The latest on the proposed Premium Tour and a new Masters 1000 event in Saudi Arabia - which could even be decided at a flurry of meetings in Madrid this week bbc.com/sport/tennis/a…
Saudi Arabia, Dubai, Doha, Abu Dhabi and Australia were invited to bid. The month it is staged (very likely January or February) will be even more divisive, although that won’t be decided for at least another 18 months
There is a lot here to like and not to like. What happens to a guy like Mariano Navone for example? How does he keep the run going from 250 to 123 end of 2023? Gets stuck on the horrendously named ‘Contender Tour’ and does what exactly for 12 month? Same grind as he did the year before?
A new thought…A highly produced and investable combined tier 1 of the sport with a goal of driving revenues that can fund player development. Here’s the “At a glance” of the plan… The most successful sports leagues own their player pipelines, they take it upon themselves to get the most out of their athletes. Ratios of coaches to players in these sports ranging from 1:2 to 1:6 or more… Tennis ratios are backwards, 4:1, 6:1…OK if you’re a top player and can fund that but not possible for the majority of players… What if professional tennis could afford to offer this to its rising athletes via regionally based training centers where the sport can take advantage of scale and provide 1:4 type ratio coaching, including tennis, physical, mental, nutritional, etc.? This is the core of Professional Tennis League, a concept tour. Much more to the program and happy to share… I believe a progressive packaging and promotion of the sport’s tier 1 product can drive exponentially greater returns than currently modeled (and projected) and reinvested in ways to position tennis at the top of the sports marketplace… Let’s make sure we don’t leave any Carlos Alcaraz and Coco Gauff level players and personalities stranded on the roadside because they ran out of gas financially and physically.
@russellcfuller We've just had a great week's tennis with all the various events. All proposed options are vastly inferior to the status quo, in my opinion.
@russellcfuller This proposal completely forgets about what tournament-going fans want (not just tv viewers m). Is this going to sever South America? And contenders deserve a chance to play top players at tournaments. Some of them get stunning wins. How do they improve without hard challenges?
@russellcfuller Why do they keep on wanting to change and ruin sports? Can't they ever be content with the money