level school math and tennis ( remember he has never played the sport in his entire life).

More alarming, under his leadership, thirty-one sexual abuse cases were hidden from the public and authorities, with one resulting in $9 million in damages awarded to the victim. The only one they could not suppress. Please understand the meaning of the word suppress and its intent: Suppress: To keep from public knowledge, to stop or prohibit its revelation, or to keep secret. It is important to know that means using the mission’s money to protect his job. See here how the CEO and his clan reject an investigative reporter's questioning.

While walking through the aisles at Target, I recorded a video of the sports section. The aisle has seven panels: one for football, one for baseball, one for tennis, and four for pickleball. This video highlights a disturbing reality in this major retailer. The ratio of panels for tennis versus pickleball is 1:5, indicating that America’s middle class prefers pickleball four times more than tennis. Yet the lying CEO claims we will have 10% of the population play the sport by 2034.

Let me help the poor CEO with facts, if Target gives you one panel of retail space it means you had more than one at some point, and if pickleball has four panels, it means it is there to grow. Now you understand the degree of the ineptitude of the USTA's CEO? He thinks, if you fancy up the US Open, people will want to play the sport. NO, NO, NO, no one cares about the US Open no matter how much money it generates. It is not tennis it is just a show.

I have repeatedly written to the USTA board about these issues, but they refuse to meet with me, fearing my criticism. The current CEO's unsuitability for his role is evident. He doesn’t play tennis, censors criticism (thus censoring me and his employees), lies about participation numbers, and proposes unrealistic growth plans based on falsehoods. He is afraid his limited mindset will be challenged and he may feel embarrassed to realize he is over his head.

Additionally, he covered up sexual abuse cases within the USTA and player development destroying his credibility, and has yet to resign, which means he does not plan to do the honorable thing. In my business experience, he would have been fired the moment he decided to hide the sexual abuse cases.

The CEO’s dishonesty and failure to protect children make him untrustworthy by his own doing. He should resign, along with the board members and lawyers who put him in this situation. The video I recorded illustrates the dire future of tennis under his leadership—it will shrink from one retail panel to half a panel until it disappears from America's favorite middle-class retailer. I think he is incapable of understanding this as well as his people tell him that 70% of tennis is played in parks, where the middle class plays. Which real estate do you think pickleball grows in? the one the salesman ignores, you cannot get any dumber than this.

This is a testament to the board’s incompetence and how the clan of incapables is so poor that they are unable to even understand this video, as they will claim still that the sport is growing. It is not as we all know it. For the sport to grow it needs every Ol’d boy and member of the klan out of the premises. There is simply no other way to fix the damage they have done. Mr. Salesperson know that I want you out of the sport and so does every American that loves the sport, decency, and our kids protected from sexual abuse.

When given the choice, to protect the youngsters or your false non-profit you made the wrong choice. This is why you need to leave. You do not know what is right from wrong. Out of dignity to yourself, resign. That is the right thing to do, maybe you will learn something and that is we are all accountable, this is very easy to grasp for everyone but you!

I say NO to ineptitude and yes to growing the game.

I can be reached at [email protected].