Episode 10
ATP: If you could change or improve anything about tennis in Atlanta, what would it be?
Episode#:10 Shaun Boyce and Bobby Schindler
ATP: If you could change or improve anything about tennis in Atlanta, what would it be?
Shaun and Bobby talk about the social media discussion happening on Facebook
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Bobby Schindler USPTA: schindlerb@comcast.net
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Transcript
Welcome to the Atlanta tennis podcast.
Speaker:Every episode is titled, "It's Starts with Tennis and Goes From There."
Speaker:We talk with coaches, club managers, industry business professionals, technology experts,
Speaker:and anyone else we find interesting.
Speaker:We want to have a conversation as long as it starts with tennis.
Speaker:Today, Bobby and I are going to have some fun for the next 10 minutes or so, we won't
Speaker:make it too long, even though pretty sure we can talk for days on most of these things,
Speaker:is our social media discussions.
Speaker:So that mostly for what's going on right now for anybody watching live, which again is usually
Speaker:just my wife, but maybe times will change.
Speaker:So Bobby, we put out a fun question on the, what is this called?
Speaker:Atlanta area tennis players, Facebook group that is run by a guy you know, right?
Speaker:You tell us who that is, a guy that runs this, he's the admin of this site.
Speaker:We think it's Michaela Arnold.
Speaker:That sounds right.
Speaker:That sounds right.
Speaker:And Michaela, I'm going to just go over to him.
Speaker:He also, I met Michaela back in 2012.
Speaker:He was trying to put together a tennis ladder system for competition, and he lived in the
Speaker:Marrietta part of town.
Speaker:He was playing out of Harrison, and we just hit it off, stayed in contact.
Speaker:But he has since gravitated, he runs a Peruvian restaurant in Roswell now.
Speaker:He's the owner chef of the freaking, inking.
Speaker:I want to make sure I pronounce this right.
Speaker:Freakin, inking.
Speaker:Freakin, inking.
Speaker:I, N, C, I, N.
Speaker:Yeah, okay.
Speaker:And it's then Roswell, and he also has a food truck attached to it.
Speaker:But he is a chef as well.
Speaker:We didn't have one.
Speaker:We didn't have one.
Speaker:So he's very diverse, and he created that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that part of Facebook.
Speaker:That group.
Speaker:Okay.
Speaker:So do we think he's Peruvian or maybe just like, Peruvian food?
Speaker:I think he just like Peruvian food.
Speaker:How are we?
Speaker:Maybe he's Peruvian, but if he's got a food truck, we definitely need to talk to him.
Speaker:Yes.
Speaker:So we, we talk about Michael McHeal.
Speaker:Is it me?
Speaker:I always, he spells it McHeal, but I think he pronounced it.
Speaker:Michael.
Speaker:Okay.
Speaker:The American version.
Speaker:Yes.
Speaker:I think he always would the American.
Speaker:Not confused the people like me.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:So we, we definitely need to talk to him.
Speaker:But we used his Atlanta area, tennis players group that has a bunch of followers.
Speaker:That it looks like it's a pretty vibrant group as we would say on Facebook.
Speaker:And I threw one of our Go tennis questions up there, which is if you could change your
Speaker:improvement, you think about tennis in Atlanta, what would it be?
Speaker:We put that up on our Go tennis page for the Facebook page as well and got some responses,
Speaker:but it really took off with what looks like now 76 comments, which is kind of fun for us.
Speaker:To G 76 comments has been a lot of fun.
Speaker:And we decided we wanted to get together and do a quick live conversation about it on the
Speaker:YouTube as well as we'll put it out as a podcast as well.
Speaker:But we kind of narrowing down some of the main themes and some of the questions.
Speaker:And I'll let Bobby start because one of the questions that the first thing that came out
Speaker:was get rid of pickleball courts.
Speaker:It was the first question that first answer that jumped in there.
Speaker:So how would you respond to that?
Speaker:Okay, we're changing something about tennis.
Speaker:What does that have to do with pickleball?
Speaker:That's a very good question.
Speaker:I think it's just the animosity or the attention that pickleball is getting because I've recently
Speaker:saw tennis fighting back saying, you know, there's how many new people or how many people
Speaker:playing the various paddle and rocket sports and that tennis outflanks all of them combined.
Speaker:The recreational tennis player is still more than paddow, badminton, and pickleball combined.
Speaker:So I think people are seeing their courts.
Speaker:Tennis courts being turned into pickleball courts and saying, what is going on here is this
Speaker:something we really need.
Speaker:You know, there's different ways you can look at it as a club, especially in Atlanta as a club.
Speaker:I think it's interesting and it's potentially a money maker because for the first time something
Speaker:is in the economies of scale and the club's favor where we've talked about tennis is predominantly
Speaker:free in Atlanta because it's so accessible, where with pickleball it's not.
Speaker:So you will see, or your people are trying to create clubs.
Speaker:You know, we know about pickle and social that will be opening up here fairly soon.
Speaker:It's going to be a pickleball only facility as well as a bar in restaurant and I think a couple
Speaker:of beach volleyball courts and corn hall, but they're trying to use the pickleball to make
Speaker:the commonality to create an environment where you come and spend several hours obviously.
Speaker:Not just playing pickleball but hanging out socially afterwards.
Speaker:So I don't look at pickleball as a director.
Speaker:We have it winter mirror.
Speaker:We have 10 hard courts on our main facility.
Speaker:We have two hard courts in one of our other, one of our other little outcows of winter mirror.
Speaker:But we turn two of our tennis courts into six pickleball courts.
Speaker:And you know, they get a lot of use and we do have some crossover, but predominantly I'd
Speaker:say that the pickleball is appeal to a lot of young kids surprisingly.
Speaker:That's who really is the big shock to me that has embraced it.
Speaker:The teenagers I think look into go out and maybe pick up basketball now it's pick up pickleball.
Speaker:And just go out and exercise, be outside, walk the ball around with their friends.
Speaker:So I don't see it as a threat.
Speaker:I actually think long term it could be a good way to introduce kids to the game because with
Speaker:a pad, I'll like that.
Speaker:It's got to be closer to the kids' body.
Speaker:So I think from a learning standpoint it could be very instrumental in helping to teach tennis
Speaker:long term.
Speaker:So, but you know, I get it.
Speaker:People look at it and say gosh, one other thing going after tennis, tennis doesn't need it.
Speaker:But I think you got to spin it and say hey, if it gets more people outside, gets everybody
Speaker:healthier.
Speaker:Maybe it'll to the odd, everybody looks at pickleball as being the step backwards after
Speaker:you get a hold there.
Speaker:I don't want to play tennis anymore.
Speaker:It's making me cover too much court.
Speaker:You might look at it and say hey, I enjoy this.
Speaker:Let me take the next step and go play tennis.
Speaker:And you know, there's been a lot of injuries impeccable because it's a stop and start sport
Speaker:in a short amount of space.
Speaker:So I'd be curious to get North of Peter can say, you know, is it really that much easier
Speaker:on your body than people think is supposed to tennis?
Speaker:So, look at your demographic as well.
Speaker:How many injuries in pickleball?
Speaker:Who plays pickleball?
Speaker:Exactly.
Speaker:Oh, they've already had a hit for place.
Speaker:Yeah, it's older.
Speaker:So, yeah, it's it's it's it's it's like said, if you're interested, but I again, I get it.
Speaker:I see the people's response, but I think there's room for everybody.
Speaker:Yeah, and I like that.
Speaker:I've seen the high school kids at your facility out there.
Speaker:And I think that's a great draw.
Speaker:I think it's easier to get into, I think other than basketball, some of the other sports
Speaker:were size matters, I don't think pickleball has that same limitation.
Speaker:So I think that's good.
Speaker:I think it's bringing people into brackets sports in general.
Speaker:It's bringing people outside.
Speaker:And I would be interested to see actual numbers because the ones I see were you say, there's
Speaker:not that much crossover.
Speaker:Do you really, did you have some major backlash about the tennis courts being switched into
Speaker:pickleball?
Speaker:Pickleball courts, no, Mark Wiley out in the QLS same thing.
Speaker:No, he got praised for it.
Speaker:So there's a way that we can, if there's a way to look at the numbers and take away the response,
Speaker:it says, well, I feel that it's really doing this to tennis or I feel that.
Speaker:Well, let's look at the numbers.
Speaker:Let's find out what's actually going on.
Speaker:Because we talked to in one of our interviews last year, Mike Inberdown, who's literally the
Speaker:guy building the pickleball courts.
Speaker:He says, yes, we're building a lot of pickleball courts.
Speaker:And we're not really seeing a major backlash.
Speaker:The clubs actually want it.
Speaker:So it could just be a fact, it could last five years, it could stay that way and be a nice
Speaker:addition to the club.
Speaker:But it's fun for us to see online, the response, the back and forth of what people think.
Speaker:Because it's one of the things we're going to do with the podcast, one thing we're going
Speaker:to do with Go tennis, which is we're going to ask these questions.
Speaker:Let's find out what people want.
Speaker:Let's find out what's on out there, which leads me to my next theme that I have found
Speaker:in the comments, which is about indoor courts.
Speaker:My personal comment was I'd like to see more indoor courts.
Speaker:Now I understand there's a, there's always a money question there.
Speaker:The other response, similar to that was more indoor courts, more clay courts.
Speaker:There are issues there.
Speaker:You don't have a your facility and we can talk about what we know personally.
Speaker:I think that is a better way to do it rather than saying, I think Atlanta should do X.
Speaker:But at your facility, you don't have indoor oracle.
Speaker:Correct.
Speaker:I do not.
Speaker:And I, I ligand I laugh because I, I sell the same thing, the gravitation to the indoor courts
Speaker:that everybody's pushing to where, when we first started 25, 30 years ago, everybody wanted
Speaker:clay courts.
Speaker:I was at White Collins Country Club for 14 years and it was in that we wanted indoor.
Speaker:It was why can't we get clay?
Speaker:Yeah, we have an aging population.
Speaker:Why can't we get clay?
Speaker:And that was always pushed back on our way out of room and subsequently since I left.
Speaker:They've added clay courts.
Speaker:But I think like everything else, lifetime fitness came in and kind of did a test for everybody
Speaker:saying, will people pay for a higher level club, a facility that is just physically nicer.
Speaker:And the answer was yes, you know, they came in and took health clubs and gyms to a different
Speaker:level.
Speaker:And they were very good about price positioning.
Speaker:But I think they showed that people will pay for it and then you throw in our climate, which is
Speaker:predominantly warm, but we do have a lot of wet.
Speaker:And especially in a year like this where wet has been so prevalent, it brings back to the
Speaker:need for private courts.
Speaker:And what we said always, and the irony of the course is there are very few tennis-only clubs
Speaker:in Atlanta.
Speaker:Most of the clubs are attached to subdivisions, which don't usually put, you know, a roof on.
Speaker:And then you have the few tennis privates, which would be the old towns.
Speaker:And I don't know what to do if it was called anymore, which have old town in East Cobb.
Speaker:You know, when they put on a little roof, you have John Screeck down the street from me that
Speaker:had was originally built as part of a subdivision, but is now run by the guy's a universal
Speaker:tennis academy and they have four indoor courts.
Speaker:But it's not HVAC or heat, it's just covered.
Speaker:So, but there's different shapes.
Speaker:Bottom line, it's like adding pickleball, it's like adding indoor courts.
Speaker:If you're going to run a club, as a marketing, or what is the need?
Speaker:There's a need for this.
Speaker:So what is going to be the differentiator to get people to join my club as opposed to go to their
Speaker:neighborhood?
Speaker:And, you know, even lifetime when they read did, where I could club at the south, they thought
Speaker:that this would be by adding pickleball and raising, I mean, so adding tennis and raising
Speaker:the level of the facility and being able to offer alcohol because it's a quote unquote
Speaker:platinum facility, they would get a lot more.
Speaker:Their business was not to grow.
Speaker:They used to take off of the 100,000 people that belong to lifetime clubs in Metro Atlanta
Speaker:and get some of those to come over and join the RCS facility, the North Coast facility because
Speaker:now you all have heard indoor tennis and outdoor tennis.
Speaker:And, you know, it's taken some time.
Speaker:It wasn't an immediate obvious success.
Speaker:Let's put it that way.
Speaker:Yeah, and we know a lot about the club side of things.
Speaker:A lot of the comments I'm seeing are targeted toward city facilities or public facilities.
Speaker:Public, even the right word anymore.
Speaker:But the question being, are they doing those demographic market research?
Speaker:And, you know, do we talk to the UTA guys?
Speaker:Is there going to run a few of those facilities?
Speaker:Do we talk to a guy, we talk to some of those people that might know a little bit more about
Speaker:what, how do you make those decisions?
Speaker:Are pickleball courts going in at the cab, for example, or blackburn?
Speaker:Or are they just words and facilities leave us alone?
Speaker:I'm going to think the interesting to see from a public facility point of view how that is managed.
Speaker:And if it's that different from a club where you still have your membership, you still have the people
Speaker:who play at your facility.
Speaker:Yeah, and we know because we get the conversations whether it be through our players or people
Speaker:that we meet.
Speaker:There's a lot of people out there that would love to own a quote unquote tennis facility.
Speaker:And our first retort is, well, as long as you don't expect to be rich, you know,
Speaker:it's as possible.
Speaker:Yeah, but if you're doing it to think it did you're going to be this, it better be a passion project
Speaker:and something that you already get rich.
Speaker:Right.
Speaker:Or be exactly because you're not going to get rich because you get just do the math on and extra
Speaker:planes.
Speaker:Okay.
Speaker:So again, to make it affordable, make it where people would join.
Speaker:But I do think of the last few years what lifetime is done, which injected the quality
Speaker:does matter whether does play a role, if you can make it affordable and make it reasonable.
Speaker:And then use like James Creek, the model for the University of Tennessee Academy guys run
Speaker:that facility and their big things to concentrate on their their academy.
Speaker:That's something that they can offer to the tournament level juniors that you're never going
Speaker:to get rained out.
Speaker:And I'm right down the street and I can't offer that.
Speaker:We're going to get rained out.
Speaker:And you know, and we have liability issues.
Speaker:So it's not like very, we can go on the court and say, okay, we'll get away with it today.
Speaker:Listen, you can hurt your arm.
Speaker:You can hurt your elbow on top of the fact I'm going to put 10 kids on the quarter, 15, 20 kids
Speaker:on the court.
Speaker:And I'm also going to lose that many tennis balls.
Speaker:So it's, it's just a bad decision all the way around.
Speaker:So you know, I do think again a successful, properly placed and that's the other bad part
Speaker:because I mean, I know TJ Middleton years ago was looking at building and probably now
Speaker:is crying because he was looking off of exit 12 on the Georgia 400 corridor as a future rowing
Speaker:area and boy was he right.
Speaker:And if he would have done that, that's my head.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Because that's it.
Speaker:We talk weather.
Speaker:We talk court access.
Speaker:We talk not getting rained out.
Speaker:We talk up to 400 corridor, which is where a majority of the tennis players are.
Speaker:So we go then one of the next concerns is the out to spread, which I'll see.
Speaker:Yep.
Speaker:I'm going to do that anyway and I'll just do what I want to do to bring in more people.
Speaker:We'll let out to worry about that.
Speaker:But one of the comments I saw had 51 miles to their tennis match.
Speaker:That was crazy within a league and that's nuts.
Speaker:And I'm going to use to that at the double A level and we know that's just part of the deal.
Speaker:That's just, we are.
Speaker:But I wouldn't think that the typical tennis player on a weekend has time for that.
Speaker:I want to see more family involvement.
Speaker:And if I've got to go halfway to Alabama, wait, that's all right.
Speaker:It's a third of the way.
Speaker:But it's also the thing to think.
Speaker:It's too far.
Speaker:It's just too far.
Speaker:But from that point of view, the weather, the more interesting question to me went along the lines
Speaker:in this thread was about two level events.
Speaker:And I think that's a fun question.
Speaker:We may ask that one next time in a similar way, which is where would you as the Atlanta
Speaker:tennis fan like to see the tournament?
Speaker:So whether it's a 250 or a 1000 or we move flushing meadows down here.
Speaker:I don't care.
Speaker:We can argue about getting on the schedule.
Speaker:Right now we got a 250.
Speaker:Were we to make it better?
Speaker:Bobby, I know you got some ideas.
Speaker:Well, I've long been a fan of moving up to the Georgia 400 corridor.
Speaker:I'm also a fan of, you got to look long and hard.
Speaker:And I always tell the story, since I was involved with it, the first year the senior tour came
Speaker:to Atlanta.
Speaker:This was Jimmy Conners.
Speaker:They came in October.
Speaker:And they were hoping to start franchising their tournaments.
Speaker:So they found somebody who had just made some money in telecom.
Speaker:He wanted to get into sports.
Speaker:He had a 40 to 50 million laying around that he just wanted a little hobby.
Speaker:And they said, great, well help you.
Speaker:You'll find it.
Speaker:We'll show you how to do it this way long term.
Speaker:You'll take over the sustainability.
Speaker:And I knew that the people that were promoting it.
Speaker:Jeff Benton's who's dad Ray was Jimmy Conners agent.
Speaker:And one of the founders of ProServe.
Speaker:I knew Jeff from his days in Emily.
Speaker:And he also worked at Lifetime Fitness.
Speaker:Not like I'm sorry.
Speaker:Yeah, when it was still windy, helped before it became what it is now.
Speaker:So we've known each other years.
Speaker:And they were coming.
Speaker:And I believe it was 98, 99 was the first year.
Speaker:And they said October, I said great, did you guys bother to find out whether the Georgia or Georgia
Speaker:Tech was in town?
Speaker:And they looked at me cross-eyed and said, what are you crazy?
Speaker:You know, this is tennis.
Speaker:This is in football.
Speaker:I said, OK.
Speaker:So I was the sideline announcer for doing all the pre-match introductions and keeping everybody
Speaker:abreast.
Speaker:And kind of to prove my point a little bit.
Speaker:But also because I knew there was a desire for it, I would announce scores of games that were
Speaker:going on that afternoon on the Saturday afternoon matches.
Speaker:And I think when some obscure all burn and this is before the rise of the Mississippi, it was
Speaker:either the Mississippi State or Mississippi was playing.
Speaker:And the crowd went crazy over the score.
Speaker:They, you know, the powers that be made very clear came over to the booth and said you've made
Speaker:your point, stop announcing football scores.
Speaker:So I think you got to look at the entirety of what is going on.
Speaker:And it landed here one city.
Speaker:You know, that's face it.
Speaker:I mean, this is, you know, we get the best to the best come here.
Speaker:So to sit there and say, is it 254, land to appropriate?
Speaker:I would say probably not.
Speaker:But as we, you know, we talked about.
Speaker:There are other things that go into the level of the tournament.
Speaker:So what do you do?
Speaker:I loved back in the day and the, in the, you know, the mid early 90s, peach tree cities to do a
Speaker:satellite, you know, which they could do over.
Speaker:And it was unbelievably well attended because that was the thing to do in peach tree city.
Speaker:So I just always liked the idea of being a little bit smaller.
Speaker:So you could conceivably do it in a roswell, do a tournament in an alpharata or a
Speaker:built in.
Speaker:You're looking for the base supporters.
Speaker:And to me, that's where, and I think the alta demographic or that stats would show you, they're
Speaker:base their strongest base is in the north, you know, Georgia, 400 North corridor.
Speaker:So if, if I'm looking for that, that's where I would start.
Speaker:I think downtown is a tough, it's tough ride.
Speaker:You know, northern Georgia will do it once, but they're not coming back.
Speaker:And then as we laugh in, in fact, you're in, okay, Saturday and Sunday, they're playing
Speaker:three o'clock matches in a hundred degree heat.
Speaker:That's just another thing that stops people from coming back to see that second match.
Speaker:You know, that's what always makes the tournament less than successful and doesn't show up well
Speaker:on TV when the cameras, it's like, well, this is Atlanta, the most popular, you know,
Speaker:name tennis city of the world, the most popular tennis in the world.
Speaker:And they can't fill out a stadium.
Speaker:It's tough.
Speaker:It's tough.
Speaker:But that's the course of them.
Speaker:They all throw back, stone mountain artists, which we want to get into.
Speaker:Yeah, well, we'll let the Olympic go.
Speaker:That's the, the uniqueness of Atlanta.
Speaker:And I've got a, I don't know what my theory is, but as I traveled the world over the
Speaker:last 20 years, people looked at me funny when we, everybody got together and they said
Speaker:where they were from.
Speaker:I was the only one ever from Atlanta.
Speaker:Yeah, everybody travel in the world was from LA, New York, Paris, Sydney.
Speaker:They were, they were from all over the place, most basically, LA.
Speaker:But I was the only one from Atlanta.
Speaker:Atlanta is, you call it, you say it's a tier one city.
Speaker:It's not you calling it that.
Speaker:But Atlanta being a tier one city, we like our good stuff.
Speaker:Yes, we are called the Kingdom of tennis.
Speaker:And that's just because we've got the biggest social leagues.
Speaker:Yeah, we're a different kind of tier one city.
Speaker:We're still a, I don't want to say, small town.
Speaker:But I think we've got a lot of people here that don't leave Georgia.
Speaker:You know, I lived in LA in LA, believe it or not, is a lot like Atlanta or was because
Speaker:downtown LA, when I was there, there's just 30 years ago granted.
Speaker:There was nobody who lived in downtown LA.
Speaker:My brother still lives in LA.
Speaker:He lives in downtown LA.
Speaker:So you know, it used to be downtown was a place that you committed to did work.
Speaker:And within that, you had downtown LA, you travel west towards the beach.
Speaker:You would hit Beverly Hills in century city.
Speaker:And you continue west and you're eventually going to hit the Pacific.
Speaker:And I was Santa Monica.
Speaker:Well, that was all considered LA.
Speaker:Atlanta is, as we say, Metro Atlanta, constitutes, I'm in coming.
Speaker:We're 35 miles away from what you would call downtown Atlanta.
Speaker:And I grew up 35 miles from New York City on Long Island.
Speaker:And we weren't called New York City.
Speaker:But yeah, it was, we were very separate, very different.
Speaker:And two different types of people resided in those places.
Speaker:And that's always been Atlanta.
Speaker:Atlanta has always been a great convention city or was a great convention city.
Speaker:It was never a touristy place.
Speaker:And again, I think that just those are the little struggles that Atlanta has always had creating
Speaker:that next level of an identity.
Speaker:You would think with such a diverse population, the arts would be outstanding.
Speaker:We'd have so many different theater groups.
Speaker:And you know, it's money.
Speaker:There's so many different factors that go into it.
Speaker:But it's tough to put a, you know, take it and throw and say, this is what Atlanta is.
Speaker:I could answer that.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:And I think that's funny because you said you talk about the diversity, which is very true,
Speaker:but does not, does that not make it harder for an identity?
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Because it isn't.
Speaker:We're not all the same.
Speaker:We're very different.
Speaker:I mean, even Atlanta, I think it's very different from Atlanta.
Speaker:I go to California.
Speaker:And it looks like what I'm used to, but it's different.
Speaker:There's just a different.
Speaker:And maybe that's a field, but from an Atlanta point of view, you look at
Speaker:pastry city to coming to top County to Gwyneth County to downtown Atlanta to
Speaker:bucket.
Speaker:It, they're just different things.
Speaker:They're very different things.
Speaker:And we have, you know, single entity out of trying to do their thing.
Speaker:And they just say, hey, you guys are in one of these counties.
Speaker:You get to play tennis.
Speaker:Have fun.
Speaker:Yes.
Speaker:It's Atlanta.
Speaker:There's traffic.
Speaker:I hope you enjoy your, you know, you hope you enjoy yourselves.
Speaker:But in this case, looking at the pro event, it's that fun.
Speaker:Say, yeah, we'd love to see that.
Speaker:I saw one comment saying, we need more ping pong tables.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Well, that's why I like Facebook sometimes.
Speaker:Because you get these things that you just kind of look and you go, huh?
Speaker:I don't understand where you got there.
Speaker:But it's fun.
Speaker:We'll hopefully do these more.
Speaker:I saw one more that I wanted to mention where was it?
Speaker:It was junior programs that don't cost parents an arm in a leg.
Speaker:And we were, we were talking about this.
Speaker:And having standing in the junior program business running tennis for children and you're
Speaker:running a facility that understands programs for kids that often, you get what you pay
Speaker:for.
Speaker:So there is the ability to say, yeah, there is affordable tennis programming out there for kids.
Speaker:But you get what you pay for.
Speaker:And people have to understand that.
Speaker:And one of the things we're going to try to do with Go tennis is help with some of that.
Speaker:Because I'm watching tennis channel.
Speaker:I'm complaining about the commercials.
Speaker:But then I try to think, OK, well, how much am I paying for this product?
Speaker:You know, is there kind of pay extra like Pandora?
Speaker:I can pay extra to not have the commercials.
Speaker:And in that case, is there an ability to say, hey, well, we've built our tennis programming?
Speaker:We're sponsored by Cadillac.
Speaker:And we're going to run a Cadillac commercial every five minutes, two year children.
Speaker:For 30 seconds, and we're going to stop tennis and run a commercial.
Speaker:So I'm probably going too far with my analogy here.
Speaker:Or you can pay full rate and we won't run any commercials.
Speaker:There's a way we have to tennis coaches are going to make a living.
Speaker:And tennis isn't cheap if you want coaching.
Speaker:It's free if you want to practice.
Speaker:Go find a board.
Speaker:Go find a wall.
Speaker:Go practice.
Speaker:Practice is free.
Speaker:You know, hard work is extra.
Speaker:But in this case, you get junior programs, things cost money.
Speaker:Unless we're going to offload some of those costs to advertising, which I'm guessing may not
Speaker:get a great response either.
Speaker:Well, I think the good part about the overall response is that as I call it, you're struck
Speaker:a nerve with the question, it's, you know, it, you asked one question, like you said,
Speaker:looking at all the different responses, how far it can go.
Speaker:Each one brings up a different set of variables, which makes it even more fun.
Speaker:That one, for instance, even your tennis general analogy, it's like running a tournament.
Speaker:The sponsorships pay for the event, the ticket sales are the money.
Speaker:Tennis channel doesn't exist if it's not for the cables overall, Comcast, paying them
Speaker:so much per subscriber.
Speaker:That's how it exists.
Speaker:Their profit is their sponsorships.
Speaker:They could not exist without, they need both of them.
Speaker:And that's how close tennis channels always from going out.
Speaker:They created this model that they thought we're going to be able to mimic the golf channel
Speaker:and command the same prices.
Speaker:And they've never have.
Speaker:And that's why it's always teetering on not seeing the tennis channel anymore.
Speaker:And that's why they look to pickable because they need something to sustain, to keep, it
Speaker:keep an audience growing because, let's face it.
Speaker:Look at the demographic of the NeilSons of the tennis channel.
Speaker:It is often less than one, which is pretty much for any station, just you're going to register
Speaker:of one just when being on, you know, being of register stations.
Speaker:So same thing with tennis and Atlanta, what the good part, we struck in there.
Speaker:We start going to earth.
Speaker:We hopefully, we might not have all the answers.
Speaker:We have ideas.
Speaker:We have a little more background in it so we could maybe throw some more out there.
Speaker:Again, great part about the kids.
Speaker:But here's a big problem that immediately from us being in it, screams that we've discussed, is
Speaker:the lack of leadership from the top that we don't have, this is why you have to go to
Speaker:a certified professional.
Speaker:Well that would weed out a lot of the guys who go into the subdivisions with their basket,
Speaker:offer a cheaper and people to say out of convenience and more economical will take it,
Speaker:not realizing what that you are.
Speaker:If you create issues that the child can work through at a 12 year old, they're probably not
Speaker:going to be able to work through as a 14 or 16 year old and then we're going to have to tear
Speaker:things down during a time that they should be getting more point play in advancing in that
Speaker:direction.
Speaker:There's always something, but I get the great part about just the discussion was creating the
Speaker:discussion and seeing where people go and that's what we're trying to do.
Speaker:This is the commonality, tennis is where we start, now we've gone into business and again,
Speaker:great thing from being involved in the business side is that it's a product.
Speaker:So a lot of the things that we face in tennis are similar to what a restaurant faces.
Speaker:So where can we help each other?
Speaker:What idea worked to increase your base in the restaurant business could that be transferable
Speaker:to tennis and you know, to maintain it.
Speaker:Yeah, to see where we can go.
Speaker:And then again, we have the commonality work and we go and it's fun.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:All right.
Speaker:Well, that was we got we got all the fun questions on the thread and you got a troll or two,
Speaker:actually less than I expected.
Speaker:But you know, this typical question is this sandbagging and what would you change like Gary's
Speaker:common and he's like I'd make my back hand better.
Speaker:Oh yeah, I can't complain about that.
Speaker:But if we wanted to, I want to go with one more and we both know Grovo and he makes a comment,
Speaker:stop trying to monetize this sport.
Speaker:And I asked him specifically, can you tell us more about what that means?
Speaker:Because again, we're making a business, right?
Speaker:He says companies come in and take over facilities, hire anyone looking to teach.
Speaker:They advertise the lights out of it and bring in kids by the bunches.
Speaker:The bulk of their budget is in advertising.
Speaker:They pay below market to teaching pros because of this.
Speaker:The quality is poor and kids don't get the proper start into the sport causing them to drop
Speaker:out at a later time.
Speaker:The turnover with pros and facilities is through the roof relatively speaking.
Speaker:And their only goal is to make profits.
Speaker:So I've got a couple of guesses that's to where that's targeted.
Speaker:How would you do you picture this as large management entities coming in trying to make money
Speaker:rather than a local coach running a facility who may not even be capable of handling it?
Speaker:I think there's a level of incompetence in every industry.
Speaker:So you can't rule that out.
Speaker:I would defend the other side just as vehemently just because it's tough guys.
Speaker:You look at, you think Harrison, okay, here's the city run facility.
Speaker:I know it's changed, but there was a time that Cobb County wouldn't allow the teaching
Speaker:pro or a teaching pro to actually be the director.
Speaker:So if you wanted to be the director at a Cobb County facility, you were not allowed to teach
Speaker:at that facility.
Speaker:So we all know tennis is a labor intensive business.
Speaker:So the margins are not that great to begin with.
Speaker:Then you throw in as you put in somebody of what we've talked about a third person or another
Speaker:entity that you are, whether it be the city, a landlord, a subdivision.
Speaker:I'm at Windamir.
Speaker:I don't get a salary.
Speaker:What my deal was, I get exclusivity.
Speaker:And I get a hundred percent of everything we generate and through that, I get guys to work with.
Speaker:Now I'm of the belief from a managerial standpoint in a business standpoint.
Speaker:I'm only as good as my number two.
Speaker:So I want the guys around, guys and guys around me to be as good or better than me, which
Speaker:means I got to spend more.
Speaker:So my margins for me, there's not, I don't eat off the other pros, like some of the other guys
Speaker:do and I get it.
Speaker:And I look at I had daughters in cheerleading and I laugh and my other daughter is in theater.
Speaker:And as I said, even though it's a different name, it's the same thing.
Speaker:They grow, they get excited.
Speaker:First time they've really seen a profit.
Speaker:They're not sure how to scale it.
Speaker:So the thing that was the enticement because the ratios were better, it was a little bit smaller,
Speaker:it wasn't as expensive.
Speaker:The reason you went then went there as they grow, well, those things go away.
Speaker:So now what is, can I raise the level of what I'm offering because I've grown yet, if you're
Speaker:the instructor or the owner saying, "Wow, this is the first time I've actually made money."
Speaker:And when it would be nice to take a family vacation.
Speaker:And it's tough.
Speaker:So again, it seems a lot of the questions you look at, they answer as obvious.
Speaker:There's so much goes into all of this, which is fun.
Speaker:Again, that's why we can discuss it.
Speaker:That's why get a perspective of somebody else and say, "Okay, this is what I think.
Speaker:So how can we make it better?"
Speaker:And again, I think it goes, we've talked to the teachers and they grow.
Speaker:How many goes to the idea of how well did you play?
Speaker:Where did you play?
Speaker:Well, you're a coach, bill balla check, didn't play football.
Speaker:Nick Balletary was a lawyer.
Speaker:All the stories that debunk the idea, your science teacher wasn't Einstein at school.
Speaker:Your biology teacher, but Mr. Cooperman was outstanding, and I'll never forget him.
Speaker:He taught me the value of work.
Speaker:We just tend to need to be cultivating that image of, well, this guy just walked off tour.
Speaker:Or can you go out and get a three, five, four, a player say, "Hey, you have a great app to
Speaker:you to work with kids.
Speaker:This is going to be what you do."
Speaker:But again, in a facility where you only have so many hours to eat, too many times, the guy,
Speaker:will just say, "I'll do it myself."
Speaker:Or, "I'll show do it herself."
Speaker:And that's not growing a program.
Speaker:That's being a head pro, that's, you know, making capitalizing and making, you're not growing
Speaker:the program.
Speaker:And I think that goes to a lot of people being in these positions because they're so much
Speaker:that so many of these guys probably shouldn't be in those positions to begin with.
Speaker:So, you know, two different variables playing into that.
Speaker:But again, fun discussions.
Speaker:Yeah, and I think go to us in the Atlanta, and his podcast can help bring what we would consider
Speaker:insider information.
Speaker:So, hey, we've been doing this for thousands of years.
Speaker:Here's how it's done.
Speaker:It doesn't mean it's done right, but here's how it's done.
Speaker:Here's why it's done.
Speaker:You know, what somebody wants to respond to, one of the professional men's players came out to it.
Speaker:I'm just don't understand why women don't make as much money.
Speaker:Okay.
Speaker:We can talk about, I don't want to touch the third rail right now.
Speaker:But, you can have those conversations, but we can also go to the out-of-player.
Speaker:Okay, here's why out is doing this.
Speaker:Hey, out-of-because we know people at out-of, and we can have that conversation.
Speaker:Maybe we can take some of that wisdom of the crowd and help the businesses in Atlanta be better
Speaker:at what they do.
Speaker:That's one thing to go to.
Speaker:And, of course, the podcast.
Speaker:And as usual, our 10 minute conversation turned into 40.
Speaker:There you go.
Speaker:And again, that's the beauty of Atlanta because we are so different.
Speaker:We have a subdivision.
Speaker:We have a private club.
Speaker:We have, and the amenity is a part of a golf club where most places are dealing with one
Speaker:or two.
Speaker:We're dealing with public parks that are, I mean, gosh, unbelievable public parks in foresight.
Speaker:That I just see from being a foresight and being in fault in that you sit there and go,
Speaker:oh my God, these baseball fields I die.
Speaker:If I could have played on these baseball fields, considering what I grew up with playing
Speaker:in the York when you're playing in March and it was freezing and the ground was rock hard and you
Speaker:were afraid for your life because you know what got a bad, bad, bad balance and you look
Speaker:at the facilities, these kids got to go, wow.
Speaker:So there is a lot of money being spent and that's great part.
Speaker:You get all this.
Speaker:So the level of the criticism goes up.
Speaker:This far, you know, it's a different criticism because you can't complain about the facilities.
Speaker:You can't complain about the public parks.
Speaker:They're amazing.
Speaker:They do a great job of getting you the facility.
Speaker:They've had a hard time figuring out how to administer it.
Speaker:They've been different methods through the years again, which makes it a completely different
Speaker:discussion.
Speaker:That's the fun part that we'll be able to get you private club tennis directors, neighborhood
Speaker:subdivision, tennis directors, the one or two tennis clubs, tennis directors and then go
Speaker:out of state to some place, I'll say, well, how do you do it in your state?
Speaker:Because when any entity always comes to Atlanta again, it's the head scratcher.
Speaker:We're different.
Speaker:We're different.
Speaker:Again, and I always go back to T2.
Speaker:That was such a, they took the time.
Speaker:I remember when he was starting, he had his little circle and he took his compass and he goes,
Speaker:this is all what covering.
Speaker:Everybody's like, well, go, here goes.
Speaker:No, we're going to start here.
Speaker:We're going to saturate it and we're going to gradually expand because we did not want to
Speaker:subject somebody to a 51 minute drive.
Speaker:As we talked about, we all think when we think initially of Atlanta tennis is the driving,
Speaker:the traffic.
Speaker:He did T2 did surveys and identified that sandbagging was really the number one issue with
Speaker:the majority of players.
Speaker:He was very conscious about scores and made you record your scores.
Speaker:And if you repeatedly, 1606, so you weren't staying a 30 player, sorry, your scores don't justify
Speaker:that.
Speaker:That's, again, but he was a small business.
Speaker:He was a small business and not a huge.
Speaker:So they were able, they took their time and did a lot of the stuff right.
Speaker:As we talked, Alta is grown so exponentially and such a short period of time.
Speaker:If you really look at seeing the things, how do you stop the monster once it starts growing?
Speaker:Because Dawson, Dawsonville, where the north city of Forsyte, once in, hey, what are you
Speaker:talking about?
Speaker:I can throw their places.
Speaker:I can throw a rock.
Speaker:The outlet mall is Dawson and two miles south on 400 is coming.
Speaker:Why is that a difference?
Speaker:We've had a big deal.
Speaker:We've had a lot of drive in Dawsonville.
Speaker:Yeah, well.
Speaker:So it's a good idea.
Speaker:I'm going to be a city and can assault.
Speaker:So it is Alta's start to make regions.
Speaker:Right.
Speaker:And you know, start saying, okay, this is what we're going to do.
Speaker:And then we're all going to meet.
Speaker:You know, make it more of a tournament could be fun.
Speaker:You could actually enhance the experience by keeping everybody close and then say, okay,
Speaker:for the semi finals, we're going to come here and the finals, we're going to come here and
Speaker:make it even that way to address it.
Speaker:I'm sure we'll get any power, marketing director at Alta, we'll get her on the podcast and ask
Speaker:these questions.
Speaker:And what are you doing?
Speaker:We know that they, we spoke to them at length on pickleball and pickleballs coming out this
Speaker:summer.
Speaker:And we know during their discussions, they did a lot of market research to try to get it right.
Speaker:So it's not like it's their just stone spaghetti.
Speaker:They aren't out there talking to people trying to figure it out, trying to make the best experience
Speaker:for everybody.
Speaker:But we know it's ultimately the consumer that makes these calls and that's why it's great that
Speaker:we have these these forums and this ability to tap into the consumer and say, hey, you know,
Speaker:what bothers you?
Speaker:Well, there you have it.
Speaker:We want to thank Rejovenate for use of the studio.
Speaker:Be sure to check out Rejovenate.com.
Speaker:If you're interested to improve your fitness health and wellness and not interested in a commute
Speaker:to the gym, check out our other episodes.
Speaker:At Atlanta, tennispodcast.com.
Speaker:Also, find us on social media and let us know what you think about our conversations.
Speaker:Mostly, click that follow button, whether you listen periodically, you can follow us in your podcast
Speaker:app, which helps us keep the show going.
Speaker:And with that, we're out.
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