US OPEN

September 4, 2000

Bart McGuire

BART McGUIRE: I don't have any statement really. We did issue a press release today, as you know, about moving The Tour Championships to Munich. I think we laid out the reasons pretty well in the statement, but just sort of as bullet points, the principal reasons are that, first, we had significantly greater prize money, compensation to the tour from this package in Munich than we had in New York. Second, the amenities for sponsors and for the media and for the players will be absolutely first class. I think those of you who have been to the Grand Slam Cup in Munich would attest to that. Third, it gives us an opportunity to shorten the calendar in a way that would have been really impossible to do had we kept in the United States with a tournament in the United States leading up to The Championships. Fourth, it is really easier for the players to end up the season in Europe than going back yet again across the ocean to the United States. And, fifth, it really is a recognition of the great strength that the tour has in Europe with the number of tournaments we have in Europe, with the number of players. I know there are people who felt that we're a little bit too North Americanized on the tour. This is a recognition that we recognize the strength of the game in Europe, as well. Those are really bullet points of the reasons. As I say, they're really all outlined in the press release. I'm happy to talk about that. I haven't met with a group of you for white quite awhile. If you have other things you want to talk about, that's fine with me.

BART McGUIRE: We haven't. We will have a tour meeting in a couple weeks, a telephone board meeting, to consider the addition of a tournament to the calendar. Oklahoma City is certainly one of the ones we're considering.

BART McGUIRE: Well, I think it's fine. I think the reason that we did this was that we saw a real opportunity in Munich. If we're out of the United States, really out of the United States from after the US Open or shortly after the US Open to early February. I think if you were devising a calendar from scratch, you might say it would be nice to have an additional event in the United States. But the fact is, there are all sorts of areas where it would be nice to have events. One of the things that I think is striking, from a long-term, strategic point of view, we ought to be rectifying, we don't have any top-level events in South America, Latin America. Another thing is that we're probably a little shy on events in the Far East. We're really confined pretty much to Australia and Japan at the top level. The fact is that there are more places in the world where strategically we ought to be and we can put events. I will then track back to your question and say, does that mean that there are going to be some times when you won't be in the United States or some times when you won't be in Europe or some times where you won't be in the Far East? Sure. But our goal ultimately and strategically is to promote the game the best we can throughout the world. This decision is a reflection of that.

BART McGUIRE: The date will be next year, October 29, which means we're shortening the calendar by two weeks. We might have been able to do it by one week if we had stayed in the United States. By moving to Munich, we don't have to have the event in Philadelphia the week beforehand. That is being moved to Dubai actually early in February. Therefore, we are able to shorten the calendar by two weeks. That's a tremendous plus. You've all otherwise recognized and we've recognized and the players have recognized that there isn't a long enough off-season. This gives us the players more of a chance to recover physically, more of a chance to work on various aspects of their games. It has been a goal for me ever since I came into this job two and a half years ago. I'm really excited that we were able to accomplish it.

BART McGUIRE: For next year, it will be Bercy. It will be opposite Bercy. Obviously, we've had groups of the ATP Tour and representatives of the Grand Slams, representatives of the Tennis Masters Series and the WTA Tour talking about trying to rationalize the calendar in the longer term. I have hopes that conflict won't last for very long. For next year, it would be opposite Bercy.

BART McGUIRE: He could have accommodated at the Garden, but we couldn't have accommodated it on our schedule. We believe pretty firmly that, in fairness to the players, the week before The Championships ought to be played on the same surface in a close-by locale, certainly on the same continent, as The Championships. That gives the players a chance to acclimate to the time zones, the surfaces, so forth. We couldn't have shortened our calendar in the way we've done if we had stayed in the United States. The other factors, you know, certainly money was a factor. But I went through a list of five, I think, at the beginning of this press conference. They're all significant ones to us.

BART McGUIRE: The prize money will be $3 million, up from $2 million.

BART McGUIRE: I haven't even gone back and calculated that. I don't remember. It will be more than you and I make today.

BART McGUIRE: I made a mistake in not mentioning Africa. I apologize for that. We did, indeed, have a tournament in Cairo, which folded up essentially because the person who was the money behind the tournament wound up with serious health problems. We were disappointed that that folded up. We will be back in Africa. It's a question of finding the right promoter and the right date on the calendar. Thank you for correcting me.

BART McGUIRE: Strategically we should be looking in the direction of opening up the game to places where it's important to promote the game of tennis. It also happens frequently that promoters will come to us with proposals. We haven't had significant proposals from those areas. We sure would entertain them.

BART McGUIRE: No, I don't think we're following the men's tour at all. I think we made this decision on our own. It was for the reasons I said. It had absolutely nothing to do with what the men have done. Indeed, the men, as you know, have gone a different direction now. If we were going to follow the men, we ought to follow them more closely rather than from ten years ago.

BART McGUIRE: I still believe that the most successful way that the game has ever been promoted is in the major combined events. It's hard to miss the fact that the Grand Slams and the Ericsson and Indian Wells are extraordinarily successful events. I think we will come to the point - I hope sooner rather than later - that there are a limited number of additional top-level combined events. There are difficulties in doing that, obviously with the new deal that the men have done with ISL. They have focused themselves and are marketing themselves in a different direction. Our calendar is shorter than theirs now. It would be extremely difficult until we can reconcile the calendars for us to coordinate with The Championships. There are obviously issues of how much the prize money should be for the men and the women and other accommodations between the men and the women. Is it going to happen? Absolutely, I think it will. Is it going to happen tomorrow? No.

BART McGUIRE: Sure. The Grand Slam was an exhibition. I think that stands on a different basis. It was not an event that gets ranking points. I think that stands in a very different status. You could tell from the player fields over the years that that was the case. This is our TOUR Championships. I hope that we will be able to attract men and women from the press in the United States to come there. I think we will also be darned accommodating to the ones who don't come there in making sure that we get information to them, to have the coverage in the United States. We will lose some degree of coverage in North America. That's unfortunate. We will gain some degree of coverage in Europe. That's a plus. I mean, for example, we would get on Eurosport from time to time well over a million people for matches that were showed at 1:00 in the morning in our Championships. We will be in prime time. That will make a big difference in Europe. There are pluses and minuses. We will do everything we can to accommodate the press from the whole world, and certainly from the United States, in Munich. We will also do the best we can for people who don't come to Munich to make sure they get the information to be able to do a good job in covering women's tennis from the United States.

BART McGUIRE: Well, the interesting thing is, you mention those players, and they are all enormously important international figures. They are all known worldwide by their first names. They are popular in Europe, as well as in the United States. Sure, there's always, as in any country, more interest to some extent to the players locally. Take a look, for example, at Canada, where you have had in the last several years, the women have had in Montreal 157,000 people at the tournament this year, and in Toronto last year 144,000 people. Those are both, by the way, records for those tournaments, men or women. There are not any Canadian players anywhere near the top of the ranking lists. That just goes to show how international we are. Sure, we have some outstanding United States players. We have some outstanding players from the rest of the world. We are a quintessentially international sport.

BART McGUIRE: We've talked about Monica. That's a very personal decision. I think you understand the reasons for it. It certainly would be great for women's tennis if she chose to play in Germany. I'm not about to try to persuade her to do something that she doesn't feel comfortable doing. It's also interesting that Monica has also been quoted, despite that, she thinks this was a good decision.

BART McGUIRE: As contract partners in this deal, no. We haven't yet decided what the television, networks and cable television, will be on this. I think it is a real opportunity for us and for the television people. I mean, it's been covered in different ways over the last several years in the United States. We will have an opportunity to work with television. We'll get very good television coverage in the United States. We didn't feel comfortable going out and doing that until we had a deal that was signed and sealed. That was done at the end of the last week.

BART McGUIRE: We haven't made a decision on that. I think I issued a release the other day that said that we would take a careful look at what had happened, and we would decide what action we would take, and we would announce that shortly after the United States Open. I really believe that the important thing today is to focus on the tennis at the US Open. Anything that we do with respect to Mr. Dokic, which I don't want to prejudge, will be announced shortly after the US Open.

BART McGUIRE: No. This would be a tour staff decision. At the end of the day, I think you can put the responsibility on me.

BART McGUIRE: We certainly take that into account. I've already talked to representatives of Jelena Dokic. I also offered the opportunity to Mr. Dokic to talk to us. That's part of the mix in the decision-making process. We have a responsibility to the tour; we have a responsibility to our staff; we have a responsibility to the players. I'm not going to categorize that and say one is more important than the other. They're all important.

BART McGUIRE: No.

BART McGUIRE: Let me put it this way. I said we would make a decision shortly after the US Open. I think a week after the US Open, I'm heading for Australia.

BART McGUIRE: Charlie, I really don't want to get into that. I do think that we have had extremely good television ratings at the Ericsson over the last few years. They compare very favorably to the men, as at Indian Wells, as in many other places. I would just say as a basic aspiration for us that live television tends to be more vibrant and more exciting than tape delay. Sometimes a tape delay of an hour or so is okay. When you get much beyond that, an awful lot of people may choose to get the results over the Internet or get the results over the radio or by calling up you. We certainly prefer to have live or a very, very short tape delay coverage.

BART McGUIRE: Charlie, I didn't mean to suggest anything one way or the other on that.

BART McGUIRE: I'd like to think you're way understating it on the women's side.

BART McGUIRE: Word or two? I don't think of it in those terms. I would say athleticism, attractiveness, empowerment. I think those would be among the ones I'd use.

BART McGUIRE: A lot of people ask the question, "Are we in the business of selling tennis or are we in the business of selling sex?" I'm very comfortable with the way we present the women. We have people who are terrific tennis players. You start with that. The fact is that fans are interested in personalities, they're interested in the human side of people. That goes from the stories, like Monica Seles coming back from the stabbing and from the death of her father, like the Williams sisters coming out of very difficult economic circumstances, like Lindsay Davenport coming and losing a lot of weight and training herself to becoming the top player in the world or one of the top players in the world depending on what month it is, and the fact that many of our players are very attractive. Their being attractive is a real plus. You don't ask the movie studios to apologize for the fact that Julia Roberts or any of the other major actresses are very attractive. That's a plus. We're in the entertainment business. We should take advantage, in a tasteful way, of all the attributes we have. The fact that many of our players are very attractive is something we ought to take advantage of, and we try to.

BART McGUIRE: I didn't realize I'd been called a gangster.

BART McGUIRE: Well, I don't think I take it very seriously. I don't imagine anybody else does.

BART McGUIRE: You want to take a vote around here how many people believe that we're communists, fascists and Nazis?

BART McGUIRE: No, because I don't really believe anyone would take that seriously.

BART McGURE: (No response.)

BART McGUIRE: We're certainly looking at calendar alternatives. One of you asked the question whether we were going to upgrade Oklahoma City. That's one of the ones we're looking at. So, yes. We have, by the way, ten tournaments in the United States, which is twice as many as any other country in the world. When you add in North America, you have 13 tournaments. Again, more than in any discrete region like that. But, yes, we are looking at the possibility of adding another tournament in the United States and potentially strategically located. If you look where we are, for example, we are primarily East Coast of the United States and West Coast of the United States. The closest thing we have to the middle is Scottsdale. I think a strong argument can be made that the heartland of the United States is someplace we should look carefully at. We're going to do that. As I said, we're going to make a decision probably in a couple weeks' time.

BART McGUIRE: I think it's likely there will be an event in the Garden. We're not included in that at the time. I doubt that we will be. You never can tell what's going to happen.

BART McGUIRE: Depends how it's done. I think there can be a lot to be said for it. One of the reasons for shortening our calendar is to give the players more of a break. We knew very well that there would be special events, exhibitions during that time period. We might even wind up participating in one or more. We might wind up participating in one. I think it's important that whatever is done be done in a way that it's not like a tournament, it doesn't put the burdens on players that a tournament does because we're really serious about trying to give the players a break. It's one thing to play an exhibition for a night or two, and you've all seen exhibitions, there isn't normally the emotional strain or the physical strain in dealing with them. It would be something else if you were doing a week-long event that looked like a tournament. I don't anticipate that that's going to happen.

BART McGUIRE: We talked to our top players about this as the decision was in the process. As you can imagine, as the quotes you mentioned from Martina Hingis and Monica Seles indicate, there's a range of views on that. You would anticipate that. It's a change. There are definitely pluses. A couple of you have talked about what some people might consider to be minuses. On balance, I'm very comfortable that the decision was the right decision at the right time for women's tennis. But is it going to satisfy everybody? Heck, no.

BART McGUIRE: Well, you know, if it happens, then we'll have an answer to that question, Charlie.

BART McGUIRE: I'm not going to get into that.

BART McGUIRE: That's a very good question. The position that the Tennis Masters Series has is that that's a generic name, that it represents the best quality in tennis, that it is not gender specific. Indeed, we have two of the events, one of them that Indian Wells calls Tennis Masters Series. My preference would be that it were named something else. At the Ericsson, which is also one of the Masters Series, that's the Ericsson. That's a little easier for us. I look at Indian Wells, though, as an enormous success. I mean, the facility is a great facility. By the way, it was very encouraging to me that the women sold out the 16,100-seat Center Court during the first year for our finals, and that was the only time that that arena was sold out.

BART McGUIRE: I tend to think that the women play on the women's tour, and John McEnroe plays on the senior tour. That's an appropriate division.

BART McGUIRE: I think there will be a match starting around 3:00 or so. That's where ZDF comes in. The later matches will be broadcast differently. We have an agreement with Eurosport. The later ones will be broadcast on Eurosport. As I understand it, there will be just one admission. If the matches start around --.

BART McGUIRE: Very many like the Grand Slam Cup.

BART McGUIRE: Absolutely.

BART McGUIRE: That's a very interesting and exciting one to me. Just for your background, in the United States, in 1998 when I first came in here, we had women's tennis on US cable or national television during 18 weeks of the year. Most of that was Grand Slams and Indian Wells and Ericsson. There were a few events on the women's tour that had the finals or maybe even the semifinals. In 1999, we were up to 22 weeks. In this year, we're up to 27 weeks. Next year, we'll be at perhaps 29 or 30. So we have greatly enhanced the national network and cable coverage. But we talked to In Demand on their analog channels to do pay-per-view of matches that are not being carried on cable. They will do something between 27 and 31 matches this fall on an experimental basis. It's particularly exciting because this will be their flagship effort to do live sports broadcasting. I think they wanted to come to us because they felt it would be very successful. Why I like it is that it gives the rabid tennis fan the opportunity to see additional matches, but in no way does it interfere with the broader national terestrial or cable coverage that we have. It's an increment and not a subtraction.

BART McGUIRE: At what price? I believe they're selling the whole series for $29.95, and one day is for $9.95. We'll see how much of a commercial success it turns out to be. But, as I say, I mean, I think it gives the rabid fan the opportunity to see some earlier round matches, even the quarters and semis in some of the tournaments, and it no way detracts from some of our coverage. I believe at the end of the day, the media coverage, both from you in the print media and television, is enormously important and we should take no steps that would detract from that.

BART McGUIRE: My personal experiences in this job? I continue to think that it is the most exciting time I can imagine to be involved in a women's sport, and I consider us to be the flagship women's sport in the world. We have a chance to bring promotion and revenues to a women's sport that are comparable to healthy men's sports. We have a long way to go to where we would like to go. But the fact that we have increased television coverage, in the way that I've said, the fact that we've signed the largest sponsorship deal, largest television contract in the history of women's sport is very exciting to me. I think there are significant rewards to this job. I'm still having a good time.

BART McGUIRE: We have a number of players who have come through the colleges, then gone on to successful professional careers. That's not probably the most prominent career track for top-level players. I mean, it's a different way of personal development. I'm sure not going to discourage anybody from going on to college, my goodness.

BART McGUIRE: It has not historically been a significant source of players at the very top level. It has been a source of players in the Top 50 or the Top 100.

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