WHERE IS THE BEEF! MR. $1.5M SALESMAN? By Javier Palenque

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Oh’ come on Javier, I love how courageous you are and how it seems you have all kinds of great ideas that the USTA ignores, but behind closed doors, they rephrase them and make them theirs. I sometimes think you are an American treasure. But a Burger?

-?????????I just try to make it simple to understand so people at the top of the USTA can understand, you see I start with the premise that they do not comprehend these simple words “our mission is to grow the game”. You see those seven words are understood by 3rd graders and they do not, or can not, or what would be sinister choose to not. So, I always try to find ways of getting through the cynicism of the ol' boy's klan. Be patient, hear me out. After I explain to you the burger and the salesman you will get the point.

The first thing we do is dissect the burger it has two pieces of bread and some toppings and of course the meat. (You should remember Clara Peller, the spokesperson for Wendy’s Where is the beef campaign). So, let’s think of the top bun as kids trying tennis, ?we have 98,000 of those, however, we lose 75% by the time they are 14, then again another 75% by the time they are 16 and then once again we lose 50% of them by the time they are 18. We started with 98,000 but to our tennis economy, by the time they are 18 all we have are 3,063, or the equivalent of 3%. ?To those who have not had the luck to go to a world-class high school as I did, if your attrition rate is 97% by the time they turn into adults and consumers, your business is dead on arrival.

The second key point to consider is the number of adults playing, the USTA only has 330,000 of these individuals and 75% are over the age of 55+. This means that younger adults are only 25%. So, some easy math will tell you the following. If the people over 55+ are migrating to pickleball and in numbers are 225,000. Then, if those that are left are 105,000 (all under 55). We can figure out what in retail is called replenishment ratio, or in supply chain restock, or if you are a normal person, it is called the future.?A term seems that the $1.5M sales guy is not familiar with, ( but it has only 2 vowels and 3 consonants :() still too complicated.

So we divide the number of adults over 55+ by the number of kids that go through 18 (225,000/3,063) or it means that the ratio has a factor of 73X. This means that to have the same poor amount of older adults, we need to increase youth participation by 7,300%. I am not finished keep reading, then if you consider the younger adults who play, we do the same thing we divide (105,000/3063) which gives you a factor of 34X or 3,400%.

So there is only one solution, growing the game and participation. That is it!

This is now abundantly clear. Correct? I am talking to you Mr. Salesperson? Therefore, the next questions are pivotal:

• How does losing $181M help your problem?
• How does getting in debt of $726M address the tennis economy? And the problem?
• How does spending on marketing $28M every year address the problem?
• How does the spending in sections (all grants only for the payroll of administrative people) of $54M per year address the problem?
• How does the spending in the last decade of $245M in Player development address the problem?
• How does keeping the same team that created the problem, solve the problem?
• How does appointing a salesperson who has no idea what to do address the problem?

You, see I can go on and on and show you facts one on top of the other till no end. The fact is I urge you to watch Wendy's commercial “where is the Beef” from the ’80s. You will realize that the USTA is a fraud to the sport, not a not-for-profit, a poor organization led by truly incompetent people that only care about their jobs and not the sport they were trusted to protect. Where is the future of the sport Sir? where is the beef?

When are you going to conclude that your $1.5M salary sir, is $1,499,999.00 too much for your value add to the sport? Please resign, the future does not exist if you do not address the problem. You cannot address the problem if you don’t see it. So the honorable thing to do is to leave the job that requires skill, competence, intelligence, and cojones (courage in English) to those who can see problems and can solve the issues for the benefit of all not a few.

I say NO to inpetitude and YES to growing the game.

I can be reached at [email protected]

PD. I sat in the board room of the USTA and explained this to Mr. Dowse and Mr. Morris both of course looked the other way. Two years later, nothing has changed other than the debt level and losses of the USTA. One more time I am unequivocally correct.