How to make tennis more popular in America?

[freedomtennis]

Every day at school people only talk about football and basketball. When Federer won the aussie this year not a single person said a word about it. I even asked some kids and they said who's Murray?! How do we make it more popular?

 

[TennisCoachFLA]

Every day at school people only talk about football and basketball. When Federer won the aussie this year not a single person said a word about it. I even asked some kids and they said who's Murray?! How do we make it more popular?

1. Hire Hannah Montana, I Carly, and Taylor Swift to be tennis spokespeople instead of paying huge salaries to Pat Mac, the USTA ex-CEO and others. Kids today are star chasers, embrace it don't try to fight it. Run their ads during American Idol. That would get 1000000 kids into tennis.

2. Use the money to make tournaments and tennis lessons affordable and accessible to kids. The existing tennis kids should have to pay almost nothing to compete.

 

[freedomtennis]

1. Hire Hannah Montana, I Carly, and Taylor Swift to be tennis spokespeople instead of paying huge salaries to Pat Mac, the USTA ex-CEO and others. Kids today are star chasers, embrace it don't try to fight it. Run their ads during American Idol. That would get 1000000 kids into tennis.

2. Use the money to make tournaments and tennis lessons affordable and accessible to kids. The existing tennis kids should have to pay almost nothing to compete.

hahaha! Miley Cyrus! Your right my little sister watches those shows alot. It just shows how much they can infulence little kids.

 

[Snipergene]

You need an American to be at the top for tennis to be popular in America. Then you need Nike to promote that player.

Look at:

Tiger (pre-scandal)
Kobe
Lebron

All at the top, all Nike guys.

 

[T10s747]

1. Hire Hannah Montana, I Carly, and Taylor Swift to be tennis spokespeople instead of paying huge salaries to Pat Mac, the USTA ex-CEO and others. Kids today are star chasers, embrace it don't try to fight it. Run their ads during American Idol. That would get 1000000 kids into tennis.

2. Use the money to make tournaments and tennis lessons affordable and accessible to kids. The existing tennis kids should have to pay almost nothing to compete.

Young people have more influence on young players than Pat Mac that's for sure. I remember a few years ago when the USTA had other athletes promote tennis but the problem was that the ads were all in Tennis Magazine. None of the ads were in broad media. WTF were they thinking/ They have to think outside of the box to broaden the sport. They were preaching to the choir, haha! Man, that's what happens when a monopolist doesn't have to compete in the marketplace. There's no creativity in the USTA.

 

[Bash and Crash]

You need an American to be at the top for tennis to be popular in America. Then you need Nike to promote that player.

Look at:

Tiger (pre-scandal)
Kobe
Lebron

All at the top, all Nike guys.

yep, I guess having James Blake as your top American tennis athlete did not help Nike. Unfortunately, in the US we do have football, baseball, basketball, golf, hockey, x-gamers, to content with. In many other countries it's primarily soccer and tennis, and maybe some hoops. In Russia what do they have, Olympic sports, hockey, ?????. Also, as TCF said expense is an important issue, and the other tennis federations provide much more support to grass roots and players.

 

[Snipergene]

yep, I guess having James Blake as your top American tennis athlete did not help Nike. Unfortunately, in the US we do have football, baseball, basketball, golf, hockey, x-gamers, to content with. In many other countries it's primarily soccer and tennis, and maybe some hoops. In Russia what do they have, Olympic sports, hockey, ?????. Also, as TCF said expense is an important issue, and the other tennis federations provide much more support to grass roots and players.

By at the top in tennis, I meant winning multiple slams like Fed or Rafa. If either of them were American, Tennis would be a lot bigger in the US. IMHO

 

[TennisCoachFLA]

By at the top in tennis, I meant winning multiple slams like Fed or Rafa. If either of them were American, Tennis would be a lot bigger in the US. IMHO

Very true, in addition to the items I mentioned before, kids need players they relate to at the top. American kids aren't into lower ranked players.

The number of African American girls who play tennis is much higher than before the Williams sisters. After Sharapova hit the top of her fame the number of little girls at our club increased. Its a shame her injuries have fizzled her, like her or not she was helping tennis there for a while.

If Roddick was having a Sampras/Federer career AND married to the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit cover...forget about it, we would have waiting lists at every court!

 

[malakas]

In short make Federer american and make him guest in Hannah Montana.:mrgreen:

yep, I guess having James Blake as your top American tennis athlete did not help Nike. Unfortunately, in the US we do have football, baseball, basketball, golf, hockey, x-gamers, to content with. In many other countries it's primarily soccer and tennis, and maybe some hoops. In Russia what do they have, Olympic sports, hockey, ?????. Also, as TCF said expense is an important issue, and the other tennis federations provide much more support to grass roots and players.

Russia:FOOTBAL...................hockey....F1,bball,volleyball etc etc as many sports as usa.
What's x-gamers?

 

[stoble]

1) I think more people would watch tennis if they understood the scoring system. Most people who don't play the sport have no idea what is happening and can barely tell who is winning. It would be more to their liking if the 2 players just played up to 100 points or something. Blasphemy!
2) I think more people would play tennis if it weren't a country club sport and was more accessible like soccer, basketball, football, and baseball.

 

[notennis]

1. Hire Hannah Montana, I Carly, and Taylor Swift to be tennis spokespeople instead of paying huge salaries to Pat Mac, the USTA ex-CEO and others. Kids today are star chasers, embrace it don't try to fight it. Run their ads during American Idol. That would get 1000000 kids into tennis.

2. Use the money to make tournaments and tennis lessons affordable and accessible to kids. The existing tennis kids should have to pay almost nothing to compete.

Nice observation too bad what you would have is a bunch of teens wasting there parents money for what? Lets be real, the kids that are glued to the TV watching this stuff they most likely are the same kids who play video games and really could care less about sports let alone Tennis. Even if these kids played tennis they would be nothing more than a bunch of kids having there parents wasting money on the best cloths, racquets, etc and within a few months or eventually when they start to lose they will just go back to there computer and TV and forget Tennis. Sorry TCF, definately can't agree with you on this one unless of course you are just kidding........BTW, they don't have Tennis courts at elementary schools or middle schools and never will. They do have basketball hoops and grass fields. I rest my case......10000kids in tennis and 9,075 quit or don't make it at any level other than the parks and recreation facilities.......

 

[TennisCoachFLA]

Nice observation too bad what you would have is a bunch of teens wasting there parents money for what? Lets be real, the kids that are glued to the TV watching this stuff they most likely are the same kids who play video games and really could care less about sports let alone Tennis. Even if these kids played tennis they would be nothing more than a bunch of kids having there parents wasting money on the best cloths, racquets, etc and within a few months or eventually when they start to lose they will just go back to there computer and TV and forget Tennis. Sorry TCF, definately can't agree with you on this one unless of course you are just kidding........BTW, they don't have Tennis courts at elementary schools or middle schools and never will. They do have basketball hoops and grass fields. I rest my case......10000kids in tennis and 9,075 quit or don't make it at any level other than the parks and recreation facilities.......

But thats exactly what you want....parents blowing money on tennis instead of other things. That revenue helps all of tennis. And they are more likely to watch some tennis and also increase revenue for the sport.

Every kid at our club watches American Idol and uses the internet and play video games....and they also play 2 hours of tennis a day. They sit side by side with the couch potatos but are not couch potatos. Heck pro athletes watch those popular shows. Kids and athletes who exercise for hours a day watch those shows, so you can not generalize about it. The active kids who watch and are deciding which sports they like may give tennis a chance.

You are correct, 10000 start tennis and 9000 quit....just like they do every other sport. By age 13 70% of kids quit all sports anyway.

You are not trying to make it basketball or soccer, you never will. You are simply trying to increase your base of kids who play tennis. So if now 4% of sports playing kids play tennis, try to get it to 5%.

The point is that the $20 million wasted on high salaries at the USTA could have brought some more kids into tennis and kept some kids into who quit because they could not afford it. You have to appeal to the kids on their level, with ads and spokespeople they like.

 

[10isDad]

...BTW, they don't have Tennis courts at elementary schools or middle schools and never will. They do have basketball hoops and grass fields. I rest my case......10000kids in tennis and 9,075 quit or don't make it at any level other than the parks and recreation facilities.......

Major generalization. There are tennis courts at virtually every Phoenix area middle school.

 

[papatenis]

We can not rely on the USTA to promote tennis to the kids of America. They are only concerned about the US Open Tournament, and blowing millions on worthless programs.

Only way to make tennis more popular in America is to get elementary kids introduced to the game. (inner city to burbs)

Every year, our American colleges graduate tennis players (those that played college tennis) to society. Some of those tennis players go into teaching. Those that go into teaching can introduce tennis to where ever they end up teaching, usually at the elementary school level.

You don't need a tennis court, just a play ground where you can put up little mini nets. Just introduce the game, some might quit the next day, some may stick with it.

The idea is to just let the kids hold a racuqet and tennis ball. That's it, kids have wonderful imagination, they can even make up games with a racuqet and ball.

Tennis is a game where the better player is always encouraged to help the lesser, Lendl helping a teenage Sampras, Sampras helping a teenage Phillip King, myself playing with a junior...

 

[Bash and Crash]

The point is that the $20 million wasted on high salaries at the USTA could have brought some more kids into tennis and kept some kids into who quit because they could not afford it. You have to appeal to the kids on their level, with ads and spokespeople they like.

yes, and they will pay me $100-150 to start an adult 2.5 team, but nothing for juniors...

 

[onehandbh]

1. Hire Hannah Montana, I Carly, and Taylor Swift to be tennis spokespeople instead of paying huge salaries to Pat Mac, the USTA ex-CEO and others.

I met iCarly last year. She's very nice and a hard worker.
Amazing that these kids are able to learn so much each day
while restricted to short work days due to child labor laws.

She does have a pretty big following.

 

[TennisCoachFLA]

yes, and they will pay me $100-150 to start an adult 2.5 team, but nothing for juniors...

Ha, those adult 2.5 teams can drive you to drink!

 

[TennisNinja]

Make it cheaper, and have more prize money. The 100 ranked tennis player makes wayyyyy less then the "100 ranked" football player.

 

[CollegeBound]

I think you should emphasise the team aspect.

What we've found here in Australia is that kids typically reach a point at 13-15 where social activities become more attractive than sporting ones. However, when they're playing a team sport they will typically push over that hump because of the social aspect that is involved in their sport. When they get past that point it seems that regular participation in sport becomes an ingrained part of who they are as a person. If you don't keep them involved during that 13-15 bracket their identity is formed without sport as a major component (not counting sport watching).

As for the professional game, I say that the USTA should either increase the speed of the court surfaces or reduce the amount of bounce. Generalising quite badly (all any of us can do), I think Americans, like Australians, enjoy watching an attacking contest which involves a high degree of physicality. The closest you'll get on a tennis court is one guy attacking the net while another guy tries to get it past him. Two guys staying at the back of the court and belting the ball as hard as they can does have some appeal but I think it's limited. There's nothing to make you stay and watch because you know that if you leave for an hour or so, when you come back they'll be in the same positions doing exactly the same thing. The margin for error, thereby the risk, is limited for that type of tennis and, with risk equating to excitement, there's less appeal.

 

[Icedorb217]

You cant really do much ( I know im a junior player in the US ) at my school only about 6 people out of 1200 play and 2 are quitting and 1 just started....

 

[TennisCoachFLA]

I think you should emphasise the team aspect.

What we've found here in Australia is that kids typically reach a point at 13-15 where social activities become more attractive than sporting ones. However, when they're playing a team sport they will typically push over that hump because of the social aspect that is involved in their sport. When they get past that point it seems that regular participation in sport becomes an ingrained part of who they are as a person. If you don't keep them involved during that 13-15 bracket their identity is formed without sport as a major component (not counting sport watching).

As for the professional game, I say that the USTA should either increase the speed of the court surfaces or reduce the amount of bounce. Generalising quite badly (all any of us can do), I think Americans, like Australians, enjoy watching an attacking contest which involves a high degree of physicality. The closest you'll get on a tennis court is one guy attacking the net while another guy tries to get it past him. Two guys staying at the back of the court and belting the ball as hard as they can does have some appeal but I think it's limited. There's nothing to make you stay and watch because you know that if you leave for an hour or so, when you come back they'll be in the same positions doing exactly the same thing. The margin for error, thereby the risk, is limited for that type of tennis and, with risk equating to excitement, there's less appeal.

Your idea of the team concept is excellent. The USTA does offer that.

http://jrteamtennis.usta.com/

But our problem is the number of kids getting into tennis to begin with, once we get them into it, then we can push the team concept to retain them.