ATP Bonus Episode: “Germans aren’t funny”

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

and anyone else we find interesting.

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

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

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

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

Have a listen.

We've been talking recently about the Atlanta event.

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

in much argument as to which one is more successful.

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

that's always an issue.

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

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

said, "Oh, you know what?

Here are some ways you guys could have brute."

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

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

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

for many, many years.

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

event.

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

said, "We have plans for your tournament."

And here are the plans.

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

play somewhere else.

And everyone was shocked.

Everyone was shocked.

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

this event.

Let's see what they say then."

That's what they did.

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

calling for it to be the fifth grand slam now.

So it's money that talks.

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

Or can flourish.

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

So where is he applying the money?

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

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

we would get higher players."

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

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

be the salespeople."

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

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

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

He added another stadium.

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

I think they bought the neighboring property with the church.

I think they bought that property and relocated that church.

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

food and beverage area.

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

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

It comes with a one-negative.

The prices have gone up.

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

have to walk.

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

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

And it was $19.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The cost is going up so much.

It's unbelievable.

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

No.

They're doing the same thing.

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

It's different, but you're right.

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

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

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

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

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

So it could be a win win for everybody.

Don't blow your opportunity.

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

events.

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

But.

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

You know the first one, right?

We will be times better than the USTA.

It's the first unpoplished mission statement.

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

never have pickle bottle in it.

We are taking it.

There you go.

So much for unbiased journalists.

Well, I like pickle bottle.

Don't get me wrong.

I don't play it.

I have played it.

I don't play it.

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

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

I have my own tennis group for 25 years now.

And that's that's fine.

They like the way I set up their matches.

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

own damn courts.

Of course.

But yeah.

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

Many of my friends are pickle bottleers.

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

about tennis.

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

Rich is head.

No, no, it's fine.

Many of my favorite people are pickle bottleers.

Yep.

I can still like you.

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

I stay with a good friend of mine every year.

And she is a pickle bottle coach.

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

Coachella Belly Desert area.

Okay.

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

No pickle bone for Congar Sports and Cities Lines.

Right.

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

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

You just, that's not what you do.

No.

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

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

ball fine.

No problem.

Maybe I'll be playing pickle ball by then.

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

Yes, Ecuador.

That's the country to to live in.

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

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

the courts there.

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

Maybe at the ocean on the ocean.

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

Thank you.

Fileness.

We've got family in Keto and in Viacil.

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

And we've looked at the weather.

We've looked at places we want to be.

We're connected with my stepdaughter.

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

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

Rheabamba.

It's called Kadaha Bamba.

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

I'm giving directions.

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

Keto and Viacil.

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

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

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

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

If you go closer to Columbia exactly.

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

We're pushing on go 10s.

We're pushing on the podcast.

We'll get city slams here.

We'll be killing it.

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

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

One show, goodbye.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Much less of what California is doing.

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

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

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

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

We don't usually have a professional tournament segment.

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

There's some anecdotes.

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

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

I called it drop in tennis.

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

And why not carpool to Indian Wells?

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

And we ended up driving in nine cars.

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

That was my little scoffle.

That was something California,

Chinese players they liked cars.

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

Atlanta we can relate.

You can relate.

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

cookers these machines that repressurize use tennis balls.

I forgot the name of the company.

I'm Nebraska I think.

So they had this competition.

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

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

entire day in the B&B Pariva luxury suite.

Really?

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

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

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

I incentivized my tennis pro friends telling them if you,

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

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

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

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

2000 balls ahead of me.

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

I thought I would never win this thing anyways.

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

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

can and ship them.

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

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

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

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

whenever we needed to.

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

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

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

1000 and it was for a try level league players.

didn't have a national path to championship.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Or at least like the president or something.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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