People in this country don’t follow tennis because they don’t play tennis. Their sons, grandsons, nieces, nephews, cousins—no relative they know plays tennis, nor do any of their friends or acquaintances, with few exceptions.
As you travel through rural U.S.A. and you stop in typical county seat community, you will see many homes with a basketball hoop fixed over the garage door. You will see parks with baseball, softball, and even some recently converted soccer fields. At the high school, you will find a large football field tucked neatly within an all-weather track.
But rarely will you find a tennis court. If you do, it may well be cement with weeds growing between the cracks, often with no net or a severely dilapidated one. Tennis is not part of the sporting landscape in most U.S. communities.
People in this country love sports. We love to talk about them, poll them, and fantasize about them. We have more barfly analysts and Monday morning quarterbacks than ever. We know our football—about the value of an I-formation or a spread offense or why we would want to employ an on-side kick.
We also recognize a full-court press and a zone defense in basketball. We can articulate the need for a squeeze play in baseball. But just ask anyone—even those who should know—how ranking points are awarded in professional tennis, and then you will understand why tennis will never sell in major markets in the U.S.
But instead of decrying the absence of a huge market—here’s a thought! Appease the market you have and make it grow by giving us what we want! There are thousands of people who wish to watch tennis, who recognize and applaud the amazing athletes who populate the sport, who know tennis is at the apex of arduous athletic competition.
Currently we are forced often to follow matches in progress with nothing more than blinking scores on computer screens. We don’t mind digital media. We will watch matches on our computer screens as long as the image is fixed and large enough to see.
Has a tennis fan no rights at all? Is it fair that we should be denied access to the sport we love? It is complex, but it all boils down to supply and demand. We demand more tennis coverage, so someone please supply it!
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