TWBARFs and Other Issues

Howdy. The office is all but abandoned, and New Yorkers are fleeing the city in droves to get an early start on the Christmas holidays. Don't know what y'all are doing, but Lisa, Cowboy Luke and I are going to spend the weekend with our friend Paul, in Washington DC. He's just back from almost two years in Iraq (he's with the State Dept.) and we have a lot to catch up on.

I plan to take the little cowpoke to the mall in Washington, one of my favorite places on the planet. I am a big fan of the Memorial to the Korean War; maybe I'll write about our visit next week.  Then, on Christmas Eve, we'll drive over to Easton, Md., to spend the holiday with Lisa's dad and stepmom. I'll be back in New York on Wednesday, but will have a Christmas Eve post for you (as well as one over at ESPN).

Meanwhile, there are a few odds and ends I want to tie up. And for tomorrow, I will publish a post that will enable some lucky reader to sample some succulent, prime steaks from the ranch operated by former doubles standout Alex O'Brien's family. So drop by tomorrow to check that out; if you win, you might be able to get the steaks in time for your New Year's celebration - and if you don't win, you might want to order some steaks anyway!

So. . .

There was a lot of talk earlier today in the Pete and Roger post about whether or not the recent Asian exhibition matches were "fixed" (in order to provide entertainment value), and I want to clear up a few misconceptions I found in those enthusiastic posts. I know how exhibitions are fixed; I've been in rooms when people have discussed it. I think you need to know how it's done before you start making accusations or drawing inferences or conclusions.

Usually, the agreement is to make the match "competitive", meaning that whoever wins the first set allows the opponent to win the second. The players usually tread water for most of the third, but it is always (in my experience)understood that, as the end of the match draws near, all bets are off. That is, there is no pre-determined winner - just a pre-determined degree of closeness in the match. That's what fixing an exo is all about - making sure the customers get sufficient "entertainment value."

Personally , I think it's preposterous to think the exos were fixed, and I'm surprised how many people buy into it, and don't see how badly that reflects on both Roger and Pete. On the whole, I also think that TWBARFs (Those Who Worship Before the Altar of Roger Federer) often make Federer less appealing to the rest of us, because they are so shrill and defensive on his behalf. Sorry folks, but some of you reallyl asked for it.

Okay, let's move on:

I had a call yesterday from Kris Dent, the ATP's Corporate Communications Director. He called from home (in London), in the evening, while chasing around his toddler, who was taking his (her?) first steps. The ATP folks read my recent ESPN post, in which I awarded them Dumbest Idea by a Major Sports Organization honors for their plan to name future tournaments for the number of ranking points they represent (1000s, 500s, and 250s). Chris basically said the ATP has  made no decision in that regard yet, nor has it canned the "Masters" concept. In fact, present-day Masters Series events may very well end up being called something like, "Toronto Masters Series 1000" (as opposed to "Toronto 1000").

"Whatever the new brand identity will be, we will want them (fans) to know how the event in question affects points and rankings," Kris told me. "We've been looking at the car industry and how that works. People seem to know the difference in designations like 250, 500, or 1000 when it comes to cars, so that's something to look at. And with numbers, there is no language problem. They're easily understood."

I understand what Kris is driving at (heh-heh) but, as I told him, I find it very hard to imagine that you can use the name of an event to explain how the tour and rankings work, unless you have a really streamlined tour and ranking system (which is not the case). That is, you will always have to know going in that the tour has different level events if you're going to understand that a 1000 and a 500 are different, no? How are you going to have a name that gives the proverbial "casual fan" that level of built-in information?  I just don't see it.

However, I will say that the ATP isn't just casting about, trying to come up with a solution. They are doing due diligence, with market research and surveys. That may leave you cold, but it is how people do business these days. As Kris later wrote to me:

I don't know, maybe I'm stupid, but (without having done any market research) it seems to me that something like the Miami Masters Gold, the Hamburg Silver and Sopot Bronze intuitively tells us a lot more than Miami Masters 1000, Hamburg 500, and Sopot 250 - especially if we have no prior knowledge of how the tour values different events, or how it awards ranking points.

Here's something good, though. Kris promised that he's going to try to set up an exclusive TW Question-and-Answer session with Etienne de Villiers himself. That is, you will be able to submit questions to Etienne (perhaps even live) and he will answer in real time. I'll keep you posted on that.

BTW, I will say this for the ATP - they acted swiftly and transparently to kill that stupid round-robin experiment, and in the end it was a "no foul, no harm" situation.

The third call I had was from Chris Widmaier, the US Open's head PR guy. He wanted me to share a few items of cheer pertaining to US tennis with you all for the holiday season, and I figured why the hail not. So here they are:

1- All-Time US Open Attendance Record: The 2007 US Open final attendance total of 715,587 far surpassed the previous all-time high of 659,538 set in 2005. US Open attendance has grown by more than 100,000 since 2000. Total attendance of all pro tennis events in North America topped 2.8 million.

· Record-Breaking Viewership for US Open Series: US Open Series television viewership topped 46 million for the first time, more than doubling in the four years since the Series launch. In total, 121 million viewers tuned in to the US Open and US Open Series tournaments.

· Fastest-Growing Participation of any Major Sport Since 2000: More than 25 million Americans are now playing tennis. This increase in participation has fueled the four best consecutive years of growth for industry sales since the 1970’s.

· All-Time High USTA Membership: More than 720,000 members for the first time in history.

· United States Wins Davis Cup: The U.S. captured its first Davis Cup title in 12 years.

Well, this is all good news, especially that bit about the improving numbers for viewership of the US Open Series. I have always been a big fan of that "Series" approach, which brings to mind something else that Kris Dent told me: The ATP believes that by moving the year-end championships back to London (they will be held in London's 02 arena starting in 2009), it will revive the fall European circuit - making it, in essence, a Fall Indoor Series culminating with a big celebration of the game.

That's good news, too.