ATP Bonus Episode: "Germans aren't funny"

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Welcome to the Atlanta Tennis Podcast.

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Every episode is titled, "It starts with tennis and goes from there."

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We talk with coaches, club managers, industry business professionals, technology experts,

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and anyone else we find interesting.

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We want to have a conversation as long as it starts with tennis.

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Hey, hey, this is Sean with the Atlanta Tennis Podcast.

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Today's clip comes from Rich Nayer, who tells us a couple of stories, talks about ATP events

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and tries to convince us that Germans aren't funny.

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Have a listen.

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We've been talking recently about the Atlanta event.

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If we were to compare the Indian wells of the Atlanta event, we wouldn't really have to put

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in much argument as to which one is more successful.

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So we want to say, "Hat we take what's going on aside from the infinite resources," because

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that's always an issue.

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Try to take some of the ideas from the Indian wells event.

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And your point of view from there to say, "Have you looked at the Atlanta event at any point

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said, "Oh, you know what?

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Here are some ways you guys could have brute."

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And now, for these types of events, it's all about money.

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Money, money, how much money can you invest in an event?"

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I remember the WTA, CEO Steve Simon, was the tournament director at the B&B Paribar

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for many, many years.

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And I remember a press conference where he and the president, Ray Moore, were talking about the

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event.

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This was in 2001 to say 2017 or so.

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And Ray Moore reported that the year before the ATP were coming to them for meeting, and they

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said, "We have plans for your tournament."

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And here are the plans.

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We'll turn it from two weeks into one week, make it a men's only tournament, and the women can

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play somewhere else.

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And everyone was shocked.

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Everyone was shocked.

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And Larry Ellison's idea reply was, "Over my dead body, we will now put $100 million into

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this event.

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Let's see what they say then."

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That's what they did.

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They put a lot of money in it, build another stadium, and improve the so much that people are

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calling for it to be the fifth grand slam now.

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So it's money that talks.

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If there's money available in Atlanta, this thing will flourish.

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Or can flourish.

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If there's no money available, it will stay small.

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So where is he applying the money?

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So where is he putting the money that people could sit there and say, "Okay, this is not,

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we're not getting, because it always comes down well, if we were higher, if we weren't a 250,

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we would get higher players."

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So what we're throwing that out saying, "It's really the fan experience of where they put

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the resources to enhance the fan experience away from the idea of just making the players

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be the salespeople."

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Well, the players, of course, he uped the player money tremendously.

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But the fan experience started with the facility, he improved the facility.

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It looks totally different now than it did 10 years ago.

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He added another stadium.

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He once actually, the plans are to add a resource hotel on the premises.

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I think they bought the neighboring property with the church.

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I think they bought that property and relocated that church.

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So it's facility improvements in improvements in many other areas, like, for instance, the

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food and beverage area.

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It comes, of course, with something I'm not going to write about this in the mid-month issue

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of tennis club business that's coming out in two days.

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It comes with a one-negative.

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The prices have gone up.

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If you want to park your car far away from the stadium, you paid $25 for the parking, then you

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have to walk.

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The food, don't think you can get any inexpensive food, anymore.

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Because I had a, I had a not-so-everage, it was a fish, some fish thing.

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And it was $19.

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The beer, if I had the beer with it, it would cost me another $15 for the beer.

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So, and the water, the bottle of water, was $6.

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So it comes with some negatives, no doubt about it.

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I always, all my life, I have lamented the cost of tennis in this country.

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And it's not only the cost of playing on a league or anywhere on your tournament.

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And it's the cost of going to a big event.

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But I hear now that the pickle bottle is doing the same now.

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The cost is going up so much.

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It's unbelievable.

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You want to play in the US Open Pickable as an amateur beer where the registration fee is $250.

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No.

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They're doing the same thing.

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I don't know, why did I start with pickle bottle?

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It's different, but you're right.

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I mean, they're trying to, they're rushing it.

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And they should probably, that should be keeping hoping here is from a standpoint of a club.

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Don't make all the same mistakes, tennis made.

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Well, you know, here, tennis is so free that pickle bottle has some maneuverability where they don't

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have to overcharge to make any money because people do need the facilities.

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So it could be a win win for everybody.

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Don't blow your opportunity.

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So it sounds, which is what you start seeing the lights and start seeing the opportunity for professional

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events.

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You got to up the money a little bit to get the athletes that you think are going to compete.

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But.

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On the know, do you want to know the second unpoplished mission statement of Congress Sports?

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You know the first one, right?

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We will be times better than the USTA.

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It's the first unpoplished mission statement.

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The second one, we will not play pickle bottle and as long as I own this company, we will

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never have pickle bottle in it.

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We are taking it.

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There you go.

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So much for unbiased journalists.

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Well, I like pickle bottle.

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Don't get me wrong.

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I don't play it.

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I have played it.

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I don't play it.

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There's no one in my area that plays pickle bottle.

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And frankly, don't have time to start playing with other groups.

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I have my own tennis group for 25 years now.

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And that's that's fine.

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They like the way I set up their matches.

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But I have no problem with pickle bottle except for the fact that they should get their

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own damn courts.

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Of course.

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But yeah.

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But I don't have any other beef at pickle bottle.

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Many of my friends are pickle bottleers.

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And I like the fact that they are out there playing instead of sitting on the couch and complaining

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about tennis.

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That's going to be a meme we do with riches.

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Rich is head.

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No, no, it's fine.

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Many of my favorite people are pickle bottleers.

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Yep.

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I can still like you.

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I've been in the desert when I stay in the desert for the B&P.

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I stay with a good friend of mine every year.

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And she is a pickle bottle coach.

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And she's one of the, one of the first pickle ball coaches and players in the entire

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Coachella Belly Desert area.

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Okay.

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But pickle bottle, no pickle bottle for Congress Sports or no pickle bottle for cities lands.

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No pickle bone for Congar Sports and Cities Lines.

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Right.

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Now, just no pickle bottle is just not what you do.

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Or because like you said, you're not anti pickle ball.

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You just, that's not what you do.

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No.

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I'm a low hanging fruit and our expertise and isn't tennis.

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And if I sell the company in 10 years or so and it will and the new owner will do pickle

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ball fine.

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No problem.

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Maybe I'll be playing pickle ball by then.

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So you and I will be living in Ecuador by then.

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Yes, Ecuador.

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That's the country to to live in.

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We're going to be in Quinka with our own pickle ball court.

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We will take over the tennis courts and we'll be the ones painting the lines, taking over

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the courts there.

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So when Ecuador will you be, I'll be in the area between Viacil and the ocean somewhere.

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Maybe at the ocean on the ocean.

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So toward, I was named that town west of Viacil, starts with an S with a lino, some fileness.

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Thank you.

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Fileness.

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We've got family in Keto and in Viacil.

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I think most of the family now in Viacil in Sembottoon just outside when there's suburbs.

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And we've looked at the weather.

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We've looked at places we want to be.

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We're connected with my stepdaughter.

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It is the executive director of a nonprofit called the Promise Project.

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And they are targeting helping kids with kids in the Andes in an area called it's near

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Rheabamba.

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It's called Kadaha Bamba.

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A little bit west of O'Banios, which might be a place that others have heard of, which is why

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I'm giving directions.

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But we would be considering near there and that's kind of a place that maybe halfway between

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Keto and Viacil.

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So kind of in the middle of the country there in the Andes region.

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So we might want to be close to that as well if we have to have to pick a spot.

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Well, you're picking the right area south of Keto is where you have to be everything else

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that they are strong, a travel advisory to see at the moment to go north.

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If you go closer to Columbia exactly.

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But I think I like your timing of 10 years from now.

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We're pushing on go 10s.

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We're pushing on the podcast.

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We'll get city slams here.

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We'll be killing it.

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And then we'll do one event where everybody, it's a million dollars to take it.

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We'll do one event just like Steve Martin said.

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One show, goodbye.

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You know, I did one stand up comedy once in Hollywood.

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I just one night and my presentation was the funniest in the whole day.

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Evening I got the most laughs and it was called Germans are not funny.

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I would I would pay good money to have that tape restored.

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I even had a heck of a he was better than me.

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So you said you wanted to talk about the tournament as well.

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We don't talk about pro tour WTA, TPP very often here.

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Much less of what California is doing.

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But you're a friend of the show and a friend would go tennis.

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We want to know what's going on with you and what you're doing.

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Because at some point we'd love to plug some of that in here in Atlanta.

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Did you have something interesting about the tournament that's going on right now?

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We don't usually have a professional tournament segment.

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But is there something on your mind you wanted to want to chat about?

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There's some anecdotes.

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Okay. I've been going there for over 20 years and I remember in 2000 I think it was in 2002.

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I had this group in San Diego called the San Diego tennis network.

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250 players coming together four times a week and I arranged all those matches for them.

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I called it drop in tennis.

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And so one day I said let's go to Indian Wells and drive up to Indian Wells for a day of fun.

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And why not carpool to Indian Wells?

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So we had 11 people interested and we met at the Bobby Rick's tennis club in Incinitas and to leave our cars there.

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And we ended up driving in nine cars.

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That's not much of a carpool for a life.

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That was my little scoffle.

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That was something California,

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Chinese players they liked cars.

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They don't want to keep them up and drive with anyone else.

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Atlanta we can relate.

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You can relate.

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At another time in 2011 I think there's another anecdote.

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I had participated in a collection of use tennis balls for a company that does that they have these

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cookers these machines that repressurize use tennis balls.

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I forgot the name of the company.

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I'm Nebraska I think.

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So they had this competition.

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If you ship the most used tennis balls for free by the way they provided the shipping labels

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to their facility in Nebraska, the first price was 16 tickets for you and your best friends for an

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entire day in the B&B Pariva luxury suite.

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Really?

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The second price was 8 tickets and the third price was 4 tickets.

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I didn't know where I was in the standings.

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I started collecting not only from friends but I started collecting through social media.

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I incentivized my tennis pro friends telling them if you,

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the ones who send in the most balls for me they will get two tickets to this thing.

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So two days before the event the number one was a tennis facility owner in Long Beach.

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She had three tennis facilities and she was sure she was the winner.

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She communicated to the organizer and knew she was the way you had of everyone else.

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2000 balls ahead of me.

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So I didn't know that because I didn't ever ask them where was I.

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I thought I would never win this thing anyways.

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But this weekend two days before that Monday I started another campaign and drove around in my little

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Kia soul on collect the tennis balls and I collected two and a half thousand tennis balls that we

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can and ship them.

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So I won the whole thing and the second and the third place they couldn't believe that someone who doesn't

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have a court or doesn't have a club with cofits would ever win this thing.

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So 15 of my 15 of my best friends were enjoying a day of luxury.

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We had our own sushi chef, our woman walking behind us with the champagne bottle to refill the glasses

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whenever we needed to.

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So that was the best thing that ever happened in Indian Wells for me.

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Besides one other thing the tennis director of Indian Wells, Tom Fai, who passed away two years ago.

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He had a he was very popular and he had a tournament, he organized during the Indian Wells masters

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1000 and it was for a try level league players.

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At the time 2009 2010, try level was started by the USDA in many or all of the sections, but they

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didn't have a national path to championship.

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So this guy took it upon himself to create a championship and offered it to all the sections and many

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of them participated. They sent their players to Indian Wells and they could play.

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Tennis, try level tennis while next to a raffa nadal was practicing.

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Stuff like this and they were this was outstanding and he asked me I was the coordinator for

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NTRP for the USDA at the time. He asked me if I could help him during this tournament and he gave me

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the most desirable paths you can have the highest pass in Indian Wells at the B&P is called

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the Zpass and I was running around with a Zpass and which was great because the Zpass opened every door

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in Indian Wells. Every suite you could go in and eat and drink. You could go in the women's

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locker room if you wanted to. I'd never wanted to and I never did of course and it was just the

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most interesting thing running around with the Zpass was just he felt like god.

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Or at least like the president or something.

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I was 10 as an Atlanta. I was a guy. I was a guy. I mean they're playing again. I think we're back

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getting out of the pre-COVID. They did take a hit during COVID but I think it's come back. People are

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playing again. Again, I'm with you and what's everybody is trying to figure out how to make the game

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younger. That's the challenge for Atlanta. This second the new January, I've been here 30 years already.

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It used to be you got here. Somebody was taking a tennis racket in your hand.

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Now I think the city is grown up. It expanded. We're going through those kind of growing pains

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that it is really spread out. The idea of out as we read this past somebody's driving 51 miles to

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playing out to match. It started to become an issue. I do think this sport itself, I know I'm busy,

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it can be. I think that the problems we have with our professional event could be solved with a

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shaded area and maybe not playing in the middle of July in Atlanta. Little things that could go along

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way. But again, I think the good part about Atlanta is they got it before everybody else. They made it fun.

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They understood the idea of a team sport, make it recreational. Professional events, you can argue

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how successful. But you can't argue, as you said, in this is why the concept, you do get fans

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coming to watch out to matches. That's doing nothing. If you had a bouncy house for the kids,

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you had adults, something that they could be doing, make them a part of it. It's not outrageous because

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the core of what we're trying to do is use the commonality of tennis and create more social opportunities

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for everybody to have fun. We got all the doesn't mean we don't want to have fun. I still want to have fun.

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Atlanta's always been a little ahead in that capacity. That's why there's two different hats.

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It's the recreational side of it and the professional side of it. The good news for the professional

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size, we got 80,000 recreational players. So if you can get some of them to become fans, you're

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starting with a bigger number than most places have. I remember when I interviewed the president

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of Altan, they had like a hundred thousand players and USDA had 35,000. Although they might overlap

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of course. There's a lot of overlap. They're both lying because I don't think anybody's either one

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of them's got those high numbers. I think Altan's, I think they maxed out it may be mid 80s and then

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USDA has always been the ugly stepshot. So they're always massaging their numbers, trying to get

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them a little higher. So they doesn't sound. But we have a flexible play league here, T2, they're

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probably slots in between them. They probably does more volume. Of course, these repetition

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in all of them. But they probably do more than USDA for improving upon the little things making it easier,

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making it a little more flexible. Being a little bit safe, you don't have to be here's 930 on a

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Saturday and spend five hours. You can make the time you want. And when you're done, you leave.

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They capitalize on it. So it goes back to, as you said, and I completely agree, I always

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laughed and we do pro-am events with our students. Everybody, I've always been a fan of making them play.

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And we would do a five minute exhibition. I've like, guys, the people get the biggest kick out of the

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fact that we can just keep the ball alive. We're not doing anything spectacular. We're hitting the ball

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back. And if you can turn and look at them and talk to them, while you're hitting the ball back,

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they think you're the home club daughters. And it's like, you know, we're not recruiting in the

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wheel. We get in our own way to take ourselves too seriously. And we're big fans of fun. So we want to

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encourage the fun. One of the things we're trying to do is improve the transparency of that. So we

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rich. When you asked, you said, "Well, shouldn't you have more than that?" Because one of the years ago,

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when you said you interviewed the president of Alted, you remember what year that was? Was it

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known? Don't remember. Okay, so maybe you've seen us own. Gotcha. Okay. So we looked at the numbers. I think

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actually the last time we spoke to you, Rich, last year. I looked at the numbers and found about 56,000

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paid memberships in 2019, with the most recent number I could find for Alted specifically. Now, that

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doesn't mean there are only 56,000 players. And one of the things we're trying to do, we're going

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to do, I should say, with Go10S and the podcast here is we're trying to some light on that. Where

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are the actual players? How much overlap is there? What is everybody doing here? And how do we get

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everybody to talk to each other? Rather than having it feel so miley, yearly, if I win, you lose,

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kind of scenario. Well, at the time when I heard these numbers, and I knew the USDA numbers from my work,

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but when I heard those numbers, I came to the conclusion that at the city of Alanda,

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as more leak-play as than North and in Southern California together, probably. Yeah. There's no

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question. And almost to the detriment, they've been really hesitant to go, I mean, as the suburbs

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have continued to grow, they've been very stringent about keeping their lines. They're just now starting

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to expand into other areas, going a little further north than me. So we expect those numbers to

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start going up again because they are just going to take on a greater geographic territory as well,

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because this is strong. Wouldn't you think that others would be able to copy what they are doing

Speaker: 00:23:59

with the subdivisions in Atlanta, the Alta people copy it? Yeah. Well, sure, you can copy it,

Speaker: 00:24:08

but no one does. I suggested that to the Southern California Tennis Association,

Speaker: 00:24:15

the USDA. Oh, you mean copy it and do it somewhere else? To it in Southern California, because

Speaker: 00:24:22

yeah, why not? Tennis courts are disappearing at an alarming rate. The problem there is,

Speaker: 00:24:27

you have the extilipid. Do you have the tennis courts in every neighborhood? Is the problem with that

Speaker: 00:24:33

is if you do, if the demographic is similar and the courts are that readily available, then sure,

Speaker: 00:24:42

I don't know why it wouldn't work. But a lot of people want to do it in an area where everything's

Speaker: 00:24:47

a private club or a public park. And if you don't have those, what do we have Bobby maybe 600

Speaker: 00:24:53

neighborhood facilities, just the two court facilities that really is just from what we can tell different

Speaker: 00:24:59

from anywhere else? Yeah. Well, I suggested that long ago to the Southern California Tennis

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community. But they do. Absolutely goes to what you're talking about. I'm going to use the word again,

Speaker: 00:25:12

pickable real quick. I have a friend who's doing local tournaments in pickable and the sponsors

Speaker: 00:25:19

he's bringing out are the local contractors, the local real estate agents, the local dial

Speaker: 00:25:26

come in and do your bathroom who are at an extension on because they get a media turnaround and they

Speaker: 00:25:33

actually go, hey, they go out, they do the activation and we're going to go to your house and we're going

Speaker: 00:25:37

to do the measurements all in one because it's that directly tangible where again, you've got to give

Speaker: 00:25:44

Atlanta was just a perfect storm and it came to tennis. I mean, I'll actually started in the 70s

Speaker: 00:25:52

and the league itself and it grew a little bit and then when the explosion happened in the early 90s

Speaker: 00:26:00

it was ready that the developers to their credit body and wholeheartedly and said, hey, there's something

Speaker: 00:26:07

to this, we're going to build every subdivision with at least two light at tennis courts at a bathroom

Speaker: 00:26:13

so you can play out here and it just grew incredibly. You know, you had everything online and again

Speaker: 00:26:21

20 years ago when we were doing it, it was a lot like what you're talking about with the league.

Speaker: 00:26:28

You just had a lot of small guys, you weren't worried about a car sponsor or a Verizon. There was plenty

Speaker: 00:26:36

enough to do with people that were directly tangible that had some stake in improving the neighborhood

Speaker: 00:26:42

so it was easy back then and the developers got it to their credit, you know, they got it and

Speaker: 00:26:48

because like you said, is it more beneficial for them to take those six tennis courts or I had 12

Speaker: 00:26:55

tennis courts in my facility. You know, that could have been three formal houses, probably more money for them

Speaker: 00:27:00

in the short term to put the four houses up but deousel the other thousand homes that you had

Speaker: 00:27:07

without the amenity package that you created for them that is essentially a country club.

Speaker: 00:27:11

What did you say earlier that people were putting a tennis racket in your hands?

Speaker: 00:27:16

I mean here, you want to get to know people in Atlanta here. It's taken tennis racket. That's the

Speaker: 00:27:22

quickest way I was in social and today isn't pickable and paddling put it in your hands.

Speaker: 00:27:28

You're right, that is exactly. It's such a different demographic I know it can only speak to here

Speaker: 00:27:34

but I'm really surprised that, yes, everybody immediately jumps to the older folks but where we've

Speaker: 00:27:39

really I see a big impact is the young high school kids that want to go out. They hang out with

Speaker: 00:27:46

their friends, it's almost like pick up basketball when I was growing up. You know, it was it's cheap.

Speaker: 00:27:51

If you don't have to be real good or you can be a lot better than you think you are and go out and

Speaker: 00:27:56

do run in commentary, do some trash talking and just have some fun and the courts are there.

Speaker: 00:28:03

You know, they're already available for you because we had the tennis courts. So that is

Speaker: 00:28:08

surprised to me how much the younger kids have taken to it and that'll be the challenge to the future

Speaker: 00:28:14

of out in Atlanta is that that generation of high school kids, you know, if they've relocated if they come

Speaker: 00:28:21

back here after college, their doctoration is now going to be pickable. Do they gravitate to tennis

Speaker: 00:28:28

or you know, how does tennis deal with that 10 years from now? So that'll be the to me the

Speaker: 00:28:32

interesting challenge to tennis in is in 10 years when this first generation of pickable is now coming

Speaker: 00:28:39

back to work in the metro area not just go to school and you know, do what's associated with being a student.

Speaker: 00:28:47

Hey Rich, I want two last things from you. One, I need a men's winner of Indian Wells pick

Speaker: 00:28:54

and a women's pick for Indian Wells. You'll be our first, we've got to pick winners of a tournament.

Speaker: 00:28:59

This is our new segment. We may only do it once. Yeah, I want Taylor Fritz to win again.

Speaker: 00:29:05

Okay, you're it. Here's an in his prime and he's hard to beat right now when especially when

Speaker: 00:29:11

Docker which is not there. On the women's side, I'd love for Coco go to go much deeper into the

Speaker: 00:29:19

tournament but I doubt that she will be able to beat Ega, not at this point. So my money is on Ega

Speaker: 00:29:29

so she'll take it again. Well, there you have it. We want to thank Rejovenate for use of the studio

Speaker: 00:29:40

and be sure to hit that follow button. Also, we've been nominated for a podcast award, the best

Speaker: 00:29:47

tennis podcast. For more about that, check the show notes and with that, we're out. See you next time.