Court Fees

MRfStop

MRfStop

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There is a team here locally that has $40 court fees for non-members. The team captain is paying over half ($25) of the court fees for players that are not members of the tennis club to play on his team.

Is there any thing in the USTA Adult League rules against this? Seems a bit unethical but with USTA there are several things that are a gray area.
 
CosmosMpower said:
LOL that is JV league in terms of bribery from captains to get good players to play on their team.
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That is basically what is happening. It is a 4.0 18&over league and the captain is paying for players from a different town (his team is in Macon, and the players are from Warner Robins) to play on his team.
 
MRfStop said:
That is basically what is happening. It is a 4.0 18&over league and the captain is paying for players from a different town (his team is in Macon, and the players are from Warner Robins) to play on his team.
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Don't think there's a geographic restriction as long as you're in the same region.
 
There are country clubs here that waive all court fees for top league players. Some that have membership requirements will court a player (pun intended!) with a free social membership during the season.

I am certain as a captain if I wanted to pay for my teams to have practice with a pro that it would be fine.
 
MRfStop said:
There is a team here locally that has $40 court fees for non-members. The team captain is paying over half ($25) of the court fees for players that are not members of the tennis club to play on his team.

Is there any thing in the USTA Adult League rules against this? Seems a bit unethical but with USTA there are several things that are a gray area.
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Generally, I'm not aware of any National regulation that precludes this. However, I believe in some areas where this has been abused similar to what you described in your follow up posts, local rules may have been established to try to put a stop to this. How can it be enforced? I'm not sure ...

Some areas also have rules about limiting players on a roster from out of the local area as a way to prevent super team formation scenarios.
 
MRfStop said:
There is a team here locally that has $40 court fees for non-members. The team captain is paying over half ($25) of the court fees for players that are not members of the tennis club to play on his team.

Is there any thing in the USTA Adult League rules against this? Seems a bit unethical but with USTA there are several things that are a gray area.
Click to expand...

Wow. Serous question: Why would anyone do this for any reason? Makes no financial sense to me. I suppose the only thing I can think of is a perceived indirect 'marketing' effort that may be gained by a club pro using league success to promote the club name in the community...but then again, I say 'perceived', because tennis being the niche/subculture activity that it is, anyone who is already in this market knows the name, and is either 'buying' from them or not...

Adult leagues is a recreational, non-revenue generating activity for the participants...so paying people to play really sounds like some seriously misplaced sense of goal-setting imo...just weird. If I'm missing something I'd love to know it...

I can see some wealthy benefactor putting up money to create a weekly round-robin or some such thing to bring the game to new players, or subsidising people who genuinely cannot afford or do not have resources/infrastructure to play -- these are altruistic/charitable ventures...but to pay people to play on a adult league to beat a bunch of other people, at least half of whom participate as they would in a bowling or softball league (ie might be drunk, tired, purely social, whatever)...that's very odd to me...
 
WhiteOut said:
Wow. Serous question: Why would anyone do this for any reason? Makes no financial sense to me. I suppose the only thing I can think of is a perceived indirect 'marketing' effort that may be gained by a club pro using league success to promote the club name in the community...but then again, I say 'perceived', because tennis being the niche/subculture activity that it is, anyone who is already in this market knows the name, and is either 'buying' from them or not...

Adult leagues is a recreational, non-revenue generating activity for the participants...so paying people to play really sounds like some seriously misplaced sense of goal-setting imo...just weird. If I'm missing something I'd love to know it...

I can see some wealthy benefactor putting up money to create a weekly round-robin or some such thing to bring the game to new players, or subsidising people who genuinely cannot afford or do not have resources/infrastructure to play -- these are altruistic/charitable ventures...but to pay people to play on a adult league to beat a bunch of other people, at least half of whom participate as they would in a bowling or softball league (ie might be drunk, tired, purely social, whatever)...that's very odd to me...
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Because the captain wants to win. A lot.
 
The bigger question is how can the USTA allow facilities to charge court fees to opposing players?

If a team wants to have matches at a certain facility, they should be required to cover the costs. Not the visiting team.
 
Creighton said:
The bigger question is how can the USTA allow facilities to charge court fees to opposing players?

If a team wants to have matches at a certain facility, they should be required to cover the costs. Not the visiting team.
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That's how it works out here. Home team is charged court fees. I have yet to have a home team ask visiting team to chip in.
 
Creighton said:
The bigger question is how can the USTA allow facilities to charge court fees to opposing players?

If a team wants to have matches at a certain facility, they should be required to cover the costs. Not the visiting team.
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My clubs and neighboring private clubs have always let visiting teams play for free when they come to play USTA leagues. It has always been weird for me to see on this forum that visiting players have to pay court fees in addition to the league fees they pay to the USTA.
 
WhiteOut said:
Wow. Serous question: Why would anyone do this for any reason?
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The captains who do this usually have two traits.

1) They are financially well-off and the money they spend on league fees or other team expenses is trivial for them.
2). They are usually successful people in their profession who love to compete and win. They are now 50+ in age, are semi-retired or retired and have decided that one of the things that makes them happy is winning USTA leagues in team competition.

When I captain USTA league teams, I spend my own money bringing good quality wine and beer to home matches, throwing a big party at my house at the end of the season, paying coaches to come and drill our teams in doubles etc. For me, it is worth it because of the friendships we make on the team and the shared sense of accomplishment we get when we win the local league. It also gives me a large social group of players who want to play with me so that I can play tennis every day. But, I don’t recruit players from outside my club, don’t pay anyone else’s fees, kick out bad sportsmen off the team and don’t tolerate intentional sandbagging to prevent being bumped up. I do spend a few hours before every match researching opposing team’s players/lineups on tennisrecord or TLS and game planning my lineup and order.

I guess every captain has their own limits of what they are willing to do to win.
 
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socallefty said:
The captains who do this usually have two traits.

1) They are financially well-off and the money they spend on league fees or other team expenses is trivial for them.
2). They are usually successful people in their profession who love to compete and win. They are now 50+ in age, are semi-retired or retired and have decided that one of the things that makes them happy is winning USTA leagues in team competition.

When I captain USTA league teams, I spend my own money bringing good quality wine and beer to home matches, throwing a big party at my house at the end of the season, paying coaches to come and drill our teams in doubles etc. For me, it is worth it because of the friendships we make on the team and the shared sense of accomplishment we get when we win the local league. It also gives me a large social group of players who want to play with me so that I can play tennis every day. But, I don’t recruit players from outside my club, don’t pay anyone else’s fees, kick out bad sportsmen off the team and don’t tolerate intentional sandbagging to prevent being bumped up. I do spend a few hours before every match researching opposing team’s players/lineups on tennisrecord or TLS and game planning my lineup and order.

I guess every captain has their own limits of what they are willing to do to win.
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I'm a Type A competitive person, nearing the category you describe in #2, and I cap 2-3 teams per session. All the things you describe regarding drinks/party etc...I totally get that. I also happen to do a party in the summer. That's a totally different thing entirely, than paying people's fees to play on my team. And I also enjoy all the benefits you describe (drills with pros, a large dance-card to have playing partners at hand any time, beers after matches), without having to spend a dime of my own money beyond what everyone else is paying...so I'm at a complete loss as to why anyone would pay *other* people's fees to win a rec league in *anything*...just seems misplaced to me. Beating a team doing that type of thing would be uber-satisfying...none like that in my district.
 
Creighton said:
The bigger question is how can the USTA allow facilities to charge court fees to opposing players?

If a team wants to have matches at a certain facility, they should be required to cover the costs. Not the visiting team.
Click to expand...

I've never heard of this either. In my district, the association gets court times from the clubs to accommodate league play. The clubs keep the match fees collected from each player (both home and away). The player pays a registration fee to be on the team ($30), then pays $14 to the club hosting the match on match-night. (In the summer it's $50 registration / $0 per match). There are 'club-based' teams who may choose to make their own rules as to who can be on their teams (ie members only, or some limit to non-members). But for the actual match fees, it's all administered by the local association and the DLC.
 
socallefty said:
The captains who do this usually have two traits.

1) They are financially well-off and the money they spend on league fees or other team expenses is trivial for them.
2). They are usually successful people in their profession who love to compete and win. They are now 50+ in age, are semi-retired or retired and have decided that one of the things that makes them happy is winning USTA leagues in team competition.

When I captain USTA league teams, I spend my own money bringing good quality wine and beer to home matches, throwing a big party at my house at the end of the season, paying coaches to come and drill our teams in doubles etc. For me, it is worth it because of the friendships we make on the team and the shared sense of accomplishment we get when we win the local league. It also gives me a large social group of players who want to play with me so that I can play tennis every day. But, I don’t recruit players from outside my club, don’t pay anyone else’s fees, kick out bad sportsmen off the team and don’t tolerate intentional sandbagging to prevent being bumped up. I do spend a few hours before every match researching opposing team’s players/lineups on tennisrecord or TLS and game planning my lineup and order.

I guess every captain has their own limits of what they are willing to do to win.
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I do the same thing with pizza and beers occasionally, but it's not recruit people to play. I just like pizza and beer after a match sometimes and enjoy sharing. Not begging/paying for anyone to play. They either want the competition or they don't.
 
Cashman said:
lolwut?
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in our district/local, the league assn runs different sessions, but only the summer session runs both 18 and 40 flights, so i run three teams in the summer, and 2 in the other sessions. It's basically the same pool of about 25-30 guys, and they all know how I operate, so it's actually pretty easy. I've gotten to where I only spend about 15-30 mins a week setting lineups and entering scores. Covid has made it a ton easier since no one is traveling for work.
 
WhiteOut said:
I'm a Type A competitive person, nearing the category you describe in #2, and I cap 2-3 teams per session. All the things you describe regarding drinks/party etc...I totally get that. I also happen to do a party in the summer. That's a totally different thing entirely, than paying people's fees to play on my team. And I also enjoy all the benefits you describe (drills with pros, a large dance-card to have playing partners at hand any time, beers after matches), without having to spend a dime of my own money beyond what everyone else is paying...so I'm at a complete loss as to why anyone would pay *other* people's fees to win a rec league in *anything*...just seems misplaced to me. Beating a team doing that type of thing would be uber-satisfying...none like that in my district.
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I agree. There used to be two douchebxg captains who did shady things in our county and they used to recruit mercenary players (usually self-rated ex-college players) from OC, LA and Riverside counties to play in the local OC league. Both of them were retired guys who captained three or four teams per season (4.0 and 4.5 men in 18+ or 40+ depending on the season, mixed and senior 55+ men) and their main selling point was that they would tell players it was their best chance to go to Nationals if they played on their teams. I don’t know if they paid league fees for other players though. One of them would tell me openly that I was an idiot for not letting my players intentionally sandbag and lose matches as my good players would get bumped up within a year while his would play for several years at the same level - I would always jokingly tell him that I would ask the IRS to audit him as I bet he cheated on his taxes also.

For many years, it was almost impossible to compete against their teams and the rest of us would rarely win the OC league - I’ve captained a team to Sectionals only once. The rest of us would get extra satisfaction from beating their teams during the season and usually we would need all our best players to be available. One of them seems to have stopped captaining and I don’t know if he got banned or moved away. I always wondered if they had anything else going on in their lives. I guess I’ve heard of captains in Dallas and Houston who do the same thing also, but I’m sure there are others around the country also.
 
My team won the league 7-1 last season and lost the one match to the team that is paying court fees for their players. I didn’t have my best team out there and the other captain was so happy that he got the win...we had already won the league by that time 5-0 with three matches left.
 
MRfStop said:
My team won the league 7-1 last season and lost the one match to the team that is paying court fees for their players. I didn’t have my best team out there and the other captain was so happy that he got the win...we had already won the league by that time 5-0 with three matches left.
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good for you! the thing i've learned about these leagues, is you can do all this crazy stuff, and still not make it...injuries, jobs, moves, etc all contribute, so advancing (even into sectionals) is catching lighting in a bottle.

if i were getting paid to run teams and advance? sure, that would mean a different type of commitment. but to go full-pirate in a rec league? it's laughable. i almost wish we had one of these teams in my local...my guys would probably all show up in uni-****s and play wrong-handed just to mess with 'em...and get to the beer quicker.
 
MRfStop said:
There is a team here locally that has $40 court fees for non-members. The team captain is paying over half ($25) of the court fees for players that are not members of the tennis club to play on his team.

Is there any thing in the USTA Adult League rules against this? Seems a bit unethical but with USTA there are several things that are a gray area.
Click to expand...
mrf

similar but not as blatant occurrences here in the SFBay area, where club teams recruit "players" ie sandbaggers waiving the
usual membership or court fees associated with the club.
i thought recruiting unranked "players" was a bit questionable, but perfectly legal.
i guess some people want to win by bending rules.
another reason to stop playing league tennis and stick to social tennis

z
 
WhiteOut said:
good for you! the thing i've learned about these leagues, is you can do all this crazy stuff, and still not make it...injuries, jobs, moves, etc all contribute, so advancing (even into sectionals) is catching lighting in a bottle.

if i were getting paid to run teams and advance? sure, that would mean a different type of commitment. but to go full-pirate in a rec league? it's laughable. i almost wish we had one of these teams in my local...my guys would probably all show up in uni-****s and play wrong-handed just to mess with 'em...and get to the beer quicker.
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This is the 3rd thing that this captain has done that I believe is against the captaining code.

Self rating juniors as 3.5 when they've gone to a high level junior academy for the past 5 years and won a state championship in high school
Registering their team after the deadline and asking for an extension every season
Paying their nonmember's court fees
 
WhiteOut said:
so I'm at a complete loss as to why anyone would pay *other* people's fees to win a rec league in *anything*...just seems misplaced to me. Beating a team doing that type of thing would be uber-satisfying...none like that in my district.
Click to expand...

The same reason why people get upset and complain about "sandbaggers". You call it a rec league and sure that's true. No one here is playing in Wimbledon. But if winning really doesn't matter, people wouldn't keep score to begin with. Despite what you say, winning matters, even for you. Different people go to different lengths to win and we can't judge.

To you, someone paying for people's fees may seem weird. But to someone who plays tennis socially, the teams who practice 2-3 times a week paying for courts may seem weird. Besides, for someone who is well off, court fees are a rounding error in their finances.
 
I've heard of captains that cover team fees and court fees for ringers... I don't think there are any rules against this (and no way to enforce them even if they exist), and I guess if you are a super-competitive captain and money is not an issue then...

Personally I would not do it because it would be unsatisfying to win that way - doubly so, first for needing to bring in outside ringers, and second for needing to bribe them to play on my team.

However I have on occasion covered some costs for players on my team; usually younger guys for which the money can be an issue. It can get pretty costly between team fees, club fees, court costs, and also we usually split the cost of post-match refreshments. If I get the sense that someone is struggling a bit financially then I'll try get some of those costs covered (and some of the other guys on the team will chip in to help as well).
 
I'm on a team that will legit compete for a city championship this year and I'm going through the roster and imagining the reaction of my teammates to another captain poaching them with the offer of covering their league fees. It's nothing but lol guys.
 
Matthew ATX said:
I'm on a team that will legit compete for a city championship this year and I'm going through the roster and imagining the reaction of my teammates to another captain poaching them with the offer of covering their league fees. It's nothing but lol guys.
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Poaching guys to beat my team is the reason why the captain is paying for their court fees.

That country club has a lot of 3.0-4.0 women’s play out of it and a couple of men’s teams. Most of the men’s teams are 3.0 and 3.5. Not many 4.0 teams. The reason is because the CC doesn’t have many members that are 4.0. And those that aren’t members are allowed two seasons as non-members before they are forced to become members or not play on that team.
 
MRfStop said:
Poaching guys to beat my team is the reason why the captain is paying for their court fees.

That country club has a lot of 3.0-4.0 women’s play out of it and a couple of men’s teams. Most of the men’s teams are 3.0 and 3.5. Not many 4.0 teams. The reason is because the CC doesn’t have many members that are 4.0. And those that aren’t members are allowed two seasons as non-members before they are forced to become members or not play on that team.
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I understand that, and I'm laughing at it. If $15 is all it takes for another captain to steal your players, I think that says something.
 
zipplock said:
... too much ...
It is actually pathetic that winning a rec league would mean SO much to a person(s) that they would PAY a hired thug to win their battles for them. Weak sauce.
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What if the captain had a huge bet on the line and winning the bet would be profitable for him?
 
MRfStop said:
There is a team here locally that has $40 court fees for non-members. The team captain is paying over half ($25) of the court fees for players that are not members of the tennis club to play on his team.

Is there any thing in the USTA Adult League rules against this? Seems a bit unethical but with USTA there are several things that are a gray area.
Click to expand...
I play for a team from another club. I have to pay $20 each time I go there to practice. However, for an official USTA match, I only pay $15 which is the league visitor fee. If I'm lucky, for practice, I sometimes get my practice visitor fee waived if it's a veteran front desk person that knows I play on one of their competitive teams.
 
Traffic said:
I play for a team from another club. I have to pay $20 each time I go there to practice. However, for an official USTA match, I only pay $15 which is the league visitor fee. If I'm lucky, for practice, I sometimes get my practice visitor fee waived if it's a veteran front desk person that knows I play on one of their competitive teams.
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Wow ... would have thought a club would have some consideration for it's own league team members.
I have played for a posh club's team when not a member. I payed their league dues (about $100 for the season) and then never had court fees for the season or the team practices.

There is a club in town that allowed non-club members to be on the team BUT they were not allowed to play home matches, only away matches. They suddenly found themselves having a hard time fielding teams ... the rule changed.
 
I was once given a brand new pair of Nike Court Ballistic shoes if I played in 2 mixed doubles matches haha.... first one rescheduled due to weather like 10 mins before the match start time time 2nd one ended up being a default by the opponents. Shoes were still given to me anyway since I made it to the location to play but I didn't hit a single ball.
 
PURETENNISsense said:
I was once given a brand new pair of Nike Court Ballistic shoes if I played in 2 mixed doubles matches haha.... first one rescheduled due to weather like 10 mins before the match start time time 2nd one ended up being a default by the opponents. Shoes were still given to me anyway since I made it to the location to play but I didn't hit a single ball.
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Did they give you the matching skirt?
 
shazbot said:
You gotta be quite the loser if you are going to use your own money to cover players court time JUST to win in 4.0 recreational tennis.
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why must they be a loser? the entire season of coverage is probably the cost of one fancy dinner with friends and/or family... just another form of socializing. if it made me happy, and i liked they folks i was hanging with, i'd do it... it's not that big a deal.
 
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