WHAT THE BILLIE JEAN CUP VENUE TELLS YOU ABOUT THE STATE OF TENNIS IN AMERICA By Javier Palenque

Every time I think, I get more depressed about how the USTA runs our sport here at home. This weekend we have the qualifying rounds of the BJK Cup played all over the world. A friend from Germany told me that in Brazil they were having the match at an 11K capacity arena. So, I decided to look at how in America, once again under the Ol’d boys put the worst and smallest of all venues to host the US women in a country of 330M people and the imaginary 24 M tennis players and the supposed 3M Florida players that the TIA reports. Read my previous article it is informative and at least should make you have questions.

Please look at the table below, the country with the largest population and the wealthiest of all and the country with the largest and best-funded federation, The United States of America, through its non-tennis playing CEO, has chosen the smallest and cheapest venue to host the FED Cup in a state that has warm weather 100% of the year (hint: the state of tennis is worse than you think). A mere 1200 capacity in two courts at Lake Nona. What does this tell us? Below are five key points you must comprehend.

1. That we do not have 24 M players as the USTA claims. I want a full investigation of this claim as this amount of players does not show up anywhere in the financials. The USTA will claim they exist, then I would say why should the USTA control tennis if no one is part of it? And no need to be a not-for-profit, simply go private pay taxes, and keep your bloated payroll for the new owners.
2. No one plays tennis, that is where the Ol’d boys have taken the game. Sections leaders, you cannot see the table above and conclude we have 24M players, see the financials, find nothing, and think that there are 3M players in Florida. You are either part of the problem or part of the solution.
3. Our youth is not interested, since the USTA never cared for it. I tried buying tickets last week, and so did my friends with kids, none of us can purchase tickets for our kids to watch our country play. What does that tell you? It should tell you that they are putting on a show for themselves and not the sport, the fans, or the kids and families. Rather than seeing the top US players compete up and close, they prefer the section leaders do so at the expense of the public. Who concocts this nonsense? The same team that is never held accountable for participation.
4. The USTA leadership is simply incapable of making tennis attractive to people but good at attracting banks and private equity funds. Those institutions don’t buy anything, yet the board is OK with this embarrassment of leadership. Why is that acceptable to the Chairperson of the board? let me help you think, while the non-tennis-playing CEO positions the game to institutions and makes it?unaffordable for families to go to the US Open, and the playing system is from the fifty’s and you get points only if you travel, of course, this causes attrition. All this while the US Open has record revenues, yet we never had fewer players or participation. This is called the status quo, which will retire comfortably, leave the sport destroyed, a tennis economy that can no longer sustain itself and new families simply will continue to ignore the sport. The worst part of it all is that the board says its all OK.
5. ?The USTA leadership has destroyed the sport for Generation X, Millennials, and Generation Z, and yet they believe they can censor people with solutions ( that exclude them), refuse to leave, and keep the status quo. Who do you think pays the cost of the lack of intellect of the leadership? Everyone but them, and the clan of incapables approves this unanimously. It’s simply unbelievable!

To comprehend my point, all you must do is look at the venues from the table above, then the seating capacity chosen by each federation, and lastly look at the population size of the host country. If your conclusion is not to get rid of the Ol’d boys, I do not know what else it can be. That is the only conclusion I have reached. The USTA has desecrated the sport for our youth. It is a crime to the sport to allow them to be in control of the game for one more day. I want every one of the Ol’d boys as far away from tennis as they can be, the building fumigated, and all the old furniture thrown out! we start anew.

I say NO to ineptitude and YES to growing the Game.

I can be reached at [email protected]

PS. Now you understand why the WTA makes no money and why last year no one showed up to watch the best women in the world play the finals in Dallas. The problem is the lack of participation in USTA, why can’t you understand this? This is also why the ATP and WTA agreed to get money from Saudi Arabia to generate money. Translation, they are not selling tennis, they are selling sportswashing for an oil Kingdom. It has nothing to do with tennis, and everything to do with what the Kingdom gets.

To conclude, there is only one solution for all of tennis’ problems, increased participation. Something the USTA continues to ignore, so we are here. What a disgrace! And to think the head of the USTA never played tennis one day in his life? Plop!