Another US Tournament Leaving; This Time L.A. ATP

Written by: Bob Larson Tennis on 9th November 2012

Another US Tournament Leaving; This Time L.A. ATP

epa03286575 Rafael Nadal of Spain returns to Lukas Rosol of the Czech Republic during their second round match for the Wimbledon Championships at the All England Lawn Tennis Club, in London, Britain, 28 June 2012. EPA/FACUNDO ARRIZABALAGA |

During the year in which Bjorn Borg and John McEnroe played their epic Wimbledon final that helped fuel the tennis boom, there were 36 ATP tournaments in the United States .

With the news that the 86-year-old ATP tournament in Los Angeles is in the process of being sold to a group from Bogota , Colombia , 2013 will see only 13 US tournaments.

But a lot has changed in the tennis landscape since 1980. Not only has the sport become much more international, but the US does not have so many elite players, which makes it difficult for ATP-250 level tournaments like Los Angeles to sell tickets. Held during the last week of July, L.A. once consistently recruited the likes of the world Pete Sampras and Andre Agassi and was able to sell out at least on weekends.

But with tennis’ popular “Big 4″ of Roger Federer, Rafael Nadal, Novak Djokovic and Andy Murray having no desire to come to the North America before the Canadian Open in August, a tournament like Los Angeles struggled, as fans were used to seeing some of the sport’s top players compete and in recent years were being fed a steady diet of men ranked below the top five.

Plus, appearance fees for today’s men’s stars have skyrocketed with Federer and Nadal sometimes commanding $1 million apiece just to show up, which was unaffordable for L.A.

Played at UCLA and owned by the Southern California Tennis Association (which is part of the USTA), the event claims to have lost money for the past four years. The tournament was called the Farmers Classic for the past three years, but Farmers was said to be paying below market value for the sponsorship. Farmers did not re-up for 2013 and neither did presenting sponsor Mercedes-Benz.

Longtime tournament director Bob Kramer has said the tournament ran annual deficits of $450,000 for the past three years. Ticket sales have fallen from a high of $1.75 million to just $1 million in 2012.

The tournament’s value was recently appraised at $3 million, but it’s unclear whether the Bogota group paid that price.

The company from Colombia that appears to be the buyer is Imla de Colombia, whose general manager is Manuel Mate. Imla and Mate have organized tennis exhibitions in Colombia before. Colombian Minister of Sport Jairo Clopatofsky is said to support the deal.

It’s likely that the Bogota group is just buying the sanction for the event and will look for another place on the calendar. All the Latin American tournaments are played in February and early March, so it would be a natural fit if they could find a date somewhere in there.

The LA tournament is part of the US Open Series, but the USTA has no current plans to try and replace it, as the summer calendar is already crowded and there doesn’t appear to be any potential suitors on the horizon who want to host an ATP 250 at that time of the year.

Earlier this year, the NHL group that owns the ATP 250 tournament in San Jose , California , decided to move that sanction to Memphis and take the Memphis ‘ ATP 500 sanction and sell it to a group from Brazil .

As recently as 2005 there were three tournaments in LA: the ATP stop; a WTA Premier Level tournament that was played in Manhattan Beach and then moved to Carson; and the WTA Championships, which was played at the Staples Center .

With the sale of the ATP event, all those tournaments will have left the area, which has produced so many US stars such as Sampras, Pancho Gonzalez, Tracy Austin, the Williams sisters and Jack Kramer himself, who is considered the godfather of men’s pro tennis and was Bob Kramer’s father.