ATP: If you could change or improve anything about tennis in Atlanta, what would it be?

Episode#:10 Bobby Schindler and Shaun J Boyce

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

https://www.facebook.com/groups/160108514063156/posts/8875762622497658/

Shaun Boyce USPTA: [email protected]

https://tennisforchildren.com/ 🎾

Bobby Schindler USPTA: [email protected]https://windermerecommunity.net/ 🎾

Geovanna Boyce: [email protected]https://regeovinate.com/ 💪🏼🏋️

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Transcript
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Welcome to the Atlanta tennis podcast.

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Every episode is titled, "It's 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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Today, Bobby and I are going to have some fun for the next 10 minutes or so, we won't

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make it too long, even though pretty sure we can talk for days on most of these things,

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is our social media discussions.

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So that mostly for what's going on right now for anybody watching live, which again is usually

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just my wife, but maybe times will change.

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So Bobby, we put out a fun question on the, what is this called?

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Atlanta area tennis players, Facebook group that is run by a guy you know, right?

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You tell us who that is, a guy that runs this, he's the admin of this site.

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We think it's Michaela Arnold.

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That sounds right.

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That sounds right.

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And Michaela, I'm going to just go over to him.

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He was trying to put together a tennis ladder system for competition, and he lived in the

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Marrietta part of town.

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He was playing out of Harrison, and we just hit it off, stayed in contact.

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But he has since gravitated, he runs a Peruvian restaurant in Roswell now.

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He's the owner chef of the freaking, inking.

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I want to make sure I pronounce this right.

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Freakin, inking.

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Freakin, inking.

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I, N, C, I, N.

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Yeah, okay.

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And it's then Roswell, and he also has a food truck attached to it.

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But he is a chef as well.

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We didn't have one.

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We didn't have one.

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So he's very diverse, and he created that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that part of Facebook.

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That group.

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Okay.

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So do we think he's Peruvian or maybe just like, Peruvian food?

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I think he just like Peruvian food.

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How are we?

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Maybe he's Peruvian, but if he's got a food truck, we definitely need to talk to him.

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Yes.

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So we, we talk about Michael McHeal.

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Is it me?

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I always, he spells it McHeal, but I think he pronounced it.

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Michael.

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Okay.

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The American version.

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Yes.

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I think he always would the American.

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Not confused the people like me.

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Yeah.

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So we, we definitely need to talk to him.

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But we used his Atlanta area, tennis players group that has a bunch of followers.

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That it looks like it's a pretty vibrant group as we would say on Facebook.

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And I threw one of our Go tennis questions up there, which is if you could change your

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improvement, you think about tennis in Atlanta, what would it be?

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We put that up on our Go tennis page for the Facebook page as well and got some responses,

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but it really took off with what looks like now 76 comments, which is kind of fun for us.

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To G 76 comments has been a lot of fun.

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And we decided we wanted to get together and do a quick live conversation about it on the

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YouTube as well as we'll put it out as a podcast as well.

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But we kind of narrowing down some of the main themes and some of the questions.

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And I'll let Bobby start because one of the questions that the first thing that came out

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was get rid of pickleball courts.

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It was the first question that first answer that jumped in there.

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So how would you respond to that?

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Okay, we're changing something about tennis.

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What does that have to do with pickleball?

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That's a very good question.

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I think it's just the animosity or the attention that pickleball is getting because I've recently

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saw tennis fighting back saying, you know, there's how many new people or how many people

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playing the various paddle and rocket sports and that tennis outflanks all of them combined.

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The recreational tennis player is still more than paddow, badminton, and pickleball combined.

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So I think people are seeing their courts.

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Tennis courts being turned into pickleball courts and saying, what is going on here is this

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something we really need.

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You know, there's different ways you can look at it as a club, especially in Atlanta as a club.

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I think it's interesting and it's potentially a money maker because for the first time something

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is in the economies of scale and the club's favor where we've talked about tennis is predominantly

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free in Atlanta because it's so accessible, where with pickleball it's not.

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So you will see, or your people are trying to create clubs.

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You know, we know about pickle and social that will be opening up here fairly soon.

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It's going to be a pickleball only facility as well as a bar in restaurant and I think a couple

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of beach volleyball courts and corn hall, but they're trying to use the pickleball to make

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the commonality to create an environment where you come and spend several hours obviously.

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Not just playing pickleball but hanging out socially afterwards.

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So I don't look at pickleball as a director.

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We have it winter mirror.

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We have 10 hard courts on our main facility.

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We have two hard courts in one of our other, one of our other little outcows of winter mirror.

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But we turn two of our tennis courts into six pickleball courts.

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And you know, they get a lot of use and we do have some crossover, but predominantly I'd

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say that the pickleball is appeal to a lot of young kids surprisingly.

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That's who really is the big shock to me that has embraced it.

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The teenagers I think look into go out and maybe pick up basketball now it's pick up pickleball.

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And just go out and exercise, be outside, walk the ball around with their friends.

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So I don't see it as a threat.

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I actually think long term it could be a good way to introduce kids to the game because with

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a pad, I'll like that.

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It's got to be closer to the kids' body.

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So I think from a learning standpoint it could be very instrumental in helping to teach tennis

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long term.

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So, but you know, I get it.

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People look at it and say gosh, one other thing going after tennis, tennis doesn't need it.

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But I think you got to spin it and say hey, if it gets more people outside, gets everybody

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healthier.

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Maybe it'll to the odd, everybody looks at pickleball as being the step backwards after

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you get a hold there.

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I don't want to play tennis anymore.

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It's making me cover too much court.

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You might look at it and say hey, I enjoy this.

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Let me take the next step and go play tennis.

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And you know, there's been a lot of injuries impeccable because it's a stop and start sport

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in a short amount of space.

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So I'd be curious to get North of Peter can say, you know, is it really that much easier

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on your body than people think is supposed to tennis?

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So, look at your demographic as well.

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How many injuries in pickleball?

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Who plays pickleball?

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Exactly.

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Oh, they've already had a hit for place.

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Yeah, it's older.

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So, yeah, it's it's it's it's it's like said, if you're interested, but I again, I get it.

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I see the people's response, but I think there's room for everybody.

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Yeah, and I like that.

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I've seen the high school kids at your facility out there.

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And I think that's a great draw.

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I think it's easier to get into, I think other than basketball, some of the other sports

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were size matters, I don't think pickleball has that same limitation.

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So I think that's good.

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I think it's bringing people into brackets sports in general.

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It's bringing people outside.

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And I would be interested to see actual numbers because the ones I see were you say, there's

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not that much crossover.

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Do you really, did you have some major backlash about the tennis courts being switched into

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pickleball?

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Pickleball courts, no, Mark Wiley out in the QLS same thing.

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No, he got praised for it.

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So there's a way that we can, if there's a way to look at the numbers and take away the response,

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it says, well, I feel that it's really doing this to tennis or I feel that.

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Well, let's look at the numbers.

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Let's find out what's actually going on.

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Because we talked to in one of our interviews last year, Mike Inberdown, who's literally the

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guy building the pickleball courts.

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He says, yes, we're building a lot of pickleball courts.

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And we're not really seeing a major backlash.

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The clubs actually want it.

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So it could just be a fact, it could last five years, it could stay that way and be a nice

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addition to the club.

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But it's fun for us to see online, the response, the back and forth of what people think.

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Because it's one of the things we're going to do with the podcast, one thing we're going

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to do with Go tennis, which is we're going to ask these questions.

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Let's find out what people want.

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Let's find out what's on out there, which leads me to my next theme that I have found

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in the comments, which is about indoor courts.

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My personal comment was I'd like to see more indoor courts.

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Now I understand there's a, there's always a money question there.

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The other response, similar to that was more indoor courts, more clay courts.

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There are issues there.

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You don't have a your facility and we can talk about what we know personally.

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I think that is a better way to do it rather than saying, I think Atlanta should do X.

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But at your facility, you don't have indoor oracle.

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Correct.

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I do not.

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And I, I ligand I laugh because I, I sell the same thing, the gravitation to the indoor courts

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that everybody's pushing to where, when we first started 25, 30 years ago, everybody wanted

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clay courts.

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I was at White Collins Country Club for 14 years and it was in that we wanted indoor.

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It was why can't we get clay?

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Yeah, we have an aging population.

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Why can't we get clay?

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And that was always pushed back on our way out of room and subsequently since I left.

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They've added clay courts.

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But I think like everything else, lifetime fitness came in and kind of did a test for everybody

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saying, will people pay for a higher level club, a facility that is just physically nicer.

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And the answer was yes, you know, they came in and took health clubs and gyms to a different

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level.

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And they were very good about price positioning.

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But I think they showed that people will pay for it and then you throw in our climate, which is

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predominantly warm, but we do have a lot of wet.

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And especially in a year like this where wet has been so prevalent, it brings back to the

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need for private courts.

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And what we said always, and the irony of the course is there are very few tennis-only clubs

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in Atlanta.

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Most of the clubs are attached to subdivisions, which don't usually put, you know, a roof on.

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And then you have the few tennis privates, which would be the old towns.

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And I don't know what to do if it was called anymore, which have old town in East Cobb.

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You know, when they put on a little roof, you have John Screeck down the street from me that

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had was originally built as part of a subdivision, but is now run by the guy's a universal

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tennis academy and they have four indoor courts.

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But it's not HVAC or heat, it's just covered.

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So, but there's different shapes.

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Bottom line, it's like adding pickleball, it's like adding indoor courts.

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If you're going to run a club, as a marketing, or what is the need?

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There's a need for this.

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So what is going to be the differentiator to get people to join my club as opposed to go to their

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neighborhood?

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And, you know, even lifetime when they read did, where I could club at the south, they thought

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that this would be by adding pickleball and raising, I mean, so adding tennis and raising

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the level of the facility and being able to offer alcohol because it's a quote unquote

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platinum facility, they would get a lot more.

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Their business was not to grow.

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They used to take off of the 100,000 people that belong to lifetime clubs in Metro Atlanta

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and get some of those to come over and join the RCS facility, the North Coast facility because

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now you all have heard indoor tennis and outdoor tennis.

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And, you know, it's taken some time.

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It wasn't an immediate obvious success.

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Let's put it that way.

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Yeah, and we know a lot about the club side of things.

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A lot of the comments I'm seeing are targeted toward city facilities or public facilities.

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Public, even the right word anymore.

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But the question being, are they doing those demographic market research?

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And, you know, do we talk to the UTA guys?

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Is there going to run a few of those facilities?

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Do we talk to a guy, we talk to some of those people that might know a little bit more about

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what, how do you make those decisions?

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Are pickleball courts going in at the cab, for example, or blackburn?

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Or are they just words and facilities leave us alone?

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I'm going to think the interesting to see from a public facility point of view how that is managed.

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And if it's that different from a club where you still have your membership, you still have the people

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who play at your facility.

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Yeah, and we know because we get the conversations whether it be through our players or people

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that we meet.

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There's a lot of people out there that would love to own a quote unquote tennis facility.

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And our first retort is, well, as long as you don't expect to be rich, you know,

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it's as possible.

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Yeah, but if you're doing it to think it did you're going to be this, it better be a passion project

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and something that you already get rich.

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Right.

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Or be exactly because you're not going to get rich because you get just do the math on and extra

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planes.

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Okay.

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So again, to make it affordable, make it where people would join.

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But I do think of the last few years what lifetime is done, which injected the quality

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does matter whether does play a role, if you can make it affordable and make it reasonable.

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And then use like James Creek, the model for the University of Tennessee Academy guys run

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that facility and their big things to concentrate on their their academy.

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That's something that they can offer to the tournament level juniors that you're never going

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to get rained out.

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And I'm right down the street and I can't offer that.

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We're going to get rained out.

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And you know, and we have liability issues.

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So it's not like very, we can go on the court and say, okay, we'll get away with it today.

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Listen, you can hurt your arm.

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You can hurt your elbow on top of the fact I'm going to put 10 kids on the quarter, 15, 20 kids

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on the court.

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And I'm also going to lose that many tennis balls.

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So it's, it's just a bad decision all the way around.

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So you know, I do think again a successful, properly placed and that's the other bad part

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because I mean, I know TJ Middleton years ago was looking at building and probably now

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is crying because he was looking off of exit 12 on the Georgia 400 corridor as a future rowing

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area and boy was he right.

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And if he would have done that, that's my head.

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Yeah.

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Because that's it.

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We talk weather.

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We talk court access.

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We talk not getting rained out.

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We talk up to 400 corridor, which is where a majority of the tennis players are.

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So we go then one of the next concerns is the out to spread, which I'll see.

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Yep.

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I'm going to do that anyway and I'll just do what I want to do to bring in more people.

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We'll let out to worry about that.

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But one of the comments I saw had 51 miles to their tennis match.

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That was crazy within a league and that's nuts.

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And I'm going to use to that at the double A level and we know that's just part of the deal.

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That's just, we are.

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But I wouldn't think that the typical tennis player on a weekend has time for that.

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I want to see more family involvement.

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And if I've got to go halfway to Alabama, wait, that's all right.

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It's a third of the way.

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But it's also the thing to think.

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It's too far.

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It's just too far.

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But from that point of view, the weather, the more interesting question to me went along the lines

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in this thread was about two level events.

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And I think that's a fun question.

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We may ask that one next time in a similar way, which is where would you as the Atlanta

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tennis fan like to see the tournament?

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I don't care.

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We can argue about getting on the schedule.

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Right now we got a 250.

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Were we to make it better?

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Bobby, I know you got some ideas.

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Well, I've long been a fan of moving up to the Georgia 400 corridor.

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I'm also a fan of, you got to look long and hard.

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And I always tell the story, since I was involved with it, the first year the senior tour came

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to Atlanta.

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This was Jimmy Conners.

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They came in October.

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And they were hoping to start franchising their tournaments.

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So they found somebody who had just made some money in telecom.

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He wanted to get into sports.

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He had a 40 to 50 million laying around that he just wanted a little hobby.

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And they said, great, well help you.

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You'll find it.

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We'll show you how to do it this way long term.

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You'll take over the sustainability.

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And I knew that the people that were promoting it.

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Jeff Benton's who's dad Ray was Jimmy Conners agent.

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And one of the founders of ProServe.

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I knew Jeff from his days in Emily.

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And he also worked at Lifetime Fitness.

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Not like I'm sorry.

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Yeah, when it was still windy, helped before it became what it is now.

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So we've known each other years.

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And they were coming.

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And I believe it was 98, 99 was the first year.

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And they said October, I said great, did you guys bother to find out whether the Georgia or Georgia

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Tech was in town?

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And they looked at me cross-eyed and said, what are you crazy?

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You know, this is tennis.

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This is in football.

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I said, OK.

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So I was the sideline announcer for doing all the pre-match introductions and keeping everybody

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abreast.

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And kind of to prove my point a little bit.

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But also because I knew there was a desire for it, I would announce scores of games that were

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going on that afternoon on the Saturday afternoon matches.

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And I think when some obscure all burn and this is before the rise of the Mississippi, it was

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either the Mississippi State or Mississippi was playing.

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And the crowd went crazy over the score.

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They, you know, the powers that be made very clear came over to the booth and said you've made

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your point, stop announcing football scores.

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So I think you got to look at the entirety of what is going on.

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And it landed here one city.

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You know, that's face it.

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I mean, this is, you know, we get the best to the best come here.

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So to sit there and say, is it 254, land to appropriate?

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I would say probably not.

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But as we, you know, we talked about.

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There are other things that go into the level of the tournament.

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So what do you do?

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I loved back in the day and the, in the, you know, the mid early 90s, peach tree cities to do a

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satellite, you know, which they could do over.

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And it was unbelievably well attended because that was the thing to do in peach tree city.

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So I just always liked the idea of being a little bit smaller.

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So you could conceivably do it in a roswell, do a tournament in an alpharata or a

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built in.

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You're looking for the base supporters.

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And to me, that's where, and I think the alta demographic or that stats would show you, they're

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base their strongest base is in the north, you know, Georgia, 400 North corridor.

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So if, if I'm looking for that, that's where I would start.

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I think downtown is a tough, it's tough ride.

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You know, northern Georgia will do it once, but they're not coming back.

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And then as we laugh in, in fact, you're in, okay, Saturday and Sunday, they're playing

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three o'clock matches in a hundred degree heat.

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That's just another thing that stops people from coming back to see that second match.

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You know, that's what always makes the tournament less than successful and doesn't show up well

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on TV when the cameras, it's like, well, this is Atlanta, the most popular, you know,

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name tennis city of the world, the most popular tennis in the world.

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And they can't fill out a stadium.

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It's tough.

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It's tough.

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But that's the course of them.

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They all throw back, stone mountain artists, which we want to get into.

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Yeah, well, we'll let the Olympic go.

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That's the, the uniqueness of Atlanta.

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And I've got a, I don't know what my theory is, but as I traveled the world over the

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last 20 years, people looked at me funny when we, everybody got together and they said

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where they were from.

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I was the only one ever from Atlanta.

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Yeah, everybody travel in the world was from LA, New York, Paris, Sydney.

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They were, they were from all over the place, most basically, LA.

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But I was the only one from Atlanta.

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Atlanta is, you call it, you say it's a tier one city.

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It's not you calling it that.

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But Atlanta being a tier one city, we like our good stuff.

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Yes, we are called the Kingdom of tennis.

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And that's just because we've got the biggest social leagues.

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Yeah, we're a different kind of tier one city.

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We're still a, I don't want to say, small town.

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But I think we've got a lot of people here that don't leave Georgia.

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You know, I lived in LA in LA, believe it or not, is a lot like Atlanta or was because

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downtown LA, when I was there, there's just 30 years ago granted.

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There was nobody who lived in downtown LA.

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My brother still lives in LA.

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He lives in downtown LA.

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So you know, it used to be downtown was a place that you committed to did work.

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And within that, you had downtown LA, you travel west towards the beach.

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You would hit Beverly Hills in century city.

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And you continue west and you're eventually going to hit the Pacific.

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And I was Santa Monica.

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Well, that was all considered LA.

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Atlanta is, as we say, Metro Atlanta, constitutes, I'm in coming.

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We're 35 miles away from what you would call downtown Atlanta.

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And I grew up 35 miles from New York City on Long Island.

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And we weren't called New York City.

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But yeah, it was, we were very separate, very different.

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And two different types of people resided in those places.

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And that's always been Atlanta.

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Atlanta has always been a great convention city or was a great convention city.

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It was never a touristy place.

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And again, I think that just those are the little struggles that Atlanta has always had creating

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that next level of an identity.

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You would think with such a diverse population, the arts would be outstanding.

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We'd have so many different theater groups.

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And you know, it's money.

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There's so many different factors that go into it.

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But it's tough to put a, you know, take it and throw and say, this is what Atlanta is.

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I could answer that.

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Yeah.

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And I think that's funny because you said you talk about the diversity, which is very true,

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but does not, does that not make it harder for an identity?

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Yeah.

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Because it isn't.

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We're not all the same.

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We're very different.

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I mean, even Atlanta, I think it's very different from Atlanta.

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I go to California.

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And it looks like what I'm used to, but it's different.

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There's just a different.

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And maybe that's a field, but from an Atlanta point of view, you look at

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pastry city to coming to top County to Gwyneth County to downtown Atlanta to

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bucket.

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It, they're just different things.

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They're very different things.

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And we have, you know, single entity out of trying to do their thing.

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And they just say, hey, you guys are in one of these counties.

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You get to play tennis.

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Have fun.

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Yes.

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It's Atlanta.

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There's traffic.

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I hope you enjoy your, you know, you hope you enjoy yourselves.

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But in this case, looking at the pro event, it's that fun.

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Say, yeah, we'd love to see that.

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I saw one comment saying, we need more ping pong tables.

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Yeah.

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Well, that's why I like Facebook sometimes.

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Because you get these things that you just kind of look and you go, huh?

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I don't understand where you got there.

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But it's fun.

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We'll hopefully do these more.

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I saw one more that I wanted to mention where was it?

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It was junior programs that don't cost parents an arm in a leg.

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And we were, we were talking about this.

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And having standing in the junior program business running tennis for children and you're

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running a facility that understands programs for kids that often, you get what you pay

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for.

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So there is the ability to say, yeah, there is affordable tennis programming out there for kids.

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But you get what you pay for.

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And people have to understand that.

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And one of the things we're going to try to do with Go tennis is help with some of that.

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Because I'm watching tennis channel.

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I'm complaining about the commercials.

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But then I try to think, OK, well, how much am I paying for this product?

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You know, is there kind of pay extra like Pandora?

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I can pay extra to not have the commercials.

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And in that case, is there an ability to say, hey, well, we've built our tennis programming?

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We're sponsored by Cadillac.

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And we're going to run a Cadillac commercial every five minutes, two year children.

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For 30 seconds, and we're going to stop tennis and run a commercial.

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So I'm probably going too far with my analogy here.

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Or you can pay full rate and we won't run any commercials.

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There's a way we have to tennis coaches are going to make a living.

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And tennis isn't cheap if you want coaching.

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It's free if you want to practice.

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Go find a board.

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Go find a wall.

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Go practice.

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Practice is free.

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You know, hard work is extra.

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But in this case, you get junior programs, things cost money.

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Unless we're going to offload some of those costs to advertising, which I'm guessing may not

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get a great response either.

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Well, I think the good part about the overall response is that as I call it, you're struck

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a nerve with the question, it's, you know, it, you asked one question, like you said,

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looking at all the different responses, how far it can go.

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Each one brings up a different set of variables, which makes it even more fun.

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That one, for instance, even your tennis general analogy, it's like running a tournament.

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The sponsorships pay for the event, the ticket sales are the money.

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Tennis channel doesn't exist if it's not for the cables overall, Comcast, paying them

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so much per subscriber.

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That's how it exists.

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Their profit is their sponsorships.

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They could not exist without, they need both of them.

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And that's how close tennis channels always from going out.

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They created this model that they thought we're going to be able to mimic the golf channel

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and command the same prices.

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And they've never have.

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And that's why it's always teetering on not seeing the tennis channel anymore.

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And that's why they look to pickable because they need something to sustain, to keep, it

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keep an audience growing because, let's face it.

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Look at the demographic of the NeilSons of the tennis channel.

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It is often less than one, which is pretty much for any station, just you're going to register

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of one just when being on, you know, being of register stations.

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So same thing with tennis and Atlanta, what the good part, we struck in there.

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We start going to earth.

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We hopefully, we might not have all the answers.

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We have ideas.

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We have a little more background in it so we could maybe throw some more out there.

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Again, great part about the kids.

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But here's a big problem that immediately from us being in it, screams that we've discussed, is

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the lack of leadership from the top that we don't have, this is why you have to go to

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a certified professional.

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Well that would weed out a lot of the guys who go into the subdivisions with their basket,

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offer a cheaper and people to say out of convenience and more economical will take it,

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not realizing what that you are.

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If you create issues that the child can work through at a 12 year old, they're probably not

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going to be able to work through as a 14 or 16 year old and then we're going to have to tear

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things down during a time that they should be getting more point play in advancing in that

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direction.

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There's always something, but I get the great part about just the discussion was creating the

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discussion and seeing where people go and that's what we're trying to do.

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This is the commonality, tennis is where we start, now we've gone into business and again,

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great thing from being involved in the business side is that it's a product.

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So a lot of the things that we face in tennis are similar to what a restaurant faces.

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So where can we help each other?

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What idea worked to increase your base in the restaurant business could that be transferable

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to tennis and you know, to maintain it.

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Yeah, to see where we can go.

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And then again, we have the commonality work and we go and it's fun.

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Yeah.

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Yeah.

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All right.

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Well, that was we got we got all the fun questions on the thread and you got a troll or two,

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actually less than I expected.

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But you know, this typical question is this sandbagging and what would you change like Gary's

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common and he's like I'd make my back hand better.

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Oh yeah, I can't complain about that.

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But if we wanted to, I want to go with one more and we both know Grovo and he makes a comment,

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stop trying to monetize this sport.

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And I asked him specifically, can you tell us more about what that means?

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Because again, we're making a business, right?

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He says companies come in and take over facilities, hire anyone looking to teach.

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They advertise the lights out of it and bring in kids by the bunches.

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The bulk of their budget is in advertising.

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They pay below market to teaching pros because of this.

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The quality is poor and kids don't get the proper start into the sport causing them to drop

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out at a later time.

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The turnover with pros and facilities is through the roof relatively speaking.

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And their only goal is to make profits.

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So I've got a couple of guesses that's to where that's targeted.

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How would you do you picture this as large management entities coming in trying to make money

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rather than a local coach running a facility who may not even be capable of handling it?

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I think there's a level of incompetence in every industry.

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So you can't rule that out.

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I would defend the other side just as vehemently just because it's tough guys.

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You look at, you think Harrison, okay, here's the city run facility.

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I know it's changed, but there was a time that Cobb County wouldn't allow the teaching

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pro or a teaching pro to actually be the director.

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So if you wanted to be the director at a Cobb County facility, you were not allowed to teach

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at that facility.

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So we all know tennis is a labor intensive business.

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So the margins are not that great to begin with.

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Then you throw in as you put in somebody of what we've talked about a third person or another

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entity that you are, whether it be the city, a landlord, a subdivision.

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I'm at Windamir.

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I don't get a salary.

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What my deal was, I get exclusivity.

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And I get a hundred percent of everything we generate and through that, I get guys to work with.

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Now I'm of the belief from a managerial standpoint in a business standpoint.

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I'm only as good as my number two.

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So I want the guys around, guys and guys around me to be as good or better than me, which

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means I got to spend more.

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So my margins for me, there's not, I don't eat off the other pros, like some of the other guys

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do and I get it.

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And I look at I had daughters in cheerleading and I laugh and my other daughter is in theater.

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And as I said, even though it's a different name, it's the same thing.

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They grow, they get excited.

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First time they've really seen a profit.

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They're not sure how to scale it.

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So the thing that was the enticement because the ratios were better, it was a little bit smaller,

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it wasn't as expensive.

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The reason you went then went there as they grow, well, those things go away.

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So now what is, can I raise the level of what I'm offering because I've grown yet, if you're

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the instructor or the owner saying, "Wow, this is the first time I've actually made money."

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And when it would be nice to take a family vacation.

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And it's tough.

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So again, it seems a lot of the questions you look at, they answer as obvious.

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There's so much goes into all of this, which is fun.

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Again, that's why we can discuss it.

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That's why get a perspective of somebody else and say, "Okay, this is what I think.

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So how can we make it better?"

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And again, I think it goes, we've talked to the teachers and they grow.

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How many goes to the idea of how well did you play?

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Where did you play?

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Well, you're a coach, bill balla check, didn't play football.

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Nick Balletary was a lawyer.

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All the stories that debunk the idea, your science teacher wasn't Einstein at school.

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Your biology teacher, but Mr. Cooperman was outstanding, and I'll never forget him.

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He taught me the value of work.

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We just tend to need to be cultivating that image of, well, this guy just walked off tour.

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Or can you go out and get a three, five, four, a player say, "Hey, you have a great app to

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you to work with kids.

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This is going to be what you do."

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But again, in a facility where you only have so many hours to eat, too many times, the guy,

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will just say, "I'll do it myself."

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Or, "I'll show do it herself."

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And that's not growing a program.

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That's being a head pro, that's, you know, making capitalizing and making, you're not growing

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the program.

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And I think that goes to a lot of people being in these positions because they're so much

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that so many of these guys probably shouldn't be in those positions to begin with.

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So, you know, two different variables playing into that.

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But again, fun discussions.

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Yeah, and I think go to us in the Atlanta, and his podcast can help bring what we would consider

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insider information.

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So, hey, we've been doing this for thousands of years.

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Here's how it's done.

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It doesn't mean it's done right, but here's how it's done.

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Here's why it's done.

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You know, what somebody wants to respond to, one of the professional men's players came out to it.

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I'm just don't understand why women don't make as much money.

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Okay.

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We can talk about, I don't want to touch the third rail right now.

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But, you can have those conversations, but we can also go to the out-of-player.

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Okay, here's why out is doing this.

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Hey, out-of-because we know people at out-of, and we can have that conversation.

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Maybe we can take some of that wisdom of the crowd and help the businesses in Atlanta be better

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at what they do.

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That's one thing to go to.

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And, of course, the podcast.

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And as usual, our 10 minute conversation turned into 40.

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There you go.

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And again, that's the beauty of Atlanta because we are so different.

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We have a subdivision.

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We have a private club.

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We have, and the amenity is a part of a golf club where most places are dealing with one

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or two.

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We're dealing with public parks that are, I mean, gosh, unbelievable public parks in foresight.

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That I just see from being a foresight and being in fault in that you sit there and go,

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oh my God, these baseball fields I die.

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If I could have played on these baseball fields, considering what I grew up with playing

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in the York when you're playing in March and it was freezing and the ground was rock hard and you

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were afraid for your life because you know what got a bad, bad, bad balance and you look

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at the facilities, these kids got to go, wow.

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So there is a lot of money being spent and that's great part.

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You get all this.

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So the level of the criticism goes up.

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This far, you know, it's a different criticism because you can't complain about the facilities.

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You can't complain about the public parks.

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They're amazing.

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They do a great job of getting you the facility.

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They've had a hard time figuring out how to administer it.

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They've been different methods through the years again, which makes it a completely different

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discussion.

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That's the fun part that we'll be able to get you private club tennis directors, neighborhood

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subdivision, tennis directors, the one or two tennis clubs, tennis directors and then go

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out of state to some place, I'll say, well, how do you do it in your state?

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Because when any entity always comes to Atlanta again, it's the head scratcher.

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We're different.

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We're different.

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Again, and I always go back to T2.

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That was such a, they took the time.

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I remember when he was starting, he had his little circle and he took his compass and he goes,

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this is all what covering.

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Everybody's like, well, go, here goes.

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No, we're going to start here.

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We're going to saturate it and we're going to gradually expand because we did not want to

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subject somebody to a 51 minute drive.

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As we talked about, we all think when we think initially of Atlanta tennis is the driving,

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the traffic.

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He did T2 did surveys and identified that sandbagging was really the number one issue with

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the majority of players.

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He was very conscious about scores and made you record your scores.

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that.

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That's, again, but he was a small business.

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He was a small business and not a huge.

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So they were able, they took their time and did a lot of the stuff right.

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As we talked, Alta is grown so exponentially and such a short period of time.

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If you really look at seeing the things, how do you stop the monster once it starts growing?

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Because Dawson, Dawsonville, where the north city of Forsyte, once in, hey, what are you

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talking about?

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I can throw their places.

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I can throw a rock.

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The outlet mall is Dawson and two miles south on 400 is coming.

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Why is that a difference?

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We've had a big deal.

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We've had a lot of drive in Dawsonville.

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Yeah, well.

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So it's a good idea.

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I'm going to be a city and can assault.

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So it is Alta's start to make regions.

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Right.

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And you know, start saying, okay, this is what we're going to do.

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And then we're all going to meet.

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You know, make it more of a tournament could be fun.

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You could actually enhance the experience by keeping everybody close and then say, okay,

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for the semi finals, we're going to come here and the finals, we're going to come here and

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make it even that way to address it.

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I'm sure we'll get any power, marketing director at Alta, we'll get her on the podcast and ask

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these questions.

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And what are you doing?

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We know that they, we spoke to them at length on pickleball and pickleballs coming out this

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summer.

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And we know during their discussions, they did a lot of market research to try to get it right.

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So it's not like it's their just stone spaghetti.

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They aren't out there talking to people trying to figure it out, trying to make the best experience

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for everybody.

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But we know it's ultimately the consumer that makes these calls and that's why it's great that

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we have these these forums and this ability to tap into the consumer and say, hey, you know,

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what bothers you?

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Well, there you have it.

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We want to thank Rejovenate for use of the studio.

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Be sure to check out Rejovenate.com.

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If you're interested to improve your fitness health and wellness and not interested in a commute

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to the gym, check out our other episodes.

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At Atlanta, tennispodcast.com.

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Also, find us on social media and let us know what you think about our conversations.

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Mostly, click that follow button, whether you listen periodically, you can follow us in your podcast

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app, which helps us keep the show going.

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And with that, we're out.

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[MUSIC]

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