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Tennis Volume 8: Is a FedEx delivery coming?


Jeor

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29 minutes ago, Jeor said:

I don't think holding tennis events all at the same place is workable. All of the tennis tournaments around the world are independently owned and operated events. Larry Ellison owns the Indian Wells Masters, for instance.

The ATP Tour is really a loose confederation of events, dealing with ranking points, certification and standards. Most people probably aren't even aware that the ATP does not have anything to do with the Grand Slams; they're run by the ITF (International Tennis Federation), a separate body, and it just so happens that the ATP partners with them to include the events in their calendar and give them ranking points.

In this sort of environment I don't think the ATP has the wherewithal to take control and run their own tournaments in a single place over and over.

 

 

I get that, but people will have to compromise. I think the best you could offer is universal revenue sharing. Some money is better than none, and if you’re the only thing going, you will probably gain a lot of fans.

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  • 2 months later...

So, doctors have been speaking... Novak ignoring.

Adira Tour happened.

Result: Grigor Dimitrov, Borna Coric and Viktor Troicki have all been tested positive on corona virus.

Needless to say... (in Hermione's voice) WHAT AN IDIOT!

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Yeah, I think tennis is pretty much over for the year. It relies on players travelling internationally from all over the world. It's a non-contact sport (save for the fact that the players handle the same balls with their sweaty hands that they wipe their face with) but I think the little outbreak in Djokovic's tournament shows that it's going to be hard to keep contained in any sport.

In Australia, we have an international travel ban that most of us expect will last for the rest of 2020 (with the possible exception of New Zealand, but taht travel bubble may have popped with the recent outbreaks we've had in Melbourne), and the borders could be closed well into 2021. Which would make holding an Australian Open in January a complete non-starter.

So I'm pretty sure tennis is dead for a while yet.

Which is a shame for the players, especially journeymen players. Fed/Nadal/Djokovic are not the norm, and most tennis players barely have 10 years for a decent career. You might have six or seven peak years from the ages of 24-30 but if one of those prime earning years is taken from you by COVID-19 that's got to hurt, especially since unlike team sports there's no contract security (and only the very best players get endorsements worth anything).

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4 hours ago, baxus said:

One of Novak's coaches is also positive.

So is the Joker himself.

This was all so so easy to predict. It's why I said THREE MONTHS AGO that basketball would have to shutdown and every sport would follow.

Golf is literally the only sport you can play right now.

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Well, that's pretty much it for tennis this year, not sure of other sports though. 

Here the first two football leagues managed to play three rounds of matches since restarting (51 matches overall), including one round with 1/4 capacity of the stadiums full of people and so far so good. Not a single case of player infected, and they are being tested regularly. And it is a contact sport after all. 

So perhaps it was more a case of a party after the tournament than a tournament itself. 

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4 hours ago, Tywin et al. said:

So is the Joker himself.

This was all so so easy to predict. It's why I said THREE MONTHS AGO that basketball would have to shutdown and every sport would follow.

Golf is literally the only sport you can play right now.



Football has got up and running in several countries with, so far, no serious problems, as has some MMA and boxing (both of which have had close shaves and fighters/coaches pull out, but largely gone okay). But all of them are heavy on the anti-corona organisation, even ultimately the UFC (which should never have started the way it did but has gotten better since it moved to its Nevada complex). This tourney seems to have been lackadaisical?

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21 minutes ago, polishgenius said:



Football has got up and running in several countries with, so far, no serious problems, as has some MMA and boxing (both of which have had close shaves and fighters/coaches pull out, but largely gone okay). But all of them are heavy on the anti-corona organisation, even ultimately the UFC (which should never have started the way it did but has gotten better since it moved to its Nevada complex). This tourney seems to have been lackadaisical?

There is too much to control for, when you really sit down and go line by line through everything, even with the safest of precautions. I have no idea how you reintroduce fans, even considering the amount the gate accounts for, but regular play of sports across the board will actually probably happen rather soon.

Like they said many decades ago:

 

 

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8 minutes ago, Free Northman Reborn said:

No problem. These are healthy people at very low risk. Get the disease, get it over with and then they can get back to tennis. This over reaction has gone on long enough.

I mean, dude, you don't ever get to say anyone is overreacting to anything, ever. 

Or has the horde gotten you yet?

8 minutes ago, baxus said:

This is not measles so that once you get it you're done with it. There have been cases of people getting it more than once.

Really? I know you can catch it again, but the hospital was signaling to us once you got it you were probably good for a few months unless you had other underlying problems. 

 

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10 minutes ago, Tywin et al. said:

I have no idea how you reintroduce fans,

 

I mean fans won't be back for a while, mass gatherings of that sort will be the absolute last thing to come back- it genuinely might be years.

But while it'll never be completely risk-free, a bit of discipline from competitors and organisors and I don't see why some level of resumption is beyond the pale. As has been happening.

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5 minutes ago, polishgenius said:

 

I mean fans won't be back for a while, mass gatherings of that sort will be the absolute last thing to come back- it genuinely might be years.

But while it'll never be completely risk-free, a bit of discipline from competitors and organisors and I don't see why some level of resumption is beyond the pale. As has been happening.

You need five people per match, the two players, two ball boys and girls  and whatever silly term you Eurocommoies want to call the zebra. I mean seriously, the evil Germans destroy the basic concept of words less than most of you do.

I do however give the Irish a total and complete pass. 

I'm having some serious doubts about the Dutch though, even if I may share some ancestry with those hoods. 

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2 minutes ago, Tywin et al. said:

You need five people per match, the two players, two ball boys and girls  and whatever silly term you Eurocommoies want to call the zebra. I mean seriously, the evil Germans destroy the basic concept of words less than most of you do.


You don't need the ballboys. It'd take longer but they're not necessary- the football has started without them for example, albeit admittedly the ball is out a lot less there.

And I'm Polish don't knock the langu... wait what the fuck Zebra!?

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45 minutes ago, polishgenius said:


You don't need the ballboys. It'd take longer but they're not necessary- the football has started without them for example, albeit admittedly the ball is out a lot less there.

And I'm Polish don't knock the langu... wait what the fuck Zebra!?

Zebra is just the universal term for an umpire here, you know, where we value tolerance and freedom and democracy and human rights and I can't do this anymore.......

Still probably better than Poland though, and my ex-fiance's family was from there (they were somewhat racist, but she was hot, so :dunno:).

 

You really do need ballboys/girls though. It will take forever without them. Five people total per match meets all the needs and can maintain a pace of play that will be acceptable to both players and spectators. Two players, a ballboy/girl on each side of the net with an official, put two more in the stands to watch the lines if you want and then let the players do what they will with their boxes. No fans. Pretty easy to get things moving IMO.

 

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14 hours ago, Jeor said:

In Australia, we have an international travel ban that most of us expect will last for the rest of 2020 (with the possible exception of New Zealand, but taht travel bubble may have popped with the recent outbreaks we've had in Melbourne), and the borders could be closed well into 2021. Which would make holding an Australian Open in January a complete non-starter.

I guess they could try to take the approach used in cricket for the England/Windies Tests next month - put everyone in quarantine for a couple of weeks before starting, test them before letting them out and then don't let them leave the ground for the duration of the competition. I suspect some players might feel they don't want to spend over a month locked away, it would be expensive and it doesn't solve the spectator problem but it's perhaps the only way that such an international tournament could be plausible at the moment.

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6 hours ago, williamjm said:

I guess they could try to take the approach used in cricket for the England/Windies Tests next month - put everyone in quarantine for a couple of weeks before starting, test them before letting them out and then don't let them leave the ground for the duration of the competition. I suspect some players might feel they don't want to spend over a month locked away, it would be expensive and it doesn't solve the spectator problem but it's perhaps the only way that such an international tournament could be plausible at the moment.

Yes, I suppose they could do a pre-tournament quarantine but it's going to be a severely curtailed ATP calendar if that's the case (or maybe it will splinter into a few different parallel tournaments).

Re: spectators, I actually have a feeling that we might see that come back sooner rather than later. Medically speaking it seems that outdoors is not nearly as dangerous as indoor gatherings (judging by very little protest-related waves) and at the tennis you don't have people singing and chanting like you do at the rugby/football/etc. So we could see 25-50% stands or something like that next year.

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11 hours ago, Jeor said:

Re: spectators, I actually have a feeling that we might see that come back sooner rather than later. Medically speaking it seems that outdoors is not nearly as dangerous as indoor gatherings (judging by very little protest-related waves) and at the tennis you don't have people singing and chanting like you do at the rugby/football/etc. So we could see 25-50% stands or something like that next year.

Not sure the lawyers will sign off on that. You would need to have governments give leagues total immunity before there are fans in the stands.

Out of curiosity, does tennis actually generate much of its revenue at the gate? I always assumed they largely made their money on T.V. deals and high end sponsorships. But then again I've never purchased a ticket for a match, so I could easily be wrong. 

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3 hours ago, Tywin et al. said:

Not sure the lawyers will sign off on that. You would need to have governments give leagues total immunity before there are fans in the stands.

Out of curiosity, does tennis actually generate much of its revenue at the gate? I always assumed they largely made their money on T.V. deals and high end sponsorships. But then again I've never purchased a ticket for a match, so I could easily be wrong. 

500,000 attend Wimbledon. Cheapest ticket 25 quid, 60-200 quid for centre court, show courts not that much less. It's a fair bit of money.

They probably also make a couple of billion on the over priced strawberries. 

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