The USTA recently announced that they had invested millions in The Tennis Channel, an American cable tennis channel.Earlier in 2006, the USTA invested in the Pacific Life Open in Indian Wells, California to help insure that the struggling event remained in the U.S.The mandate of the USTA is to support the growth of tennis in the U.S.Clearly, a TV network devoted to tennis programming appeals to tennis fans and may attract new fans over time.At the same time, a major nationally-televised tennis tournament also appeals to tennis fans and possibly broadens tennis’ appeal to general sports fans.However, the lines are starting to become a bit blurry.What should be the role of a non-profit national tennis association, aka the USTA, versus free enterprise and the business world at large? What about investing in other weak U.S. tennis tournaments or a tennis magazine or even a tennis website?All clearly support the needs of tennis fans and help "grow" the game.So are all of them really worthy of financial support from the USTA and how should they make their investment decisions?Or perhaps, the USTA's money should instead be focused entirely on junior development and community tennis initiatives?
Visitors to TennisCountry.com may post comments responding to or on the topic of blog entries. If you post comments on TennisCountry.com, you agree not to post content that is obscene, threatening, defamatory, or invades the privacy of others, or infringes trademark, copyright or other intellectual property rights, or that is otherwise illegal or injures third parties. Do not offer to sell or buy any product or service. TennisCountry.com reserves the right to modify, remove or edit
any such content, but is not obligated to do so. TennisCountry.com does not regularly review posted content. TennisCountry.com takes no responsibility, and assumes no liability, for any content posted by you or any third party.
