Beware: Mr Disney and his vision for the Reformation of ATP Tour

The New Official Car of the ATP Tour since long time sponsor Mercedes withdrew its support for the ATP and is there a correlation between Mr Disney and this?

The Reformation of the ATP Tour

Well this entry is going to be one of the more serious ones, that has ever happened on this blog and no it’s not cause of the advancing years of the author. The subject matter concerned which are the reforms that are attempting to come into place for tennis and specifically the ATP Tour. These particular ones will be dealt individually in the piece, but we need to state the man behind this he is known as Etienne de Villiers the head of the ATP, that replaced another muppet Mark Miles and this is the only time he will be referred by that name in the article and he is known as Mr Disney cause he was a former executive with the Disney corporation and his suggestions for reform are just Mickey Mouse solutions to complex problems.

Mr Disney came in as a breath of fresh air and tennis does need to adapt and there are needs for reform and people were prepared to give the man a chance, but any goodwill that Mr Disney has gained has been lost among tennis fans, though this would not seem to be the case according to Mr Disney who has come out said. “The fans are behind these changes “. The main contention point is the Round Robin format for some of the events, which will be discussed in greater detail later on and this caused the greatest debate and with the spin Mr Disney is using. It would be worthwhile to find out who Mr Disney surveyed and it would not be a surprise if it was Tournament Directors.

Now it will be time to examine some of the reforms from Fearless Leader Disney and conclude with something deep and meaningful out of it, though with this blog that tends to happen as often as Kent Carlsson won a grasscourt match.

Starting Tournaments on Sundays:

This one is annoying yet understandable. For the weeks before Grand Slam events, it makes sense to start the tournament on a Sunday, as to give the finalists more time to get to the Slam venue than previously the case so that is beneficial.

Roland Garros this year had a Sunday start and it was a bit of a wank really just having 12 matches to choose from and that is combined with the males and the females. If they were serious about it then as a 128 draw, then they should have 21 matches on two of the days and 22 on the other day of the 1st round to complete it.

If they are going to do something like this then do it properly, there are always nice platitudes caring about the fans from the organisers when in reality they don’t give a fuck about people as long as they are gullible enough to hand over their hard earned money.

Federer had to play on Sunday and then his 2nd round match was played on a Wednesday, it was fortunate that the weather held up and didn’t create the logjam of matches that has occurred at the US Open with their 3 day 1st round. He joked he could have gone to Switzerland and back in time for his next match. The players are used to and like the continuity of play one day, then rest the next and vice versa during the Slams.

It was a gimmick just to milk more money and not really concerned about caring about the fans. If this was truly the case then there should have been more matches on offer to watch on that first Sunday, than was offered up.

Ending Best of 5 Set Finals in ATP Finals :

This is called “the James Blake rule”, named after the man who can’t win a 5 setter and says ‘that the players were behind this rule”. The elimination of 5 set finals outside of Slams well it will devalue the TMS events, even though they are in reality glorified warm up events for the Slams, some of these events have a great history and more often than not the best matches of the year have occurred in this environment, so it makes sense that Mr Disney and his cronies would want this eliminated.

As for the IS or ISG events that have 5 set finals, well it’s understandable that these finals are reduced to the best of 3 sets, that is less of a problem than doing it to the TMS events, though the above counts for some of the best matches have been in these finals. Also tennis is a game that fitness is important and these finals give players more exposure to best of 5 as well.

In other words it’s the cop out solution when in reality there should not be back to back TMS events, because Mr Disney won’t do anything about this problem, he then chooses the soft option and that is something he does frequently, as this gives the impression that something is being done, but it’s not what really should be addressed.

Marketing and renaming the tennis tour

Well tennis as a global sport is undisputed, but the way it has been marketed hasn’t been a success and this is probably down to a number of factors. Allegedly the marketing budget was under 1 million dollars and for an organisation as the ATP, that is just not good enough. This being said they have this marketing plan and that is one thing Disney is very good at, marketing their products to the general public. Whether they can use the same strategies with humans as they do with cartoon characters is debatable, though it wouldn’t surprise me if we saw stuff like Nadal dolls that scream ‘vamos” and pick their arse on demand, Roddick looking like Donald Duck as he does when he is pouting or whining about a line call and it goes on.

It seems they will focus mainly on 6 players those would be Federer, Nadal, Safin, Roddick, Blake and well since the Tursunov bandwagon is ridiculously huge they could use him as Aesop the storyteller. At the same time they need to take a punt on the younger talent coming through such as Gasquet, Berdych, Monfils, Murray, Baghdatis, Djokovic, del Potro for example. There is a fine line between marketing and overhype and no one wants something that is saturated, that it is more than likely to create a backlash. There needs to be more marketing of the sport, but they need to do it wisely.

Renaming the tour is just a silly tool and it’s not likely to bring in any more new fans just because the game will be called the “ATP Worldwide Tour”, it doesn’t scream wow I am a fan now. The question Mr Disney and his stooges have to ask is. What is their objective and end goal and where do they want to the game to be and to who they are trying to attract? Does the sport have to adapt to the casual fan or does the casual fan accept what the game of tennis is and what it isn’t? With gimmicks like this they seem to want to insult the intelligence of the existent fanbase to gain bandwagon fans who will leave just as quickly as they got on the wagon.

This is another example of taking the cheap option when the real problem is how tennis can get itself better TV coverage than it currently does. The PGA tour which owns the golf tournaments have negotiated the TV rights for their events as an organisation which is what the ATP should be doing at the very least. This means whether a consumer wants to watch the US or European tour events then they have the choice to do so and become familiar with the players and not many of these players are exactly charisma machines, but there is greater accessibility for the obvious reason, this is something tennis lacks.

There are many excellent players in tennis and have interesting stories about them, though this would not seem the case at the moment, the ATP have to take some responsibility and make some hard decisions and think about them and not just come up with cheap gimmicks. They need to take over the ownership of tournaments when it comes to negotiating TV rights, so they can charge the fees to various broadcasters and then the broadcasters choose the events that they will show for the week and have a rights deal that last 4 or 5 years for example. The lack of accessibility and the emphasis of just showing the established stars when on TV doesn’t do much for the sport, there needs to be a mixture of the financial and the future of the game to be considered.

The Round Robin section will be done alone as it’s a special stand alone subject.