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Dustin Brown v Top 10 player is exciting and fun to watch. 95% of play is too conservative, boring and laggy for 5 hours. Just do 24 pt sets, 1 serve only, win by 2, finish in 1/2 to 1 hr. Put GoPro on players. Guarantee players will play 3-4 matches in singles free for all, doubles, team with ranking pt cap for balance. Volleyball, doubles changed their scoring.
I think having college tennis on major networks needs to happen. There is great emotion and connection with the team format of ncaa tennis. It also gets young fans engaged with new young players that they can follow once they go pro which creates fan bases. It also gives goals for young players to reach. It is much more motivating to see an achievable level of a sport on television.
For everyone promoting the team format....hello...It's already there. Go support your local NCAA team. Honestly it's more entertaining than ATP and WTA.
Camera angles. I remember before I know tennis, I was really confused when the tennis is in satallite view, everything is so small and the ball look so slow. Since I don't understand strategy and tactics, all I focused on is actions. I actually thought I can beat those pros because how slow the ball looks from that distance. I think if events can change and add seat level view and make it 100% it would bring a lot of eye balls because at high level match the amount of movement and reaction speed is insane that is something you can't see or experience as a low level or casual.
As an amateur player, I was never under the illusion about the speed of the game, because I played against people of many levels. I was just a recreational player at about 4.0 level, and I once played against a 60 year old former college player. His second serve bounced to my eyes, and I had to retreat far back in order to receive. It was a struggle for me in every shot to keep up with the pace. He still beat me easily. But I can see for people who don't play, they could easily think tennis is just a game, not a sport that requires athleticism. In fact, one dude had said that to me.
"I actually thought I could beat those pros" hahaha you're unique on this hubris buddy. though I agree it doesn't look super fast on that angle, any person with minimal self awareness would not think that.
what is a real turnoff on tv is the camera angle. the ground level cam is 10x more entertaining, and was the best aspect of the ultimate tennis showdown. but i am pretty sure that most of the casual viewers would complain "uuhh i can´t see ball" give me my old (shi++y camera angle back.
nobody else in the family plays tennis aside from me and this is exactly what happens when a point starts and the broadcast is on court level camera lmao
100% agree! Why don't they use the court level angle more often?! It's a no-brainer. If they're afraid that it will deter people from going to the event because it's like it's in their living room with that angle, they're being ridiculous. Still doesn't compare to watching in person.
I totally agree with your point about team tennis. ATP Cup 2020 was amazing. As Bulgarian, I was so excited and happy that I can see our 2nd racket(~ #300) winning. I actually follow and support him since then, he is on the verge of the top 200 now and I think the ATP Cup experience contributed a lot for that success.
I found myself liking tennis from 2005-2010, used to stay up late to watch slams, now i can't be bothered. They've slowed down the courts so much. No variety of play styles anymore.
Completely agree! They need to speed up the game, so tired of 30 shot rallies. They need to change something to spur different styles, game has become to homogeneous!
Good video. I personally love the college tennis format, especially the new one with shorter doubles and no ad. Don't get me wrong, I love the really good several hour battle, but I'm a hardcore tennis fan and I can't get my friends to come watch a match with me if I have to say "well it could be 90 minutes or it could be 5 hours". It's hard for casual fans to plan around that vs. other sports. We also don't do enough to reach the younger generation. Very few of our top players have a RUclips presence. There's no major licensed, annual franchise video game like a FIFA or Madden, NBA 2K. But I think the biggest challenge is how tennis is managed. There isn't one single business that owns it, unlike the NFL. That makes changes challenging because of all the different entities involved. For licensing, you need to negotiate rights with each individual player, tournament owner, and tour owner.
True. I’m not quite sure why, but it seems most people just aren’t interested in watching doubles. Perhaps it has something to do with the fact that a lot of doubles “teams” are just two random players, rather than an established team (like the Bryan brothers). Not sure if I’m right but it’s a thought...
No kid growing up playing tennis dreams of winning Wimbledon doubles. Lets be honest, pro dubs guys play dubs because they are not good enough for singles.
@@tberry79 the points just aren't as exciting. Period. Been to a lot of pro doubles and the points are just super short cause the guys are so good at ending the points early. Now the points that are exciting are SUPER exciting, but they are few per match
@@youngsuit that's so true! It's very easy to score a point playing doubles and very difficult to defend one. What if a slower ball is used to play doubles? That could make the tennis points longer and exciting?
I don't know any non team sport that has as good a following as tennis, but yet its still quite low. I think the major problem is that its relatively difficult to find courts and rackets to play the sport whereas compared to basketball, you just need a ball and 10 people and you have a game for hours and hours.
Your point on boring tennis players and styles is big for me. You know who I love to watch? Taylor Townsend. The fact that she's this underdog with a story of struggles due to being criticized for her weight and then using serve-and-volley to dismantle Halep was so amazing to watch. That's what makes good tennis: clashes of tactics and personalities. I think Nick is great for this. His underarm serves and his trolling antics make tennis exciting. He's the Happy Gilmore of Tennis.
quite an interesting video!! I think the engagement level that fans have during the team events is what the normal evets are lacking, the interaction between players, coaches and people during the team events is something that brings tennis closer to other sports. Another thing that affects the sport and that is the situation here in Colombia is that it is recognized as an elite sport only play by wealthy people, this causes that every time fewer people practice it. I think that solving those two issues could mean more people practising it therefore going or watching the tournaments
I've actually thought about this for a while. Couple of things to add on top of what you mentioned. It is really hard to make tennis a team sport because one person is enough to handle all situation on tennis court, unlike say, basketball where we NEED 5 players with different skillset to play different position; however good you are, you still need teammates to win. And lack in individual skill can be compensated with good teamwork strategy. However, in tennis it's not the case. Why would a top player play in a team where he knows everyone else will drag him down. Also, for outsiders it's particularly hard to see the "fun" of tennis. Anyone can understand basic rules of, say, score, but not same can be said about tennis. Tennis contains so many details and it all happen very fast. It is just very hard to sit in front of TV to watch 5 hours of tennis.
Hi. I just heard about your channel from the newest video of Ian Westerman’s Essential Tennis channel. I think you’re doing good stuff as well. Being a 39 years old guy from Germany and being into tennis since the tennis boom in Germany created by Boris Becker and Steffi Graf of the late 80s, I can confirm some of your statements. When I was a kid, tennis was like the 2nd most interesting sport (behind soccer) for the majority of TV viewers here. So it was about the two local heros that are still by far the most successful players of our country’s history. And it was about watching sports on free TV. After Steffi‘s and Boris‘ retiring there were some good players like Nicolas Kiefer or Tommy Haas, but compared to the greatest couldn’t really attract that much attention here. They just couldn’t win a grand slam tournament and Haas had the bad luck to be part of the big 3 era which has made it even harder to win a grand slam tournament. I think after so many great players in the 80s and 90s, the lack of superstars in men’s tennis is the same for the US. There just hasn’t been a great US male player since Sampras and Agassi. I mean, Blake had a great game and Roddick some good stretches as well, but both just couldn’t continue the tradition of the US to be the best nation in tennis. The other part is access to watching tennis. In Germany, in the 80s and 90s it was easy to watch tennis on free TV stations like public-service broadcasting or normal cable TV stations. Nowadays, there is like no live tennis on the public-service broadcasting at all and, especially ATP, barely live tennis on cable TV stations. So it’s very difficult to watch live tennis if you don’t have pay TV and this is like 40+ Euros (almost like 50 $) per month. That’s a huge difference compared to the past. And the lack of access really doesn’t help the middle generation (30 to 45 years old) to remain being interested. The younger generation (25 and under) doesn’t consume TV anymore, so it would be necessary for the ATP to find ways to make tennis attractive for all those instagram, tic toc, etc. content creators. The majority of the young generation is about being handsome, healthy and successful. What sport can create a narrative like that better than tennis? I think there is a lot of potential. Additionally, being into gaming as well, it’s sort of sad there is no great tennis game available. FIFA, NHL, NBA2K, MMA, even PGA or MLB are famous games for gaming platforms. To attract interest of the younger generation, a great tennis video game might be a good thing either. The lack of success is a lack of narratives. Being a tennis player, I prefer to watch NBA basketball and all those Undisputed, 1st things 1st, etc. shows where guys are talking about who is the g.o.a.t., which team will win and what trades are projected to come or would make which team better, etc. In tennis some of these talks aren’t possible as there is no famous league that involves trades, drafts, coaches and tennis doesn’t have narratives about coaching, defense or offense systems. These talks aren’t possible, but media has to create tennis related narratives in order to entertain people. I think the NBA’s tradition of awards at the end of the regular and post season is a good thing in that way. There should be awards in professional tennis as well. At the end of the day perception is the most important thing. The ATP has to find ways to create more narratives around tennis and maybe modify some rules to make the sport more attractive to watch. Gladiators and track & fielders have been the first stars in sports 2000 years ago. Boxing, MMA and even fake Wrestling are still working very well. They focus on the narratives. Tennis might do it in its own way to be more exciting.
I think the Federer-esque "gentleman" personality he took on from 2005 onwards was pretty bad for tennis personality. Everyone thinks that to be a good tennis player you have to be cool calm and sponsor forward. Anyone who is not is considered a clown or a child and thats not fair
Couldn't agree more. My dad, for instance, is a sick Fed fan. He considers Novak Djokovic a complete barbarian and the hate he has for Novak is such that he gets to the point of saying that Novak will be irrelevant in history even if he beats all the records, which is just absolute nonsense. His previous fav. player was Pete Sampras, who by this time is already less succesful than Djokovic. I agree that you can't dislike Fed. he is a beast of a player and a very respectful character, but he created a "role-model-tennis-player" image that other players can not run from or they will be hated or polarize fans, like novak, nick, etc.
It's the opposite. Federer single handedly carried Tennis's popularity. Fedal rivalry made Tennis popular. Moreover Fed is much more interesting to watch than say Murray or Djokovic.
That was the best comment I ever read, I think the same, today is a crime have personality, players can’t show emotions, can’t break racquets, you need to be a fucking robot
Agree, they need more financial investment at the "lower-end" of the profession. Those folks are still professional players and are more likely to engage fans regularly than, say, the top 100.
You’re basically speaking from an American perspective and at the end of the day tennis hasn’t been a must watch sport for the casual fan in like 2 decades here outside of the big 3, Williams sisters and maybe Sharapova. Then you have the fact that tennis is played all over the world with crazy time differences on top of the fact tennis is literally never on tv in the US unless it’s the tennis channel or ESPN during a slam. I remember tennis being on espn, nbc, tennis channel, cbs, fox sports even oxygen (which is a channel geared toward women) growing up. I also think most players having the same or at least similar playing styles hasn’t helped and how the tours/tournaments in general don’t always let players express themselves has suffocated any chance of players showing actual personalities.
With technology eliminating people calling lines how can a new breed of McEnroe Ike personalities yell and scream a lines people? Come on you can’t be serious.
Tennis is struggling to bring in more fans and hold on to casual fans. For the TV viewer (main channel of engagement) changes need to be made. I really enjoyed the camera angle of UTS which is lower and closer to the players. You can see the shot shape and velocity so much better with this angle as opposed to the high up angle of the grand slams.
This is an interesting discussion that is happening in many sports, and some aspects of it have nothing to do with the sport but how to package it to make it more profitable year by year. We need to be careful in some areas. Of course we should look at what makes tennis more exciting for fans: longer rallies, more strategy less hitting, less influence of serve, interesting player characters, player interaction with fans, shorter boring matches but 5 sets epic battles…etc. We should promote this. However I don’t fully agree with some issues mentioned here. Any sport will belong to their fans, and most sports are difficult to understand and follow is you are not a fan: Try watching Nascar, F1, golf, rugby, NFL, NBA, rowing,…etc without being a fan and understanding the rules and the complexities and you may become very bored pretty soon. And in most sports, other than the top teams/players and big tournaments, 80% of matches/races/games are dull and boring to watch unless you are a true fan. That level of complexity and rules make the sport great though!. Now you can try and make the sport short and simple, so it can be consumed easily by the non-fan…. but how great would “Augusta Open” be if it was no more than a 3 hole shoot out having everyone with same club? Quick and adrenaline filled, good to be consumed on a 10minute commute to work but none of the drama and glory of the hard earn 5 day war. The key for me is the fan base. 40 years ago you would become a fan following your dad passion, your friend new hobby, something fun you tried in the park, that big sport drama that the entire city was talking about. And you would go out and try/follow. Nowadays kids spend more time in social media and they follow what they see there (which is nothing, as there is so much that they get overloaded with everything). They run away from slow, hard work driven progress, and they want be a “winner” straight away, …fast, easy, social winner which the society seems to like. So to avoid dying, you need to bring them out of their media and into a court. That is the challenge!. How to use the new media to show role models, to show sport hero’s, to create drama worth following, to create attachment worth showing emotions for ….to create a life motivation they feel keen to dedicate the time to. Bringing more people into a paid-TV does not avoid tennis dying, it avoid business stagnating. There is way too much sport on TV nowadays, there is so much that is difficult to show attention to anything other than the big events. We need less TV and more real sport, local club rivalries, city leagues, club’s & academies that promote the sport and not only themselves.
Well said. Game should reach larger audience mostly younger generation and create interest in them. There should be proper structure and good investment from grassroots through club levels to pro level so that the good talents are encouraged. Also I believe there should be more and more unique styles like Medvedev and characters like Djokovic, Kyrgios which will draw more crowds.
And yes, there is a risk (at least here in USA) the sport will fade away. It remains a bit of an elitist sport. It's a beautiful sport, I wish it was accessible to more people. I was not rich growing up but I got lucky we had several decent public courts nearby and USA men's tennis in the 90s was very popular so we had legends to watch on TV. Speaking of TV we cannot even watch the major tournaments on free TV anymore! Everything is behind a paywall. Tennis may go the way of autoracing which had it's peak in the 1960s/70s and steadily declined. Tennis governing bodies need to put better free highlight videos on RUclips for example. The US Open and Roland Garros official RUclips highlight videos were ridiculous/atrocious.
Also, how does the WTA channel manage to make 8 minute videos about most individual matches from a tournament like Ostrava and 2 grand slams can't pass the 4 minute mark? Props to the WTA channel though
Respectfully disagree, tennis needs to be in a club, you need coaches around and other players to compete against and maintenance . However, the clubs should be affordable $5/hr not just indoor courts that are $35/hour. Public courts are not maintained well enough. In Europe tennis is played in clubs and it thrives. I play on public courts because there are no outdoor clubs and I can not afford or like indoor tennis.
They need to make the surfaces more distinct like before the 2000's. That is what made it fun was the differences in styles of play and surfaces. No way these guys when 20 slams each back then. They would win a lot but not 20.
There is strength in numbers! The team approach I believe is the answer in a lot of ways, as you stated, but also help for individual tennis. A private team, say 10 players, call pull resources together with lodging, coaching and most importantly sponsorship!
love playing tennis. been playing almost all my life week in week out. but absolutely hate watching. there's just too much walking around, towel fetching, sitting downs, banana biting between each point that typically lasts 10 seconds. Then there's all the TV commercials... The format really doesn't help. I think if the scoring system is like tiebreaks, or even badminton or table tennis, it would draw audience attention for slightly longer periods of time perhaps.
Need more personalities. Players like Nick Kyrgios, although disliked by many isn't afraid of public opinion. Very unpredictable, and super skilled. Need more players like that
@@svlagonda7417 not really, its still based upon the players, it good for publicity tho. I think the only problem is whether the players want to play for a brand rather than themselves :/
Hi Karue, I've discussed this a few times in the past, and Noah Rubin is the actual example I gave. Noah has been ranked around 125 in the world at various times, and around then, he would have made around 150k for that year. After expenses (hotels, flights, coaches, court hire, equipment, physio, etc etc) would have been left with maybe 25-30k. This is for an athlete, who is the 125th best IN THE WORLD, in a global sport. Compare this with the 125th draft pick in the NBA, who got a contract for $11m. Consider also, many pro players have trained for 10-15 years by the time they are 20. How much does a doctor earn by the time they have done their training of 7 years or so? I know there is World Teams Tennis, but for whatever reason, that hasn't really taken off (IMO). I would start by looking at the various leagues of football, basketball, baseball, etc, and see which have been most financially successful, and copy their methods, where appropriate. The thing is, NFL has maybe 20 games a year for each team, but basketball has a lot more, so the duration of the season is only one side of it. Then you look at the revenue split. I think tennis players get a raw deal. What percentage do the players get, compared to other sports. I have heard some surprising numbers. And not just the pros. At grass roots levels, football players here (aka soccer for US fans) get paid to play in the juniors; or at least, they get heavily subsidised. Tennis juniors cost a fortune to develop, pretty much exclusively thanks to mum and dad. It's no wonder kids interest levels are hard to maintain, when they've been excluded from their own sport, where other sports appear to actively pursue them. Why would a kid choose a sport where it costs thousands of pounds a year, over another which may be effectively free, or makes them money??? Plenty more to discuss, but thought I'd put my 2 cents worth in for now.
IN my area, there's really no local coverage of tennis for local players, high school players, etc. And other than mentioning who just won the U.S. Open, or Wimbledon, etc, there's no real mention of pro tennis either in the nightly sports new coverage.
Davis Cup used to be a very motivational event, so yes, I agree about the power of team events. And the need for exciting players and rivalries. If you ask my 8 year old son, his favorite player in Kyrgios
And also, there simply isn't enough variety in style. Don't you feel like everyone is converging on similar playstyle? Before, we have SV, big server, baseliners etc. And courts are much more different than they are right now.
There should be a behind the scenes Netflix documentary on professional tennis, just the F1 docos. I only had a passing interest in F1, but after watching that, I felt a real connection to the drivers, and now I watch all the F1 races!
Get rid of the second serve non-sense. First serve fault, you lose the point. This alone will solve most problems that make tennis boring. Matches become shorter, more unpredictable. There will be more attacking tennis (as a returner), more varieties of playing styles. It will favor the server less, leveling the playing field for each game (hence, increasing unpredictability for each set/match) and making ace less often and more valuable. It adds more stress to the players, hence more drama for the spectators. There will be less dead time to watch non-actions (bouncing of the balls, etc.).
I would take a step further and make it underhand serves only. It would make tennis learning curve much flatter. We need to entice the younger generation to play tennis.
I haven't watched a men's match in full since the 2008 Wimbledon Final. Why? Because 90% of the time you spend watching are of the players standing around, bouncing the ball, wiping their face with a towel, waiting to serve, walking from one side of the court to the other, sitting on chairs etc. Some players even deliberately waste time. It's worse if you're at the stadium as you can't move from your seat and do something else. Don't believe me? Record a video of yourself playing a singles set. The set might take say 40-50 mins to complete. Edit the recorded video to show live points only. That edited segment will be about 10-15mins long.
Spoken for truth. When I watch a match on TV now, I make sure that I can do something else at the same like paperwork, pay the bills, watch a few rallies, do the bills, organise the cupboard, watch a few rallies etc. Need something to fill the "dead" time during matches. Going to watch isn't much better either - the tickets are ridiculously expensive for a courtside seat and whilst the atmosphere can be terrific (eg. Federer, night time at O2), you can't fill the dead time.
There are some interesting styles and personalities on the tour, and a majority of players don't go far in tournaments often. That's a problem as far as diversity for fans. I'm a huge fan of the big 3. That's great for me, because they do well so often that when they're all healthy I'm seeing them go deep every week almost in tournaments. But what if you're a fan of Dustin Brown's clown style? Or Krygios rebel persona? Monfils atheletiscm? The list goes on. What I found interesting about the Lavor Cup format was that it made someone like Krygios all of a sudden feel relevant. If a player lost, they would play again. So some kind of weekly team competition, say 4 players per team, two singles and two for doubles, could make tennis much more appealing to a mainstream audience. Creating something that's at least heading in the direction of established godly team sports such as football/soccer. People get so worked up say when Man United plays Liverpool and so on. Its bigger than the players themselves. It brings out that tribal thing people still have in them, them vs us. We don't have that in tennis. If you rally behind Federer, it's not 'us', it's you cheering for him. Supporters of soccer teams and other team sports don't feel that way. It attaches deeply to their sense of identity, who they support, to the extent that their team becomes them, part of their life. And that brings in money for the sport, that kind of devotion/passion. Tennis needs something like that, and Davis Cup, Atp Cup style events isn't that. It's a short world Cup type event that should still receive more support than it does, but as I said, tennis needs a weekly team event for a decent portion of the season. Branded teams with kits that change every season, home and away kits and all that. Merchandise to sell to grow the sport. Maybe a 1/3 to 1/2 of the season in this format. The rest can be singles and doubles kind of how it is now, but more like hardcourt, grass, and clay being more evenly split. I'd actually reduce it to three slams in this case say with a couple of masters on the surface before each slam (this would make masters seem more important). I'd ditch the atp finals and replace it with a 'world cup' type scanerio that's essentially THE tournament to win each season to dial focus of the tour to that one event for casuals. Have the surface and location change each year. Each match should be more interesting than in slams though, so I'd section it by rank, so maybe top 30 in division 1 world Cup, 60-31 division 2 etc., somethinh like that. Reserve it for top 100 players or something. I don't know about that, but it is a problem in slams that most early round matches are boring and predictable with top players. Back to slams, I'd change it so that slams aren't best of 5 till round 4 or quarters, and I would make this the same for the women. Three set match ups with the best towards the latter end of tournaments lack drama. This kind of restructuring probably isn't going to happen, even if people wanted it, much like how there are too many belts and divisions in boxing. Too much money wrapped up in bs. But I think it would be great for the sport. It would give tennis more superstars as well. Nick Krygios would already be a superstar in this kind of tour in my opinion. But as it is now, we have three superstars and everyone else. That's bad for the sport. Yes, it would also mess with goat rankings and so on moving forward when comparing to this era and the past, but I think the sport being healthy in the long run is more important.
I really love these ideas you're throwing out here. I think its great that you want to keep the aspects of tennis that define it as a sport, but modernize the way tennis is packaged and commericalized to a different fan base. Really good stuff. :)
Where I live, tennis has taken off because it's a relatively safe sport for social distancing. Heck, even pickleball is gaining steam in the U.S. at least.
@@KaruesellHQ tennis interest is soaring, I'm a coach in NYC, though when I ask my clients if they watched the match last night they say no....I'm like watch the RUclips clips atleast....20 minutes of the best points in the match(sometimes ever point edited to perfection), plus if it's an epic one, they will put the unedited match up
One thing that turns me off as a viewer is the lack of variety in game styles. As a youth I remember being captivated by the battles between Borg and McEnroe because of the difference in the way they play. Well, part of that was due to the racquet and string technology of the day. The game was slower so players had time to get to the net. Should we go back to wooden racquets? Has the game become too fast? Well, professional baseball players don’t get to use aluminum bats. Has tennis become to much of a baseline game of players looking to hit a big forehand? That gets boring to watch. That’s why my favorite tournament to watch is the French. The court is slower so players have time to get to the net. I’d like to see more serve and volley play. Something to throw out there.
Can we stop beating around the bush here? Tennis is a rich country club sport, and only those that play tennis watch it. Everyone has thrown a football, kicked a soccer ball, and shot a basketball and even hit a baseball. Yet VERY few ever step foot on a court. Tennis will never attract the common man when racquets cost 250 a pop, and shoes run at 150, and string is 40 bucks with labor included.
I bought a decent racket at Walmart for less than $50. There are available courts for free at every high school and middle school in the country. Now let's talk about golf on the other hand.
Generally speaking, in tennis we have few seconds of game and minutes of nothing. So if the match is not exciting for some other reason, a casual viewer for sure will change channel. In addition, I think you catch the point wehen you notice the lack of spirit of belonging because everybody can have some interest for a match if in some way he fells he is part of it. So, who cares for a first round match between two top 100? Nobody. Cancelling the second serve would be in the direction for more playing and less pause. What do you think?
One example of this was turning a country/group competition the Davis cup into one single week tournament. I would much rather follow throughout the year if my country is doing good, and have those insane weekends of joy like when Brazil played USA, or Croatia, and really be supportive for some guys that we do not give that much attention on a regular basis
Another reason is the availability of TV matches. I do not own cable and the only way to watch is just highlights on RUclips :( other sports are easily available on over the air TV channels.
Tv coverage is terrible. Tennis channel seems to be the biggest option and they are not available on any streaming service - so cable ..is only choice and everyone is dumping cable. Team tennis is more fun because players light up when on a team - their energy spreads to the crowd. Final thought - the old Davis Cup crowds where the fans were going crazy were super fun. Tennis needs more crowd energy - crowd needs to be able to whoop it up - like a basketball frame. Cheering throughout - forget the “be quiet - don’t want to disturb the players”.
Yeah youre definately right about team formats creating more excitement. I remember when i was growing up in the 80s and Sweden was doing so well, everyone was watching davis cup, that was really exciting! I dont know what really happened after that, exept that Sweden crashed as a tennis nation, but im pretty sure overal interest has gone down everywhere. I actually have a couple of suggestions for rule changes. First is how about allowing on court inverviews with the players during matches, imagine how exciting to hear their thoughts about whats going on during a match and so on. Second thing is a bigger thing and therefore i doubt it will ever happen but i think it would make a good change and bring a different dynamic and excitement to the game. Only 2 or 3 maybe secondserves per game. One of the most boring parts about tennis is when theres no play, someone hits a hard serve, its an ace or the other player hits a net, and thats the end of that point. Now the worst part about that is that the server that wins the point so easily is not even taking any risk what so ever because if he misses hes always got his second serve. Now with only 2 or 3 second serves per game you create a whole new dynamic where the server when he decides to go big actually risks something. If he runs out of first serves its gone be very difficult to hit winners on the serve, but the fact that you dont take away the second serve completely still enables him to go for the serve and hit aces, and doing so will be so much more spectacular then now because youre actually risking something. Actually i can think of one more rule change, il throw that in there as a bonus ha ha, its a no brainer and should have been done away with long time ago, its the no let on serve of course.
Good analysis. Basically, we need more variety in playstyles, more variety in court surfaces, more personality on and off court, more opportunities for players outside the top 100 to make a living and have a chance to break through. Team events are always fun, gives casual fans a chance to really enjoy the energy of a packed stadium. More low camera angles too! Most casual fans have absolutely no idea how fast and athletic these players are.
One thought I always had for tennis is to have tennis players mic'd up for certain matches. Would be very interesting to see a different side (mental) of tennis other than hitting the ball. Also, I agree that shortening tennis season is very important! Not only for the health of the players but will create an "offseason" for people to anticipate tennis coming back. Great video and topic!
I totally agree with the point about game style - I LOVE watching tennis so I feel I am in constant search for youngsters who can do more than just top-spin groundstrokes behind the baseline... I am all for things like data analysis/high percentage pattern analysis for sports, but at the end of the day we are mostly entertained by unpredictable shot selections.
We are enjoying possibly the greatest generation in our sport and because of it maybe the future looks uncertain to many. The same happened to me when Lend, Becker and Edberg retired, then it happened when Sampras and Agassi retired. When the three current beasts retire I am sure that the new generation will keep the sport interesting and exciting. Thiem, Tsitsipas, Sinner, Rublev, Medvev etc. There is so much talent and desire to excel that our sport is in good hands. When it comes to rules and tournaments I don't see why not adopt limited coaching in non slam events. Also tennis channel can incorporate more coverage of college, national 5.0 finals, juniors events to show people a level of play that is more realistic to them.
Hey Karou, I’ve seen or heard topics like this. Based on my experience, in this pandemic, tennis is dying or boring, not fun, people don’t like it. Whereas, the pickle ball courts are full, they even have a rule on how to play if others are waiting. I think the reason for this is the learning curve. Tennis is hard to learn. If you go out to the park, most players serve like a frying pan serve on their second serve, my tennis partner serves this way. It took me a year to develop a topspin second serve. Assume a year per stroke, so you got forehand, backhand and serve, that would equate to 3 years before you can play tennis. Compare it to pickle ball, you can play on day one. I am from the Philippines, it is a basketball country, same thing, you can play basketball one day one, no learning curve. The future? I would predict that pickle ball will overtake tennis, so don’t worry, the skills you learn in tennis will translate to pickle ball. What I like about tennis is that you hit the ball every second. Do you run the football or kick it every second? Do you shoot the ball every second? Do you throw a punch every second? NO! Tennis is very satisfying, so fun. But there is a big but, you can do this with pickle ball. I haven't played pickle ball, but if there's a friend who would invite me I would probably like it.
Appreciate this topic. I’ve been talking about this issue with my friends. I agree that the season is too long. I also like the idea of team events as well. I liked the team tennis style of match play, being able to sub in players was kind of an interesting idea. A couple of other thoughts I had are: 1) consider making all the events be 2 of 3. May not be popular for tennis traditionalists, but most people won’t spend 4-5 hours watching a match. Also, it might allow some of the bigger name singles players to participate in the doubles draw, which is team oriented and faster paced action. 2) hear in the US, you mostly need to have, “Tennis Channel “ to watch events. Unless it’s a major tournament and ESPN is televising it. I’d say try to get some of the events on other networks. When I was growing up, tennis was on the 2-3 main networks. Golf, as an example is on 3 or 4 major networks..., although I’m not sure what the ratings are to be honest. Maybe the governing bodies for tennis could look at ways to get 2-3 hour blocks, to allow for more watchable time periods, on other networks to draw in from other networks for these team events.
Now I'm thinking about it more, maybe adding different tournament style might attract more eyeballs besides the typical laver cup teams idea. E.g. 1) Mario party mini game like mode where multiple players has to compete to see how many balls they can hit a target in a limit amount of time. 2) Serve bot mini game, where they look at how many times a server can hit a target or moving target in a limit amount of time 3) A game without serve, so instead of someone serve, a ball machine will toss a ball to start the rally and the game is to hit with a specific shot, perhaps you can only hit between the knees and see how many of them each player can hit until the other miss.
I find the most entertaining matches are the exhibition matches that aren't taken too seriously. Mansoor Bahrami is the best example, but Monfis, Brown and Kyrgios are also great examples. They take their tennis seriously, but they are entertainers first and foremost. Another contributor could be that there isn't any "celebrity culture" surrounding Tennis (although this might be because the season is so long). If you look at Formula 1, the sport isn't as popular as football (soccer), but the top drivers are being paid the same because of the marketing values of their celebrity status. If Tennis had more regular marketing events focused on getting celebs outside of the sport, involved in playing, more eyes (and younger eyes) would be on the sport, and build up the player's credibility with the wider public. I also believe the rule where the crowd should be silent during a point should be scrapped. Let the crowd express their excitement for their player. It helps them in the journey to becoming fanatics of a team or player.
Booing a quarterback prior to snap or a basketbal player while shooting penalties is not an option for me as tennis players are on their own, they don't have a team to rely on... too much pressure on a single person. Do watch the match Nadal vs Ljubicic in Madrid, one of the last three-set finals, it was awful to watch as Spanish fans were so aggressive, I thought they'd linch Ljubicic... I wouldn't like that sort of fan engagement
I have found Laver Cup to be most entertaining. It does not seem to be exhibitor kind of matches as there are no ATP points involved. There is also the team format which suits guys like Kyrgios. UTS tournament is a great idea as well. Someone here wrote to create team Head vs team Babolat... Yeah, why not. Anything like that. The question is if it is possible to fit such events, if the players would be interested.
In germany, we have "Team-matches" on higher level, called "Bundesliga". They play in between the big tournements, and for my team played for example Marco Checcinato (at that time No. 23ATP), Christian Garin (ATP 19), playing Position 1-6 against each other and then 3 doubles, for viewers and fans it is perfect and very attractive, in average our club counts 2000-3000 visitors during this day. You also can get in contact with the players, it is more familiuar organized with good sponsors...
Oh yes I know the Bundesliga. I almost played it a couple of years ago. Wish more countries did it. Same format as college tennis. More of that would be awesome
Who thinks that tennis is boring, didn’t understand a bit about it. Tennis doesn’t need to be Americanized. It has its own grammar and if you want to be a decent tracker, you need to get to know it. Otherwise you are an outsider of the tennis scope and it will mean to you almost nothing . Gaining more fan and “eye balls” is up to marketing techniques.
Less games in every set to make more deciding moments. Winners count double to favor risk taking instead of consistency. And of course, court level cameras for TV.
I think it's definitely getting better! You are able to watch highlights on youtube all day of current events, which is a huggge improvement! They still have a long way to go, but I do feel like its popularity is starting to grow again. Maybe they need to do more to get to know the players on a personal level. They also need to do more to support the players that are up and coming. As I said...it's gotten so much better to watch in my opinion, but that's coming from me who is a huge fan. A lot of my younger friends say that it's too difficult to learn so they have a difficult time getting into it. I think that has a lot to do with is as well...a lot of people don't find it relatable because you can't just pick up a ball and throw it to your friend, which is second nature. I agree with you Karu, it needs to become an easier sport for casual watchers to engage in, but how...I do not know.
This is one of the most Thoughtful analysis's on situation facing the tennis world that I have heard. I think at the end even give some pretty good suggestions about things that would improve tennis for both the fans and the players. What's needed however, is a comprehensive plan written down on paper that can be looked at, modified, and followed. What I hear a lot of is, that tennis needs to change, which I agree with , but what I almost never hear is how exactly things need to be done differently. What is the actual game plan? That is the real question.
I’m a huge tennis fan but I’m pretty much done after the U.S. Open. The Laver Cup is exciting and I really like your ideas on team events and leagues during the fall.
ive been thinking for a few years that there needs to be some sort of tennis world cup every few years and/or besides davis cup there needs to be like 2-4 annual nation based team tennis events similar to laver cup or the ATP cup. I also agree with some one else below that going exclusively with the court level camera or at least way more often as the standard camera to watch from would absolutely be the move. It is way more exicting to watch from court level where you feel like youre a part of the experience and you can appreciate the intensity the players are playing at and really see the weight of the ball and the footwork that goes into every point.
Fully agree with your affiliation thinking. I never saw things that way but I think that's very true. How to engage fans by having them identify to a team, a country, a continent? Promoting team events might be an interesting solution. The UTS idea from Mouratoglou was interesting, identifying guys with aliases like "the greek god" or "the pusher" made it look more like video games.
Newer players seem to focus more on being powerful hitters and don’t emphasize on improving their tennis iQ. Every player seems to play the same way from the baseline and rarely comes up to the net.
For the UK there isn't enough Walls or Free Tennis courts to practice on. I was at Eastbourne the other day. I know Eastbourne has a generalisation of having an elderly population but me and my girlfriend were the youngest ones there (20s). But then the ticket prices aren't really accessible for people with lower incomes.
Great Video! Some of my opinions: Team events are great. What should happen is make these team events build up. Like world cups and Euro Cups. Happen every 4 years and having qualifiers. However there is something I believe could help with engagement: Shorten the imbetween games break. If 2 games only last 5 min and then followed by a 3 minute break it ruins the flow. In my opinion their should be a timer if they should play at least 15 minutes until they can take a break at the end of odd game.
Yeah it does interrupt the flow a bjt but as a player the breaks are necessary if you are going to battle for 5 sets in some events. It gets really physical out there. But definitely something to think about. Appreciate your comment!
@@KaruesellHQ Thx I was thinking more about the first 2 sets. When players are still full of energy. Maybe in later stages, like you said 5 sets, then they can take breaks like normal
That would definitely be interesting. That is why I think we can have a shorter season with normal scoring then a bunch of experimental fun events for a couple months like the UTS.
Good discussion Karue, one big thing that would make it more of a spectator sport would be to eliminate the second serve. This would not only be a big equalizer across all statures of players, tall or short, I think the long rally is what people want “not bang its over”. Maybe a no add scoring may help also. Your thoughts?
I think a good way to create engagement in the US would be to have influencers play. We've seen boxing got a huge boost because of KSI vs Logan Paul. Tiktokers also set trends and could easily get more eyes on tennis. I think fundamentally tennis needs less stringent rules on players showing emotion. Time wasting and gamesmanship needs to be punished. Doubles should get more attention as it is fast paced and easier to watch a quick match of.
As someone who has had to walk away from basketball after 20 years (temp - due to injury and now covid) tennis has been a lifeline in terms of the sport to now play. I feel the three biggest thing to change is: 1. Culture - step away from the shussh silence, the game needs to raucous, passions and emotive, still throw in key facets of respect. But telling me to be quiet all the time, kills the game for new fans. 2. Bigger entry at grass root, the more people that play, the more fans there will be, the more money there is for everyone. 3. Team aspects. This needs to come in big time. People root for teams, it needs to a special one to have support for an individual over a team. We need to go national!!! And the in nation - go regional or cities....
Watching this one a little late, but wanted to give my 2 cents. From a watcher experience I think the big issue (vs. other sports) is that the tennis matched are not very dynamic - play vs. total game time is below 50% - so fans watch more players taking breaks and preparing for the point than actually playing the point. I would put a lot more pressure on the players and give them a lot less time between points and games. Would aim to increase play time to game time ratio over 70%, to make it more dynamic. This would level the playing field, as less experienced players will have better chance to win against the established players if they're having a good day.
TV Tennis started to get boring when the players started to stay at the baseline. Back in the day (Stan Smith, Aussies, Navratilova, Chris Evert, et al) and all court play it was fun to watch.
You need something like a Netflix of a tennis tournament. You should be able to choose which match to want when you sign up to view a tournament. Not just the slams but I should be able to easily watch Challenger all the way up to slams
Its stale as the same 3 guys have been at the top for 20 years!! They are basically as good as humans can play so there's nothing new and exciting to see anymore
Here in Asia we have team tournament IPTL or International Premier Tennis League but was discontinue due to lack of financial support. Federer, Sharapova, Nadal Monfils Kyrios and Murray were played there.
Golf is an individual sport too and look at how successful they have been over the years .... Over the past 20 years, I've seen the slow and continuous demise of Tennis Clubs ... That's where The Tennis Cancer starts.
Winners need to count two points. It will push the player to be more offensive, it will change the whole complexity of the game. You need to be awarded for trying something more risky like the three pointer in basketball
First off, I really enjoy this channel's content. Keep up the great work! Like you stated in this video, "Tennis is entertainment". Because it is entertainment, a lot of people watch it to escape from the stress of our everyday lives. Unfortunately, it seems that escapism is harder to come by when politics is being incorporated into a lot of sports now (which seems to turn some people off from watching). I know many people that do not watch a lot of sports because of this, and it's NOT because they don't agree with the political message (some actually AGREE with the politics). It's just that they are bombarded by politics in the media daily, and would just like a break from it all. Correct me if I'm wrong but a lot of sports (not just tennis) have seen their viewership drop dramatically in the last few years. Side note: I'm a big Naomi Osaka fan so I thought that it was really cool that you are a part of her team. But when pictures of her boyfriend giving the middle finger in the trophy pictures with Naomi (after the US Open) came out, it really shocked me. What was the point of that? It may of lost her some fans who looked up to her as a 'tennis role-model'. Lastly, I hope I did not offend anybody with my comments, they are just my observation of tennis and sports in general.
Sean Doolittle said a few months ago that sports are like the reward of a functioning society. In 2020 we're seeing that society is not functioning the way it should because of the fact that we're in a pandemic and there's centuries long racial injustices still occurring. So things really aren't normal despite society trying to rebuild itself and you have to be uncomfortable in order for any change to occur for everyone. You can't expect athletes to be "role models" and not speak up when the rest of the world is suffering. Also, advocating for human rights (including your own) is not political by any means. I know that social media isn't everything but her followers on all platforms increased drastically after the US Open so if she's losing 2 fans then she's gaining 200k more. So as time goes on it's possible that she could bring in new fans which she's already doing from Japan to Haiti. And if she wins at the Olympics that will be huge
@@AB_15 Just to clarify, I never said that Naomi's fans should or should not look to her as a 'role-model'. The parents should be role-models. I was talking about her as a 'tennis role-model' which is basically a tennis player who an aspiring player would model their game after. I am still a Naomi fan, but if her boyfriend is going to be giving the middle finger in trophy photo-ops in the future it's definitely going to be a turn-off for some fans. What parent wants to let their kid watch Naomi smiling, throwing up a peace sign, while her boyfriend gives everybody the middle finger (explain that to a kid when you're trying to teach them sportsmanship and being an ambassador of the sport). I actually laughed when I first saw the pictures, but then as I thought about how my young nieces would take that image it made me realize that it shouldn't be funny at all. AB, I actually agree with you on the issues of social injustice and human rights. I was just stating that some people see sports as the wrong platform since they just want to be entertained (since it is just entertainment after all). Thanks for the reply AB, I totally see where you're coming from.
@@phathoang9084 Naomi’s only accountable for herself and her actions only. She’s never talked down to or about any of her opponents. She actually gives them their props in press conferences regardless of the result. She’s always smiling and thanking the ball kids as well. She cheered on Iga as she won Roland Garros recently who’s also her good friend. There’s plenty more examples to go off of but those come to mind when speaking about her and not anyone else. You can choose to focus on those positive things or something that’s completely unrelated.
I think when they went to all the tie breakers to end sets they wanted to make the match faster but i know it made it less exciting for me a fan. I loved when they kept holding serve and just battled and battled long into the night
5:21 the older fanbase! Yes you nailed it. Chevrolet has a similar problem with the Corvette. Average Corvette owner age is 60! They were staring death in the face and went more "youthful" with their new C8 model, let's see if it works or it is too late. Hopefully tennis can pull in youth audience but NFL and NBA dominate the millennials, much better marketing. We need some popular celebrities promoting tennis for example
Agree, ATP and WTA need to do better and faster highlight videos free on youtube. The TV contracts and pay walls are quickly reducing the audience and any future for the sport
hey, thought I'd add my 2 cents after the 2022 US open. the game needs speeding up a bit and more variety, players are just too damn resistant now... so 1) drop the time between 1st and 2nd serve to max 15s 1) bring back faster surfaces especially at Wimbledon 2) change of sides is too long, 1 min should be enough 3) get rid of service lets 4) only allow a longer break at the end of the set, if the guy is injured too bad....or forfeit 1 game if you need treatment. 5) we must stop the pipi breaks (only allow at end of the sets) at all costs, over 5 min should be penalised 1 point every 30s 6) bring back davis cup in host countries maybe as a league, the new version is a complete waste of time 7) unify ATP / WTA
ATP & WTA should get rid of the let in the serve. The college tournaments don't play the let. By removing the let, the game moves faster and adds some elements of surprise and unexpected plays.
Tennis should allow in-game coaching. There are a lot of similarities to boxing, but boxing lets you get advice inbetween rounds from your coach. This would make it more strategically interesting for tv viewers if they did get to hear what coaches were saying. However, the opponent's team could then listen in as well. But, at least the commentators would be able to clue in to how the person's game has changed and can hopefully inform the viewer.
Also on the season length, more casual fans only pay attention to the majors and basically only the quarter-semi-final finals, so the lesser tournaments aren't affecting those views IMO.
To add-on, power doesn't come across well on tv, so when a lot of these top players are top because of their power and spin (which we also don't see well on tv) what is exciting on tv is seeing people out manuever and outsmart their opponent.
Your idea about a shorter individual season and a teams-based season is really good. Also the comments below about camera angle are spot on. There is nothing more boring than watching a stationary birds eye view of a tennis match from a camera 100 feet above the court. With today's tech, they could put a super fast camera behind the players that's on a horizontal track and giving the best possible angle for every single shot, with zoon in and outs even during the point. The difference in ball speed from TV to in-person if you are sitting behind the player is like 5x . Tennis will never get to team sport level like NBA, NFL. Just not as exciting as 12 vs 12. At best you have to compare it to something like boxing or MMA. During MMA fights, not much personality comes out it's all business, but there is more excitement in MMA due to the buildup to the event and the casual person knows the rules. rambling...
I love the Laver Cup, Kyrgios’ touch volley game, Wawrinka one-hander, the all-too-rare Cressey match for old school serve/volley, think men shoulnt have to play 5 sets at Grand Slams until quarters (even then 3 hour matches more than enough - no one but tennis obsessives sit for 4-5 hour matches). But unquestionably, much much more ground level camera behind return of server (so great to witness true speed and ball action; conversely THE most boring thing in world is trying to watch interminable baseline rallies of red clay season from way overhead). Thats killing tennis.
1. Tennis needs to stay the same, and change very little in order to preserve the spirit of the game. End of story, the stronger the sport, the more SPORTS fans will get interested. Example: Would permitting steroids in baseball make it more exciting? Maybe, but eventually the people who want excitement will leave anyway, and you will lose the base that watches it for the love of the game. 2. People aren’t watching any sports because of the pandemic, whatever logic is out there that more people are home and should watch.......tennis? That’s bad logic. Which leads me to number 3. 3. People want to see tennis with PEOPLE THERE. Let me ask, if you were going to watch a basketball game because “it’s fun” would it be fun at all if your group of 2 or 3 people were the only people in the stadium? Again, maybe for a few minutes, but it would feel very weird and anything but exciting. Bottom line: the big 3 have dominated tennis for so long, the up and comers for whatever reason are barely competitive at slams, women’s tennis doesn’t bring near the audience that men’s tennis does and with serena basically out the door, that is only making it worse. There are no new story lines. Federer’s comeback, nadal tying slams, and Djokovic (admittedly not an exciting player to watch imo) vying for most slams, all while no one is in the stands, the young guys can’t string 5 wins together, and the big 3 on the verge of retirement anytime now, I would say that 2020 did tennis no favors.
It is a little difficult for me to enjoy certain team tournaments other than Davis Cup/Fed Cup because the players seem too relax and appears that they are not giving the best effort to win.
I think you started a really good conversation here. That 61 year old average age is striking. I also think your proposed solutions are spot on. Here's what I think: 1) Shorten the season for sure, and have that sub season thing where things are more experimental, the camera angle is court level, and players can build hype in the trenches. 2) Definitely change the format to teams in some way. There could be scenarios where the #1s on each team draw and the match that matters most is between fourth best players on each team. This spreads the hype over more players and more matches, and eliminates the issue of not connecting with individuals who aren't cool enough. 3) As a whole needs to be blacker. Roger, Rafa, and Novak are incredible, but after that where is the hype? Nick, Naomi, and Serena - the blackness. Scene just needs more sauce.
Love your videos, keep up the good work! Setup a Patreon page if you haven't already! Team events - way to go! Coming from the country of No1e, the ATP cup was great! Bringing up Lajovic as an example was also great - there should be more opportunity for lower ranked players to get visibility and engagement by the fans. Every slam needs a big team event kind of in parallel. Or perhaps there should be four "team-slams". Volleyball made a smart change of the scoring some time ago and it made it much more compelling to watch. Maybe there's something to be changed in tennis.
I started watching unpretentiously, but you were really perceptive and certainly thought about this subject, it shows. I think that the country leagues and special tournaments at the end of the year would also engage the yourger kids to start playing. Really nice video, congratulations on the channel and on your content. I have to agree about tha fan base age, at least here in Brazil I discuss much more sports with my friends grand parents than with them haha (tennis x soccer). Keep up the great work.
Just to add another 2 cents worth... Access to courts. Here in London, council courts are everywhere, and free. Back in Sydney, Australia, you can't get a free council court anywhere, last I checked. At least, it must be something like 99.9% commercial. This is due to the expensive land, and the way council revenues are collected and spent. What do the players have fun with? The kids at the local academy love playin lavash - not the slow paced stuff you see, but extremely fast paced. When a point is over, the next player IMMEDIATELY hits a ball, and the winner of the last point is already in trouble, usually being out of position. It's a lot of fun to play, and as a spectator, fun to watch. But that's only one way to go; why not remove all first serves? You will wind up with kick serves, and not the serve bots who, while technically great, just bore me to tears. That way you get rallies, and getting to the net must be earned. Complement that with faster courts again, to actually reward people who can make it to the net. If you really wanted to mix it up, make serve volley worth 2 points. Players who go for the risky big first serve must be very committed, and if it worked, they could wrap up a service game with just 2 serves. A bit like watching basketballers go from hoop to hoop quickly. You could even make a love game worth 2 games, to provide extra incentive (more excitement).
Hmmm no first serve + faster courts could be a good combo to avoid servebotting, although you might still get some who can first serve at 70% and would still pull the trigger
I would try to figure out some way of doing round Robin formats at the grand slams to qualify for the elimination rounds that start at the qfs or round of 16. Tennis more so than other formats loses watchers when the stars get upset early. Round Robin format (maybe 3 set instead of 5 set matches) would make sure stars get decent exposure in the early rounds and maybe drum up more excitement for non star matches if suddenly a star gets upset early but then needs someone else to win/lose to qualify for elimination rounds. Also, maybe the Olympics for tennis should be changed into a team format instead of an individual format where the various countries teams need to qualify over a 4 year period (a la the world cup). Alternately maybe a consolation bracket could solve this issue. Imagine if nadal loses early but wins the consolation round, now needing to beat Roger twice to win the tournament. My last thought it to distribute prize money more equally so that lower ranked players can actually make a living and it increases the overall competitive pipeline post college
I think it is really difficult to find a good solution. Great if people start trying out new things. UTS was a bit too weird for me though - using cards and then the player‘s nicknames. I really appreciated the camera angles though, which lets you better estimate how fast and spinny these shots really are, or why a great slice can be difficult to attack. And also that there were less pauses. As some already said and what really bores me as well are those long times inbetween the points and games. Sure it‘d be more difficult for the players if they had less time but then still, it‘d be the same for all.
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Dustin Brown v Top 10 player is exciting and fun to watch. 95% of play is too conservative, boring and laggy for 5 hours. Just do 24 pt sets, 1 serve only, win by 2, finish in 1/2 to 1 hr. Put GoPro on players. Guarantee players will play 3-4 matches in singles free for all, doubles, team with ranking pt cap for balance. Volleyball, doubles changed their scoring.
They need court level camera views almost exclusively to make it exciting to watch
I agree
Seriously...why would you put the camera up in the nosebleed seats????
Yeah I prefer courtside view
Yea like NBA
totally agree. I really wish there was a way to switch between camera angles,.
I think having college tennis on major networks needs to happen. There is great emotion and connection with the team format of ncaa tennis. It also gets young fans engaged with new young players that they can follow once they go pro which creates fan bases. It also gives goals for young players to reach. It is much more motivating to see an achievable level of a sport on television.
For everyone promoting the team format....hello...It's already there. Go support your local NCAA team. Honestly it's more entertaining than ATP and WTA.
Agree I think tennis’ downfall is being a single person team sport. That’s why laver cup and such things has been so good for tennis
Camera angles. I remember before I know tennis, I was really confused when the tennis is in satallite view, everything is so small and the ball look so slow. Since I don't understand strategy and tactics, all I focused on is actions. I actually thought I can beat those pros because how slow the ball looks from that distance. I think if events can change and add seat level view and make it 100% it would bring a lot of eye balls because at high level match the amount of movement and reaction speed is insane that is something you can't see or experience as a low level or casual.
Definently!
we need to boycott tennis tv until they do court level view
Yep, I didn't realize how fast and with how much power the ball was getting hit until I was up close and live.
As an amateur player, I was never under the illusion about the speed of the game, because I played against people of many levels. I was just a recreational player at about 4.0 level, and I once played against a 60 year old former college player. His second serve bounced to my eyes, and I had to retreat far back in order to receive. It was a struggle for me in every shot to keep up with the pace. He still beat me easily. But I can see for people who don't play, they could easily think tennis is just a game, not a sport that requires athleticism. In fact, one dude had said that to me.
"I actually thought I could beat those pros" hahaha you're unique on this hubris buddy. though I agree it doesn't look super fast on that angle, any person with minimal self awareness would not think that.
what is a real turnoff on tv is the camera angle. the ground level cam is 10x more entertaining, and was the best aspect of the ultimate tennis showdown. but i am pretty sure that most of the casual viewers would complain "uuhh i can´t see ball" give me my old (shi++y camera angle back.
You have read my mind, totally agreed
nobody else in the family plays tennis aside from me and this is exactly what happens when a point starts and the broadcast is on court level camera lmao
100% agree! Why don't they use the court level angle more often?! It's a no-brainer. If they're afraid that it will deter people from going to the event because it's like it's in their living room with that angle, they're being ridiculous. Still doesn't compare to watching in person.
@sheltomo ruclips.net/video/5qDsCk2JqqU/видео.html
Agreed 👍👍💯
I totally agree with your point about team tennis.
ATP Cup 2020 was amazing. As Bulgarian, I was so excited and happy that I can see our 2nd racket(~ #300) winning. I actually follow and support him since then, he is on the verge of the top 200 now and I think the ATP Cup experience contributed a lot for that success.
I found myself liking tennis from 2005-2010, used to stay up late to watch slams, now i can't be bothered. They've slowed down the courts so much. No variety of play styles anymore.
Completely agree! They need to speed up the game, so tired of 30 shot rallies. They need to change something to spur different styles, game has become to homogeneous!
Completely agree. Way too homogeneous
Yeah. Agreed.
Now I only watch highlights on RUclips.
And I very much miss the Doubles, which I find more exciting than Singles.
These days power almost always wins over finesse. That's boring to watch. I have no idea how to change the game to fix that.
@@WallyWolf Did u watch the UTS matches ? Some good ideas over there.
Good video. I personally love the college tennis format, especially the new one with shorter doubles and no ad. Don't get me wrong, I love the really good several hour battle, but I'm a hardcore tennis fan and I can't get my friends to come watch a match with me if I have to say "well it could be 90 minutes or it could be 5 hours". It's hard for casual fans to plan around that vs. other sports. We also don't do enough to reach the younger generation. Very few of our top players have a RUclips presence. There's no major licensed, annual franchise video game like a FIFA or Madden, NBA 2K. But I think the biggest challenge is how tennis is managed. There isn't one single business that owns it, unlike the NFL. That makes changes challenging because of all the different entities involved. For licensing, you need to negotiate rights with each individual player, tournament owner, and tour owner.
Agreed!!
Doubles tennis doesn't get enough love.
True. I’m not quite sure why, but it seems most people just aren’t interested in watching doubles. Perhaps it has something to do with the fact that a lot of doubles “teams” are just two random players, rather than an established team (like the Bryan brothers). Not sure if I’m right but it’s a thought...
I think it's because we like to see 1v1 gladiator style, someone pushing their limits where in doubles its more stagnant
No kid growing up playing tennis dreams of winning Wimbledon doubles. Lets be honest, pro dubs guys play dubs because they are not good enough for singles.
@@tberry79 the points just aren't as exciting. Period. Been to a lot of pro doubles and the points are just super short cause the guys are so good at ending the points early. Now the points that are exciting are SUPER exciting, but they are few per match
@@youngsuit that's so true! It's very easy to score a point playing doubles and very difficult to defend one. What if a slower ball is used to play doubles? That could make the tennis points longer and exciting?
I don't know any non team sport that has as good a following as tennis, but yet its still quite low. I think the major problem is that its relatively difficult to find courts and rackets to play the sport whereas compared to basketball, you just need a ball and 10 people and you have a game for hours and hours.
years and years
This doesn't apply for Critcket (2.5 billion fans) neither Hockey (2.2 Bll)
Lots of people watching football but they don’t actually play American football. I would include hockey in this comparison.
Your point on boring tennis players and styles is big for me. You know who I love to watch? Taylor Townsend. The fact that she's this underdog with a story of struggles due to being criticized for her weight and then using serve-and-volley to dismantle Halep was so amazing to watch. That's what makes good tennis: clashes of tactics and personalities. I think Nick is great for this. His underarm serves and his trolling antics make tennis exciting. He's the Happy Gilmore of Tennis.
I agree! We need more of that
quite an interesting video!! I think the engagement level that fans have during the team events is what the normal evets are lacking, the interaction between players, coaches and people during the team events is something that brings tennis closer to other sports. Another thing that affects the sport and that is the situation here in Colombia is that it is recognized as an elite sport only play by wealthy people, this causes that every time fewer people practice it. I think that solving those two issues could mean more people practising it therefore going or watching the tournaments
I've actually thought about this for a while. Couple of things to add on top of what you mentioned. It is really hard to make tennis a team sport because one person is enough to handle all situation on tennis court, unlike say, basketball where we NEED 5 players with different skillset to play different position; however good you are, you still need teammates to win. And lack in individual skill can be compensated with good teamwork strategy. However, in tennis it's not the case. Why would a top player play in a team where he knows everyone else will drag him down.
Also, for outsiders it's particularly hard to see the "fun" of tennis. Anyone can understand basic rules of, say, score, but not same can be said about tennis. Tennis contains so many details and it all happen very fast. It is just very hard to sit in front of TV to watch 5 hours of tennis.
Hi. I just heard about your channel from the newest video of Ian Westerman’s Essential Tennis channel. I think you’re doing good stuff as well.
Being a 39 years old guy from Germany and being into tennis since the tennis boom in Germany created by Boris Becker and Steffi Graf of the late 80s, I can confirm some of your statements. When I was a kid, tennis was like the 2nd most interesting sport (behind soccer) for the majority of TV viewers here. So it was about the two local heros that are still by far the most successful players of our country’s history. And it was about watching sports on free TV.
After Steffi‘s and Boris‘ retiring there were some good players like Nicolas Kiefer or Tommy Haas, but compared to the greatest couldn’t really attract that much attention here. They just couldn’t win a grand slam tournament and Haas had the bad luck to be part of the big 3 era which has made it even harder to win a grand slam tournament. I think after so many great players in the 80s and 90s, the lack of superstars in men’s tennis is the same for the US. There just hasn’t been a great US male player since Sampras and Agassi. I mean, Blake had a great game and Roddick some good stretches as well, but both just couldn’t continue the tradition of the US to be the best nation in tennis.
The other part is access to watching tennis. In Germany, in the 80s and 90s it was easy to watch tennis on free TV stations like public-service broadcasting or normal cable TV stations. Nowadays, there is like no live tennis on the public-service broadcasting at all and, especially ATP, barely live tennis on cable TV stations. So it’s very difficult to watch live tennis if you don’t have pay TV and this is like 40+ Euros (almost like 50 $) per month. That’s a huge difference compared to the past. And the lack of access really doesn’t help the middle generation (30 to 45 years old) to remain being interested.
The younger generation (25 and under) doesn’t consume TV anymore, so it would be necessary for the ATP to find ways to make tennis attractive for all those instagram, tic toc, etc. content creators. The majority of the young generation is about being handsome, healthy and successful. What sport can create a narrative like that better than tennis? I think there is a lot of potential. Additionally, being into gaming as well, it’s sort of sad there is no great tennis game available. FIFA, NHL, NBA2K, MMA, even PGA or MLB are famous games for gaming platforms. To attract interest of the younger generation, a great tennis video game might be a good thing either.
The lack of success is a lack of narratives. Being a tennis player, I prefer to watch NBA basketball and all those Undisputed, 1st things 1st, etc. shows where guys are talking about who is the g.o.a.t., which team will win and what trades are projected to come or would make which team better, etc. In tennis some of these talks aren’t possible as there is no famous league that involves trades, drafts, coaches and tennis doesn’t have narratives about coaching, defense or offense systems. These talks aren’t possible, but media has to create tennis related narratives in order to entertain people. I think the NBA’s tradition of awards at the end of the regular and post season is a good thing in that way. There should be awards in professional tennis as well. At the end of the day perception is the most important thing. The ATP has to find ways to create more narratives around tennis and maybe modify some rules to make the sport more attractive to watch. Gladiators and track & fielders have been the first stars in sports 2000 years ago. Boxing, MMA and even fake Wrestling are still working very well. They focus on the narratives. Tennis might do it in its own way to be more exciting.
Appreciate the support!
I think the Federer-esque "gentleman" personality he took on from 2005 onwards was pretty bad for tennis personality. Everyone thinks that to be a good tennis player you have to be cool calm and sponsor forward. Anyone who is not is considered a clown or a child and thats not fair
Agreed. Fed made tennis seem even more an elitistic sport... and when I remember the white Nike "suit" - holy crap, that was really unnecessary
Couldn't agree more. My dad, for instance, is a sick Fed fan. He considers Novak Djokovic a complete barbarian and the hate he has for Novak is such that he gets to the point of saying that Novak will be irrelevant in history even if he beats all the records, which is just absolute nonsense. His previous fav. player was Pete Sampras, who by this time is already less succesful than Djokovic.
I agree that you can't dislike Fed. he is a beast of a player and a very respectful character, but he created a "role-model-tennis-player" image that other players can not run from or they will be hated or polarize fans, like novak, nick, etc.
@@Matheusfk3 and yet who draws more fans into the sport? Federer or Djokovic? There is a clear winner there.
It's the opposite. Federer single handedly carried Tennis's popularity. Fedal rivalry made Tennis popular. Moreover Fed is much more interesting to watch than say Murray or Djokovic.
That was the best comment I ever read, I think the same, today is a crime have personality, players can’t show emotions, can’t break racquets, you need to be a fucking robot
Agree, they need more financial investment at the "lower-end" of the profession. Those folks are still professional players and are more likely to engage fans regularly than, say, the top 100.
And they are hating Novak Djokovic for trying do that
You’re basically speaking from an American perspective and at the end of the day tennis hasn’t been a must watch sport for the casual fan in like 2 decades here outside of the big 3, Williams sisters and maybe Sharapova. Then you have the fact that tennis is played all over the world with crazy time differences on top of the fact tennis is literally never on tv in the US unless it’s the tennis channel or ESPN during a slam. I remember tennis being on espn, nbc, tennis channel, cbs, fox sports even oxygen (which is a channel geared toward women) growing up. I also think most players having the same or at least similar playing styles hasn’t helped and how the tours/tournaments in general don’t always let players express themselves has suffocated any chance of players showing actual personalities.
With technology eliminating people calling lines how can a new breed of McEnroe
Ike personalities yell and scream a lines people? Come on you can’t be serious.
Interesting video. I loved watching Laver cup even though it's an exhibition format. You are right about team events and maybe even franchise tennis.
Tennis is struggling to bring in more fans and hold on to casual fans. For the TV viewer (main channel of engagement) changes need to be made. I really enjoyed the camera angle of UTS which is lower and closer to the players. You can see the shot shape and velocity so much better with this angle as opposed to the high up angle of the grand slams.
This is an interesting discussion that is happening in many sports, and some aspects of it have nothing to do with the sport but how to package it to make it more profitable year by year. We need to be careful in some areas. Of course we should look at what makes tennis more exciting for fans: longer rallies, more strategy less hitting, less influence of serve, interesting player characters, player interaction with fans, shorter boring matches but 5 sets epic battles…etc. We should promote this. However I don’t fully agree with some issues mentioned here. Any sport will belong to their fans, and most sports are difficult to understand and follow is you are not a fan: Try watching Nascar, F1, golf, rugby, NFL, NBA, rowing,…etc without being a fan and understanding the rules and the complexities and you may become very bored pretty soon. And in most sports, other than the top teams/players and big tournaments, 80% of matches/races/games are dull and boring to watch unless you are a true fan. That level of complexity and rules make the sport great though!. Now you can try and make the sport short and simple, so it can be consumed easily by the non-fan…. but how great would “Augusta Open” be if it was no more than a 3 hole shoot out having everyone with same club? Quick and adrenaline filled, good to be consumed on a 10minute commute to work but none of the drama and glory of the hard earn 5 day war.
The key for me is the fan base. 40 years ago you would become a fan following your dad passion, your friend new hobby, something fun you tried in the park, that big sport drama that the entire city was talking about. And you would go out and try/follow. Nowadays kids spend more time in social media and they follow what they see there (which is nothing, as there is so much that they get overloaded with everything). They run away from slow, hard work driven progress, and they want be a “winner” straight away, …fast, easy, social winner which the society seems to like.
So to avoid dying, you need to bring them out of their media and into a court. That is the challenge!. How to use the new media to show role models, to show sport hero’s, to create drama worth following, to create attachment worth showing emotions for ….to create a life motivation they feel keen to dedicate the time to. Bringing more people into a paid-TV does not avoid tennis dying, it avoid business stagnating.
There is way too much sport on TV nowadays, there is so much that is difficult to show attention to anything other than the big events. We need less TV and more real sport, local club rivalries, city leagues, club’s & academies that promote the sport and not only themselves.
Well said. Game should reach larger audience mostly younger generation and create interest in them. There should be proper structure and good investment from grassroots through club levels to pro level so that the good talents are encouraged. Also I believe there should be more and more unique styles like Medvedev and characters like Djokovic, Kyrgios which will draw more crowds.
And yes, there is a risk (at least here in USA) the sport will fade away. It remains a bit of an elitist sport. It's a beautiful sport, I wish it was accessible to more people. I was not rich growing up but I got lucky we had several decent public courts nearby and USA men's tennis in the 90s was very popular so we had legends to watch on TV. Speaking of TV we cannot even watch the major tournaments on free TV anymore! Everything is behind a paywall. Tennis may go the way of autoracing which had it's peak in the 1960s/70s and steadily declined. Tennis governing bodies need to put better free highlight videos on RUclips for example. The US Open and Roland Garros official RUclips highlight videos were ridiculous/atrocious.
this is spot on
Yeah making crappy highlights to force you to buy various memberships is short sighted thinking
Also, how does the WTA channel manage to make 8 minute videos about most individual matches from a tournament like Ostrava and 2 grand slams can't pass the 4 minute mark? Props to the WTA channel though
Respectfully disagree, tennis needs to be in a club, you need coaches around and other players to compete against and maintenance . However, the clubs should be affordable $5/hr not just indoor courts that are $35/hour. Public courts are not maintained well enough. In Europe tennis is played in clubs and it thrives. I play on public courts because there are no outdoor clubs and I can not afford or like indoor tennis.
@@info781 yeah well $5/hr is basically public at that price level.
The game is just too defensive now, thats why federer is one of the most enjoyable to watch, because he is agressive.
Agreed
They need to make the surfaces more distinct like before the 2000's. That is what made it fun was the differences in styles of play and surfaces. No way these guys when 20 slams each back then. They would win a lot but not 20.
THATS the point... just make these baseliners suffer with FAST courts again and its all great again...
i so tired of boring baseliners like djoko and nadal... RUN RUN AND WIN POINTS DUE TO OPONENTS EXAUSTION
Agree so hard. Tell me why poly strings weren't a mistake.
There is strength in numbers! The team approach I believe is the answer in a lot of ways, as you stated, but also help for individual tennis.
A private team, say 10 players, call pull resources together with lodging, coaching and most importantly sponsorship!
We need more Nick Kyrgios types
That sounds sad for Tennis. He's a terrible professional athlete. A waste of talent...
@@emmanuelcordoba1502 well a conor mcgregor is needed for viewing numbers
@@jason6344 there should be another way, he hasn't won anything yet... I think another rivalry like fedal would attract more people
@@emmanuelcordoba1502 well yes, but if they’re boring people that doesn’t work, we need hot heads.
facts. theres a reason why he is popular, because he is a personality.
love playing tennis. been playing almost all my life week in week out. but absolutely hate watching. there's just too much walking around, towel fetching, sitting downs, banana biting between each point that typically lasts 10 seconds. Then there's all the TV commercials... The format really doesn't help. I think if the scoring system is like tiebreaks, or even badminton or table tennis, it would draw audience attention for slightly longer periods of time perhaps.
Need more personalities. Players like Nick Kyrgios, although disliked by many isn't afraid of public opinion. Very unpredictable, and super skilled. Need more players like that
A team event with brand teams. Team Head, Team Wilson, Team Babolat, Team Yonex, Team Adidas, Team Nike.
That's a really cool idea but would require the teams coming together.
I mean Laver Cup is fun like this.
But who would root for a brand?
That's just a stupid idea as it would be determined by which company pumps in the most money.
@@svlagonda7417 not really, its still based upon the players, it good for publicity tho. I think the only problem is whether the players want to play for a brand rather than themselves :/
Hi Karue,
I've discussed this a few times in the past, and Noah Rubin is the actual example I gave. Noah has been ranked around 125 in the world at various times, and around then, he would have made around 150k for that year. After expenses (hotels, flights, coaches, court hire, equipment, physio, etc etc) would have been left with maybe 25-30k. This is for an athlete, who is the 125th best IN THE WORLD, in a global sport. Compare this with the 125th draft pick in the NBA, who got a contract for $11m. Consider also, many pro players have trained for 10-15 years by the time they are 20. How much does a doctor earn by the time they have done their training of 7 years or so?
I know there is World Teams Tennis, but for whatever reason, that hasn't really taken off (IMO).
I would start by looking at the various leagues of football, basketball, baseball, etc, and see which have been most financially successful, and copy their methods, where appropriate. The thing is, NFL has maybe 20 games a year for each team, but basketball has a lot more, so the duration of the season is only one side of it.
Then you look at the revenue split. I think tennis players get a raw deal. What percentage do the players get, compared to other sports. I have heard some surprising numbers. And not just the pros. At grass roots levels, football players here (aka soccer for US fans) get paid to play in the juniors; or at least, they get heavily subsidised. Tennis juniors cost a fortune to develop, pretty much exclusively thanks to mum and dad. It's no wonder kids interest levels are hard to maintain, when they've been excluded from their own sport, where other sports appear to actively pursue them. Why would a kid choose a sport where it costs thousands of pounds a year, over another which may be effectively free, or makes them money???
Plenty more to discuss, but thought I'd put my 2 cents worth in for now.
Love the answer!! Appreciate it👊🏻
IN my area, there's really no local coverage of tennis for local players, high school players, etc. And other than mentioning who just won the U.S. Open, or Wimbledon, etc, there's no real mention of pro tennis either in the nightly sports new coverage.
Davis Cup used to be a very motivational event, so yes, I agree about the power of team events. And the need for exciting players and rivalries. If you ask my 8 year old son, his favorite player in Kyrgios
And also, there simply isn't enough variety in style. Don't you feel like everyone is converging on similar playstyle? Before, we have SV, big server, baseliners etc. And courts are much more different than they are right now.
Makr players use wooden rackets for Wimbledon every 2 years.
There should be a behind the scenes Netflix documentary on professional tennis, just the F1 docos. I only had a passing interest in F1, but after watching that, I felt a real connection to the drivers, and now I watch all the F1 races!
Get rid of the second serve non-sense. First serve fault, you lose the point. This alone will solve most problems that make tennis boring. Matches become shorter, more unpredictable. There will be more attacking tennis (as a returner), more varieties of playing styles. It will favor the server less, leveling the playing field for each game (hence, increasing unpredictability for each set/match) and making ace less often and more valuable. It adds more stress to the players, hence more drama for the spectators. There will be less dead time to watch non-actions (bouncing of the balls, etc.).
You are basically asking players to use only kick serve
I would take a step further and make it underhand serves only. It would make tennis learning curve much flatter. We need to entice the younger generation to play tennis.
I haven't watched a men's match in full since the 2008 Wimbledon Final. Why? Because 90% of the time you spend watching are of the players standing around, bouncing the ball, wiping their face with a towel, waiting to serve, walking from one side of the court to the other, sitting on chairs etc. Some players even deliberately waste time. It's worse if you're at the stadium as you can't move from your seat and do something else. Don't believe me? Record a video of yourself playing a singles set. The set might take say 40-50 mins to complete. Edit the recorded video to show live points only. That edited segment will be about 10-15mins long.
Absolutely. If you compress/edit a tennis match just to the actual ball hitting I think you will be down to 15 minutes of play.
Spoken for truth. When I watch a match on TV now, I make sure that I can do something else at the same like paperwork, pay the bills, watch a few rallies, do the bills, organise the cupboard, watch a few rallies etc. Need something to fill the "dead" time during matches. Going to watch isn't much better either - the tickets are ridiculously expensive for a courtside seat and whilst the atmosphere can be terrific (eg. Federer, night time at O2), you can't fill the dead time.
Imagine golf or baseball
Ya watching mostly just highlights now.
So true
Award extra points for hitting your opponent with the ball
There are some interesting styles and personalities on the tour, and a majority of players don't go far in tournaments often. That's a problem as far as diversity for fans.
I'm a huge fan of the big 3. That's great for me, because they do well so often that when they're all healthy I'm seeing them go deep every week almost in tournaments.
But what if you're a fan of Dustin Brown's clown style? Or Krygios rebel persona? Monfils atheletiscm? The list goes on.
What I found interesting about the Lavor Cup format was that it made someone like Krygios all of a sudden feel relevant. If a player lost, they would play again. So some kind of weekly team competition, say 4 players per team, two singles and two for doubles, could make tennis much more appealing to a mainstream audience. Creating something that's at least heading in the direction of established godly team sports such as football/soccer. People get so worked up say when Man United plays Liverpool and so on. Its bigger than the players themselves. It brings out that tribal thing people still have in them, them vs us. We don't have that in tennis. If you rally behind Federer, it's not 'us', it's you cheering for him. Supporters of soccer teams and other team sports don't feel that way. It attaches deeply to their sense of identity, who they support, to the extent that their team becomes them, part of their life. And that brings in money for the sport, that kind of devotion/passion.
Tennis needs something like that, and Davis Cup, Atp Cup style events isn't that. It's a short world Cup type event that should still receive more support than it does, but as I said, tennis needs a weekly team event for a decent portion of the season. Branded teams with kits that change every season, home and away kits and all that. Merchandise to sell to grow the sport. Maybe a 1/3 to 1/2 of the season in this format. The rest can be singles and doubles kind of how it is now, but more like hardcourt, grass, and clay being more evenly split. I'd actually reduce it to three slams in this case say with a couple of masters on the surface before each slam (this would make masters seem more important). I'd ditch the atp finals and replace it with a 'world cup' type scanerio that's essentially THE tournament to win each season to dial focus of the tour to that one event for casuals. Have the surface and location change each year. Each match should be more interesting than in slams though, so I'd section it by rank, so maybe top 30 in division 1 world Cup, 60-31 division 2 etc., somethinh like that. Reserve it for top 100 players or something. I don't know about that, but it is a problem in slams that most early round matches are boring and predictable with top players.
Back to slams, I'd change it so that slams aren't best of 5 till round 4 or quarters, and I would make this the same for the women. Three set match ups with the best towards the latter end of tournaments lack drama.
This kind of restructuring probably isn't going to happen, even if people wanted it, much like how there are too many belts and divisions in boxing. Too much money wrapped up in bs. But I think it would be great for the sport. It would give tennis more superstars as well. Nick Krygios would already be a superstar in this kind of tour in my opinion. But as it is now, we have three superstars and everyone else. That's bad for the sport.
Yes, it would also mess with goat rankings and so on moving forward when comparing to this era and the past, but I think the sport being healthy in the long run is more important.
I really love these ideas you're throwing out here. I think its great that you want to keep the aspects of tennis that define it as a sport, but modernize the way tennis is packaged and commericalized to a different fan base. Really good stuff. :)
Where I live, tennis has taken off because it's a relatively safe sport for social distancing. Heck, even pickleball is gaining steam in the U.S. at least.
That is true! A lot of people are trying tennis/pickelball
@@KaruesellHQ tennis interest is soaring, I'm a coach in NYC, though when I ask my clients if they watched the match last night they say no....I'm like watch the RUclips clips atleast....20 minutes of the best points in the match(sometimes ever point edited to perfection), plus if it's an epic one, they will put the unedited match up
One thing that turns me off as a viewer is the lack of variety in game styles. As a youth I remember being captivated by the battles between Borg and McEnroe because of the difference in the way they play. Well, part of that was due to the racquet and string technology of the day. The game was slower so players had time to get to the net. Should we go back to wooden racquets? Has the game become too fast? Well, professional baseball players don’t get to use aluminum bats. Has tennis become to much of a baseline game of players looking to hit a big forehand? That gets boring to watch. That’s why my favorite tournament to watch is the French. The court is slower so players have time to get to the net. I’d like to see more serve and volley play. Something to throw out there.
I say they need more variety in court speeds so different styles can be created
👍👍👍👍😎
Can we stop beating around the bush here? Tennis is a rich country club sport, and only those that play tennis watch it. Everyone has thrown a football, kicked a soccer ball, and shot a basketball and even hit a baseball. Yet VERY few ever step foot on a court. Tennis will never attract the common man when racquets cost 250 a pop, and shoes run at 150, and string is 40 bucks with labor included.
Everywhere I’ve lived in the USA, there’s always been an abundance of public courts.
I bought a decent racket at Walmart for less than $50. There are available courts for free at every high school and middle school in the country.
Now let's talk about golf on the other hand.
Generally speaking, in tennis we have few seconds of game and minutes of nothing. So if the match is not exciting for some other reason, a casual viewer for sure will change channel.
In addition, I think you catch the point wehen you notice the lack of spirit of belonging because everybody can have some interest for a match if in some way he fells he is part of it.
So, who cares for a first round match between two top 100? Nobody.
Cancelling the second serve would be in the direction for more playing and less pause. What do you think?
One example of this was turning a country/group competition the Davis cup into one single week tournament. I would much rather follow throughout the year if my country is doing good, and have those insane weekends of joy like when Brazil played USA, or Croatia, and really be supportive for some guys that we do not give that much attention on a regular basis
Another reason is the availability of TV matches. I do not own cable and the only way to watch is just highlights on RUclips :( other sports are easily available on over the air TV channels.
Definitely
Tv coverage is terrible. Tennis channel seems to be the biggest option and they are not available on any streaming service - so cable ..is only choice and everyone is dumping cable. Team tennis is more fun because players light up when on a team - their energy spreads to the crowd. Final thought - the old Davis Cup crowds where the fans were going crazy were super fun. Tennis needs more crowd energy - crowd needs to be able to whoop it up - like a basketball frame. Cheering throughout - forget the “be quiet - don’t want to disturb the players”.
Agree with every point you made. College tennis has noise and people moving around and it is a great product. No reason why it couldn't work in tennis
Yeah youre definately right about team formats creating more excitement. I remember when i was growing up in the 80s and Sweden was doing so well, everyone was watching davis cup, that was really exciting! I dont know what really happened after that, exept that Sweden crashed as a tennis nation, but im pretty sure overal interest has gone down everywhere. I actually have a couple of suggestions for rule changes. First is how about allowing on court inverviews with the players during matches, imagine how exciting to hear their thoughts about whats going on during a match and so on. Second thing is a bigger thing and therefore i doubt it will ever happen but i think it would make a good change and bring a different dynamic and excitement to the game. Only 2 or 3 maybe secondserves per game. One of the most boring parts about tennis is when theres no play, someone hits a hard serve, its an ace or the other player hits a net, and thats the end of that point. Now the worst part about that is that the server that wins the point so easily is not even taking any risk what so ever because if he misses hes always got his second serve. Now with only 2 or 3 second serves per game you create a whole new dynamic where the server when he decides to go big actually risks something. If he runs out of first serves its gone be very difficult to hit winners on the serve, but the fact that you dont take away the second serve completely still enables him to go for the serve and hit aces, and doing so will be so much more spectacular then now because youre actually risking something. Actually i can think of one more rule change, il throw that in there as a bonus ha ha, its a no brainer and should have been done away with long time ago, its the no let on serve of course.
Good analysis. Basically, we need more variety in playstyles, more variety in court surfaces, more personality on and off court, more opportunities for players outside the top 100 to make a living and have a chance to break through. Team events are always fun, gives casual fans a chance to really enjoy the energy of a packed stadium. More low camera angles too! Most casual fans have absolutely no idea how fast and athletic these players are.
One thought I always had for tennis is to have tennis players mic'd up for certain matches. Would be very interesting to see a different side (mental) of tennis other than hitting the ball. Also, I agree that shortening tennis season is very important! Not only for the health of the players but will create an "offseason" for people to anticipate tennis coming back. Great video and topic!
I totally agree with the point about game style - I LOVE watching tennis so I feel I am in constant search for youngsters who can do more than just top-spin groundstrokes behind the baseline...
I am all for things like data analysis/high percentage pattern analysis for sports, but at the end of the day we are mostly entertained by unpredictable shot selections.
As tennis lover I really appreciate this video! We shall just face the problems directly, and try to figure out a better route.
We are enjoying possibly the greatest generation in our sport and because of it maybe the future looks uncertain to many. The same happened to me when Lend, Becker and Edberg retired, then it happened when Sampras and Agassi retired. When the three current beasts retire I am sure that the new generation will keep the sport interesting and exciting. Thiem, Tsitsipas, Sinner, Rublev, Medvev etc. There is so much talent and desire to excel that our sport is in good hands. When it comes to rules and tournaments I don't see why not adopt limited coaching in non slam events. Also tennis channel can incorporate more coverage of college, national 5.0 finals, juniors events to show people a level of play that is more realistic to them.
Hey Karou, I’ve seen or heard topics like this. Based on my experience, in this pandemic, tennis is dying or boring, not fun, people don’t like it. Whereas, the pickle ball courts are full, they even have a rule on how to play if others are waiting. I think the reason for this is the learning curve. Tennis is hard to learn. If you go out to the park, most players serve like a frying pan serve on their second serve, my tennis partner serves this way. It took me a year to develop a topspin second serve. Assume a year per stroke, so you got forehand, backhand and serve, that would equate to 3 years before you can play tennis. Compare it to pickle ball, you can play on day one. I am from the Philippines, it is a basketball country, same thing, you can play basketball one day one, no learning curve. The future? I would predict that pickle ball will overtake tennis, so don’t worry, the skills you learn in tennis will translate to pickle ball.
What I like about tennis is that you hit the ball every second. Do you run the football or kick it every second? Do you shoot the ball every second? Do you throw a punch every second? NO! Tennis is very satisfying, so fun. But there is a big but, you can do this with pickle ball.
I haven't played pickle ball, but if there's a friend who would invite me I would probably like it.
Appreciate this topic. I’ve been talking about this issue with my friends. I agree that the season is too long. I also like the idea of team events as well. I liked the team tennis style of match play, being able to sub in players was kind of an interesting idea. A couple of other thoughts I had are:
1) consider making all the events be 2 of 3. May not be popular for tennis traditionalists, but most people won’t spend 4-5 hours watching a match. Also, it might allow some of the bigger name singles players to participate in the doubles draw, which is team oriented and faster paced action.
2) hear in the US, you mostly need to have, “Tennis Channel “ to watch events. Unless it’s a major tournament and ESPN is televising it. I’d say try to get some of the events on other networks. When I was growing up, tennis was on the 2-3 main networks. Golf, as an example is on 3 or 4 major networks..., although I’m not sure what the ratings are to be honest. Maybe the governing bodies for tennis could look at ways to get 2-3 hour blocks, to allow for more watchable time periods, on other networks to draw in from other networks for these team events.
I agree with shortening the matches. I would go a step further and say 2 sets and a super breaker lol
Now I'm thinking about it more, maybe adding different tournament style might attract more eyeballs besides the typical laver cup teams idea. E.g. 1) Mario party mini game like mode where multiple players has to compete to see how many balls they can hit a target in a limit amount of time. 2) Serve bot mini game, where they look at how many times a server can hit a target or moving target in a limit amount of time 3) A game without serve, so instead of someone serve, a ball machine will toss a ball to start the rally and the game is to hit with a specific shot, perhaps you can only hit between the knees and see how many of them each player can hit until the other miss.
I find the most entertaining matches are the exhibition matches that aren't taken too seriously.
Mansoor Bahrami is the best example, but Monfis, Brown and Kyrgios are also great examples. They take their tennis seriously, but they are entertainers first and foremost.
Another contributor could be that there isn't any "celebrity culture" surrounding Tennis (although this might be because the season is so long). If you look at Formula 1, the sport isn't as popular as football (soccer), but the top drivers are being paid the same because of the marketing values of their celebrity status.
If Tennis had more regular marketing events focused on getting celebs outside of the sport, involved in playing, more eyes (and younger eyes) would be on the sport, and build up the player's credibility with the wider public.
I also believe the rule where the crowd should be silent during a point should be scrapped. Let the crowd express their excitement for their player. It helps them in the journey to becoming fanatics of a team or player.
Agreed but you have to be quiet during points so the players can focus
Booing a quarterback prior to snap or a basketbal player while shooting penalties is not an option for me as tennis players are on their own, they don't have a team to rely on... too much pressure on a single person. Do watch the match Nadal vs Ljubicic in Madrid, one of the last three-set finals, it was awful to watch as Spanish fans were so aggressive, I thought they'd linch Ljubicic... I wouldn't like that sort of fan engagement
I have found Laver Cup to be most entertaining. It does not seem to be exhibitor kind of matches as there are no ATP points involved. There is also the team format which suits guys like Kyrgios. UTS tournament is a great idea as well. Someone here wrote to create team Head vs team Babolat... Yeah, why not. Anything like that. The question is if it is possible to fit such events, if the players would be interested.
In germany, we have "Team-matches" on higher level, called "Bundesliga". They play in between the big tournements, and for my team played for example Marco Checcinato (at that time No. 23ATP), Christian Garin (ATP 19), playing Position 1-6 against each other and then 3 doubles, for viewers and fans it is perfect and very attractive, in average our club counts 2000-3000 visitors during this day. You also can get in contact with the players, it is more familiuar organized with good sponsors...
Oh yes I know the Bundesliga. I almost played it a couple of years ago. Wish more countries did it. Same format as college tennis. More of that would be awesome
Who thinks that tennis is boring, didn’t understand a bit about it. Tennis doesn’t need to be Americanized. It has its own grammar and if you want to be a decent tracker, you need to get to know it. Otherwise you are an outsider of the tennis scope and it will mean to you almost nothing . Gaining more fan and “eye balls” is up to marketing techniques.
Truth !
I agree with the shorter season.
I know you didn't mention it but, 5 sets for grand slams are untouchable!!
Maybe there can be a court level camera on both sides and u can choose which side you want to watch from based on who you support
Less games in every set to make more deciding moments. Winners count double to favor risk taking instead of consistency. And of course, court level cameras for TV.
I think it's definitely getting better! You are able to watch highlights on youtube all day of current events, which is a huggge improvement! They still have a long way to go, but I do feel like its popularity is starting to grow again. Maybe they need to do more to get to know the players on a personal level. They also need to do more to support the players that are up and coming. As I said...it's gotten so much better to watch in my opinion, but that's coming from me who is a huge fan. A lot of my younger friends say that it's too difficult to learn so they have a difficult time getting into it. I think that has a lot to do with is as well...a lot of people don't find it relatable because you can't just pick up a ball and throw it to your friend, which is second nature. I agree with you Karu, it needs to become an easier sport for casual watchers to engage in, but how...I do not know.
This is one of the most Thoughtful analysis's on situation facing the tennis world that I have heard. I think at the end even give some pretty good suggestions about things that would improve tennis for both the fans and the players. What's needed however, is a comprehensive plan written down on paper that can be looked at, modified, and followed. What I hear a lot of is, that tennis needs to change, which I agree with , but what I almost never hear is how exactly things need to be done differently. What is the actual game plan? That is the real question.
Absolutely agree with you!
I’m a huge tennis fan but I’m pretty much done after the U.S. Open. The Laver Cup is exciting and I really like your ideas on team events and leagues during the fall.
I agree, so what do we do about it and how do we go about it?
Credits mann!! Love seeing you think about this!! Would love to have more people to talk with! About tennis ofcours😍 wish i could help!!
ive been thinking for a few years that there needs to be some sort of tennis world cup every few years and/or besides davis cup there needs to be like 2-4 annual nation based team tennis events similar to laver cup or the ATP cup. I also agree with some one else below that going exclusively with the court level camera or at least way more often as the standard camera to watch from would absolutely be the move. It is way more exicting to watch from court level where you feel like youre a part of the experience and you can appreciate the intensity the players are playing at and really see the weight of the ball and the footwork that goes into every point.
Fully agree with your affiliation thinking. I never saw things that way but I think that's very true. How to engage fans by having them identify to a team, a country, a continent? Promoting team events might be an interesting solution. The UTS idea from Mouratoglou was interesting, identifying guys with aliases like "the greek god" or "the pusher" made it look more like video games.
Newer players seem to focus more on being powerful hitters and don’t emphasize on improving their tennis iQ. Every player seems to play the same way from the baseline and rarely comes up to the net.
For the UK there isn't enough Walls or Free Tennis courts to practice on.
I was at Eastbourne the other day. I know Eastbourne has a generalisation of having an elderly population but me and my girlfriend were the youngest ones there (20s). But then the ticket prices aren't really accessible for people with lower incomes.
Great Video!
Some of my opinions:
Team events are great. What should happen is make these team events build up. Like world cups and Euro Cups. Happen every 4 years and having qualifiers.
However there is something I believe could help with engagement: Shorten the imbetween games break. If 2 games only last 5 min and then followed by a 3 minute break it ruins the flow. In my opinion their should be a timer if they should play at least 15 minutes until they can take a break at the end of odd game.
Yeah it does interrupt the flow a bjt but as a player the breaks are necessary if you are going to battle for 5 sets in some events. It gets really physical out there. But definitely something to think about. Appreciate your comment!
@@KaruesellHQ Thx I was thinking more about the first 2 sets. When players are still full of energy. Maybe in later stages, like you said 5 sets, then they can take breaks like normal
That would definitely be interesting. That is why I think we can have a shorter season with normal scoring then a bunch of experimental fun events for a couple months like the UTS.
Good discussion Karue, one big thing that would make it more of a spectator sport would be to eliminate the second serve. This would not only be a big equalizer across all statures of players, tall or short, I think the long rally is what people want “not bang its over”. Maybe a no add scoring may help also. Your thoughts?
I think a good way to create engagement in the US would be to have influencers play. We've seen boxing got a huge boost because of KSI vs Logan Paul. Tiktokers also set trends and could easily get more eyes on tennis. I think fundamentally tennis needs less stringent rules on players showing emotion. Time wasting and gamesmanship needs to be punished. Doubles should get more attention as it is fast paced and easier to watch a quick match of.
As someone who has had to walk away from basketball after 20 years (temp - due to injury and now covid) tennis has been a lifeline in terms of the sport to now play. I feel the three biggest thing to change is:
1. Culture - step away from the shussh silence, the game needs to raucous, passions and emotive, still throw in key facets of respect. But telling me to be quiet all the time, kills the game for new fans.
2. Bigger entry at grass root, the more people that play, the more fans there will be, the more money there is for everyone.
3. Team aspects. This needs to come in big time. People root for teams, it needs to a special one to have support for an individual over a team. We need to go national!!! And the in nation - go regional or cities....
Watching this one a little late, but wanted to give my 2 cents. From a watcher experience I think the big issue (vs. other sports) is that the tennis matched are not very dynamic - play vs. total game time is below 50% - so fans watch more players taking breaks and preparing for the point than actually playing the point. I would put a lot more pressure on the players and give them a lot less time between points and games. Would aim to increase play time to game time ratio over 70%, to make it more dynamic. This would level the playing field, as less experienced players will have better chance to win against the established players if they're having a good day.
Because they make the court way too slow, no winners, no excitement.
Yeah id like more court speed variation
Getting rid of Davis cup was a terrible decision! They are also shortening the game in a rediculous and unpredictable way.
TV Tennis started to get boring when the players started to stay at the baseline. Back in the day (Stan Smith, Aussies, Navratilova, Chris Evert, et al) and all court play it was fun to watch.
Agreed
You need something like a Netflix of a tennis tournament. You should be able to choose which match to want when you sign up to view a tournament. Not just the slams but I should be able to easily watch Challenger all the way up to slams
Its stale as the same 3 guys have been at the top for 20 years!! They are basically as good as humans can play so there's nothing new and exciting to see anymore
Here in Asia we have team tournament IPTL or International Premier Tennis League but was discontinue due to lack of financial support. Federer, Sharapova, Nadal Monfils Kyrios and Murray were played there.
Which country are you from bro ?
Golf is an individual sport too and look at how successful they have been over the years .... Over the past 20 years, I've seen the slow and continuous demise of Tennis Clubs ... That's where The Tennis Cancer starts.
I agree and that's a mystery to me...you couldn't pay me to watch Golf on TV
When I watched UTS by Mouratoglou, I said to myself "what the ?!?". This video puts it in perspective
Winners need to count two points. It will push the player to be more offensive, it will change the whole complexity of the game. You need to be awarded for trying something more risky like the three pointer in basketball
That would be interesting
First off, I really enjoy this channel's content. Keep up the great work! Like you stated in this video, "Tennis is entertainment". Because it is entertainment, a lot of people watch it to escape from the stress of our everyday lives. Unfortunately, it seems that escapism is harder to come by when politics is being incorporated into a lot of sports now (which seems to turn some people off from watching). I know many people that do not watch a lot of sports because of this, and it's NOT because they don't agree with the political message (some actually AGREE with the politics). It's just that they are bombarded by politics in the media daily, and would just like a break from it all. Correct me if I'm wrong but a lot of sports (not just tennis) have seen their viewership drop dramatically in the last few years. Side note: I'm a big Naomi Osaka fan so I thought that it was really cool that you are a part of her team. But when pictures of her boyfriend giving the middle finger in the trophy pictures with Naomi (after the US Open) came out, it really shocked me. What was the point of that? It may of lost her some fans who looked up to her as a 'tennis role-model'. Lastly, I hope I did not offend anybody with my comments, they are just my observation of tennis and sports in general.
Sean Doolittle said a few months ago that sports are like the reward of a functioning society. In 2020 we're seeing that society is not functioning the way it should because of the fact that we're in a pandemic and there's centuries long racial injustices still occurring. So things really aren't normal despite society trying to rebuild itself and you have to be uncomfortable in order for any change to occur for everyone. You can't expect athletes to be "role models" and not speak up when the rest of the world is suffering. Also, advocating for human rights (including your own) is not political by any means. I know that social media isn't everything but her followers on all platforms increased drastically after the US Open so if she's losing 2 fans then she's gaining 200k more. So as time goes on it's possible that she could bring in new fans which she's already doing from Japan to Haiti. And if she wins at the Olympics that will be huge
@@AB_15 Just to clarify, I never said that Naomi's fans should or should not look to her as a 'role-model'. The parents should be role-models. I was talking about her as a 'tennis role-model' which is basically a tennis player who an aspiring player would model their game after. I am still a Naomi fan, but if her boyfriend is going to be giving the middle finger in trophy photo-ops in the future it's definitely going to be a turn-off for some fans. What parent wants to let their kid watch Naomi smiling, throwing up a peace sign, while her boyfriend gives everybody the middle finger (explain that to a kid when you're trying to teach them sportsmanship and being an ambassador of the sport). I actually laughed when I first saw the pictures, but then as I thought about how my young nieces would take that image it made me realize that it shouldn't be funny at all. AB, I actually agree with you on the issues of social injustice and human rights. I was just stating that some people see sports as the wrong platform since they just want to be entertained (since it is just entertainment after all). Thanks for the reply AB, I totally see where you're coming from.
@@phathoang9084 Naomi’s only accountable for herself and her actions only. She’s never talked down to or about any of her opponents. She actually gives them their props in press conferences regardless of the result. She’s always smiling and thanking the ball kids as well. She cheered on Iga as she won Roland Garros recently who’s also her good friend. There’s plenty more examples to go off of but those come to mind when speaking about her and not anyone else. You can choose to focus on those positive things or something that’s completely unrelated.
I think when they went to all the tie breakers to end sets they wanted to make the match faster but i know it made it less exciting for me a fan. I loved when they kept holding serve and just battled and battled long into the night
5:21 the older fanbase! Yes you nailed it. Chevrolet has a similar problem with the Corvette. Average Corvette owner age is 60! They were staring death in the face and went more "youthful" with their new C8 model, let's see if it works or it is too late. Hopefully tennis can pull in youth audience but NFL and NBA dominate the millennials, much better marketing. We need some popular celebrities promoting tennis for example
Another reason is Live TV streaming. Tennis TV is $15 per month. Netflix, Prime and then another expensive subscription. Nope
Agree, ATP and WTA need to do better and faster highlight videos free on youtube. The TV contracts and pay walls are quickly reducing the audience and any future for the sport
hey, thought I'd add my 2 cents after the 2022 US open.
the game needs speeding up a bit and more variety, players are just too damn resistant now... so
1) drop the time between 1st and 2nd serve to max 15s
1) bring back faster surfaces especially at Wimbledon
2) change of sides is too long, 1 min should be enough
3) get rid of service lets
4) only allow a longer break at the end of the set, if the guy is injured too bad....or forfeit 1 game if you need treatment.
5) we must stop the pipi breaks (only allow at end of the sets) at all costs, over 5 min should be penalised 1 point every 30s
6) bring back davis cup in host countries maybe as a league, the new version is a complete waste of time
7) unify ATP / WTA
ATP & WTA should get rid of the let in the serve. The college tournaments don't play the let. By removing the let, the game moves faster and adds some elements of surprise and unexpected plays.
For sure get rid of lets on the serve. Just play it out!
Tennis should allow in-game coaching. There are a lot of similarities to boxing, but boxing lets you get advice inbetween rounds from your coach. This would make it more strategically interesting for tv viewers if they did get to hear what coaches were saying. However, the opponent's team could then listen in as well. But, at least the commentators would be able to clue in to how the person's game has changed and can hopefully inform the viewer.
Also on the season length, more casual fans only pay attention to the majors and basically only the quarter-semi-final finals, so the lesser tournaments aren't affecting those views IMO.
To add-on, power doesn't come across well on tv, so when a lot of these top players are top because of their power and spin (which we also don't see well on tv) what is exciting on tv is seeing people out manuever and outsmart their opponent.
Your idea about a shorter individual season and a teams-based season is really good. Also the comments below about camera angle are spot on. There is nothing more boring than watching a stationary birds eye view of a tennis match from a camera 100 feet above the court. With today's tech, they could put a super fast camera behind the players that's on a horizontal track and giving the best possible angle for every single shot, with zoon in and outs even during the point. The difference in ball speed from TV to in-person if you are sitting behind the player is like 5x . Tennis will never get to team sport level like NBA, NFL. Just not as exciting as 12 vs 12. At best you have to compare it to something like boxing or MMA. During MMA fights, not much personality comes out it's all business, but there is more excitement in MMA due to the buildup to the event and the casual person knows the rules. rambling...
I love the Laver Cup, Kyrgios’ touch volley game, Wawrinka one-hander, the all-too-rare Cressey match for old school serve/volley, think men shoulnt have to play 5 sets at Grand Slams until quarters (even then 3 hour matches more than enough - no one but tennis obsessives sit for 4-5 hour matches). But unquestionably, much much more ground level camera behind return of server (so great to witness true speed and ball action; conversely THE most boring thing in world is trying to watch interminable baseline rallies of red clay season from way overhead). Thats killing tennis.
1. Tennis needs to stay the same, and change very little in order to preserve the spirit of the game. End of story, the stronger the sport, the more SPORTS fans will get interested. Example: Would permitting steroids in baseball make it more exciting? Maybe, but eventually the people who want excitement will leave anyway, and you will lose the base that watches it for the love of the game.
2. People aren’t watching any sports because of the pandemic, whatever logic is out there that more people are home and should watch.......tennis? That’s bad logic. Which leads me to number 3.
3. People want to see tennis with PEOPLE THERE. Let me ask, if you were going to watch a basketball game because “it’s fun” would it be fun at all if your group of 2 or 3 people were the only people in the stadium? Again, maybe for a few minutes, but it would feel very weird and anything but exciting.
Bottom line: the big 3 have dominated tennis for so long, the up and comers for whatever reason are barely competitive at slams, women’s tennis doesn’t bring near the audience that men’s tennis does and with serena basically out the door, that is only making it worse. There are no new story lines. Federer’s comeback, nadal tying slams, and Djokovic (admittedly not an exciting player to watch imo) vying for most slams, all while no one is in the stands, the young guys can’t string 5 wins together, and the big 3 on the verge of retirement anytime now, I would say that 2020 did tennis no favors.
It is a little difficult for me to enjoy certain team tournaments other than Davis Cup/Fed Cup because the players seem too relax and appears that they are not giving the best effort to win.
That's fair!
I think you started a really good conversation here. That 61 year old average age is striking. I also think your proposed solutions are spot on. Here's what I think:
1) Shorten the season for sure, and have that sub season thing where things are more experimental, the camera angle is court level, and players can build hype in the trenches.
2) Definitely change the format to teams in some way. There could be scenarios where the #1s on each team draw and the match that matters most is between fourth best players on each team. This spreads the hype over more players and more matches, and eliminates the issue of not connecting with individuals who aren't cool enough.
3) As a whole needs to be blacker. Roger, Rafa, and Novak are incredible, but after that where is the hype? Nick, Naomi, and Serena - the blackness. Scene just needs more sauce.
Love your videos, keep up the good work! Setup a Patreon page if you haven't already!
Team events - way to go! Coming from the country of No1e, the ATP cup was great! Bringing up Lajovic as an example was also great - there should be more opportunity for lower ranked players to get visibility and engagement by the fans. Every slam needs a big team event kind of in parallel. Or perhaps there should be four "team-slams".
Volleyball made a smart change of the scoring some time ago and it made it much more compelling to watch. Maybe there's something to be changed in tennis.
I started watching unpretentiously, but you were really perceptive and certainly thought about this subject, it shows. I think that the country leagues and special tournaments at the end of the year would also engage the yourger kids to start playing. Really nice video, congratulations on the channel and on your content. I have to agree about tha fan base age, at least here in Brazil I discuss much more sports with my friends grand parents than with them haha (tennis x soccer).
Keep up the great work.
Muito obrigado, André!
Just to add another 2 cents worth...
Access to courts. Here in London, council courts are everywhere, and free. Back in Sydney, Australia, you can't get a free council court anywhere, last I checked. At least, it must be something like 99.9% commercial. This is due to the expensive land, and the way council revenues are collected and spent.
What do the players have fun with? The kids at the local academy love playin lavash - not the slow paced stuff you see, but extremely fast paced. When a point is over, the next player IMMEDIATELY hits a ball, and the winner of the last point is already in trouble, usually being out of position. It's a lot of fun to play, and as a spectator, fun to watch. But that's only one way to go; why not remove all first serves? You will wind up with kick serves, and not the serve bots who, while technically great, just bore me to tears. That way you get rallies, and getting to the net must be earned.
Complement that with faster courts again, to actually reward people who can make it to the net.
If you really wanted to mix it up, make serve volley worth 2 points. Players who go for the risky big first serve must be very committed, and if it worked, they could wrap up a service game with just 2 serves. A bit like watching basketballers go from hoop to hoop quickly. You could even make a love game worth 2 games, to provide extra incentive (more excitement).
Hmmm no first serve + faster courts could be a good combo to avoid servebotting, although you might still get some who can first serve at 70% and would still pull the trigger
I would try to figure out some way of doing round Robin formats at the grand slams to qualify for the elimination rounds that start at the qfs or round of 16. Tennis more so than other formats loses watchers when the stars get upset early. Round Robin format (maybe 3 set instead of 5 set matches) would make sure stars get decent exposure in the early rounds and maybe drum up more excitement for non star matches if suddenly a star gets upset early but then needs someone else to win/lose to qualify for elimination rounds. Also, maybe the Olympics for tennis should be changed into a team format instead of an individual format where the various countries teams need to qualify over a 4 year period (a la the world cup).
Alternately maybe a consolation bracket could solve this issue. Imagine if nadal loses early but wins the consolation round, now needing to beat Roger twice to win the tournament.
My last thought it to distribute prize money more equally so that lower ranked players can actually make a living and it increases the overall competitive pipeline post college
I think it is really difficult to find a good solution. Great if people start trying out new things. UTS was a bit too weird for me though - using cards and then the player‘s nicknames.
I really appreciated the camera angles though, which lets you better estimate how fast and spinny these shots really are, or why a great slice can be difficult to attack. And also that there were less pauses. As some already said and what really bores me as well are those long times inbetween the points and games. Sure it‘d be more difficult for the players if they had less time but then still, it‘d be the same for all.