OFF: How Can Tennis’ Popularity Be Improved?
Article by Aaress Lawless on Feb 8, 2008 | Print |
Here in the United States, tennis’ popularity sadly lags far behind baseball, football, basketball, and in some states, even soccer.
Shedding the rich, all-white, upper-middle-class image has not been easy for tennis, but great inroads have been made to make the sport reachable to the masses. The advent of internet has helped some, although tennis is still far from where the sport needs to be on the public radar.
Today’s Open Forum Friday discussion is your chance to offer some practical ideas on how tennis can improve its popularity.
I will be following this OFF discussion with a post of my own on this subject later next week, but in the meanwhile, I’d like to read your thoughts.
Those of you who have been lurking for weeks, months, or even years, this is an excellent opportunity to step out of the shadows!
Everyone, have a great weekend!
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Will.I.AM | Feb 9, 2008 | Reply
Tennis is an inherently boring sport. To a lot of people, the scoring is confusing, and it’s a difficult game to learn how to play.
That being said, I think we need more storylines and headliners in Tennis. The late 90’s and early 00’s were great years for women’s tennis. You had Venus and Serena vs. The World, Martina Hingis vs. Serena, Venus, Richard, Amelie. Capriati made a huge comeback. Jana Novatna, Sanchez-Vicaria, Steffic Graf were all active on the tour. Those were exciting times.
We need some young talent to come in and shake things up, something we haven’t had since 2004 with Sharapova. This young group of tennis players bring no excitement nor drama. That’s what Americans look for. Even I get bored with tournaments after Venus, Serena, and Justine are out.
The players should be encouraged to bring some of that behind the scenes drama to the forefront. Like that time when all the Russians were coming up, but they really couldn’t stand each other. That should’ve gotten played up in the press.
The game is boring now. Except for shot spot and the Serbians (who are wearing on my nerves!) there aren’t really any interesting story lines in tennis. And with Venus, Serena, Amelie, Justine, and Lindsay getting closer to retirement, it’s gonna be a long five years. And then Sharapova will win 16 grandslams in a row because there will be no one to challenge her (Just like Steffi Graf). I’m so depressed right now!
Dapxin | Feb 9, 2008 | Reply
Good Q.
I don’t think we’ll ever get a time when Tennis will be as popular or followed the way of Basketball in US, or football in the rest of the world.
As william noted already- the game is inherently technical. Think basketball, most people consider boring despite being easier to “interpret” without reading manuals compared to Tennis.
The single differential factor of Tennis is that its a one-man-show. Whereas, I ‘d follow manchester Utd football team, week in week out even if Ronaldo doesn’t play, once the main on-court dramatists, are out of a tournament, you hardly get any push to keep on watching….The same goes for the LA lakers.
So to answer the question, I think what can be done includes getting more mainstream media coverage of events, sponsoring the game + covering it at hi-school levels, and maybe finding a way of getting people to learn the basics of the game before every tournament.
Its a hard call, but Tennis will always, I assert, lag behind every other team sport on the planet, with occasional exceptions of generations that produces the Serenas/Venuses/Federers and I think Ivanovic has some drama around her too.
It’s just the way it is.
Steven Edell | Feb 10, 2008 | Reply
1) Tennis is not a “team” sport, there are no New York Yanks, Los Angeles Dodgers or Bosox to love. If you don’t like the players, you have no one to follow.
2) You MUST see the matches to appreciate them. Hearing or reading about a great match AND NOT SEEING IT is a terrible detraction from the game. Therefore, all matches should be available on Internet AFTER THEY ARE PLAYED (for a fee, if needed).