Rogers Cup Attendance Great In Montreal, So So In Toronto

Written by: Bob Larson Tennis on 12th August 2013

Rogers Cup Attendance Great In Montreal, So So In Toronto

epa03821393 Canadian Milos Raonic returns a ball to Rafael Nadal of Spain during their Men's singles final match of the Open ATP tennis tournament in Montreal, Canada, 11 August 2013. Nadal later won the match. EPA/ANDRE PICHETTE |

The Rogers Cup did very well last week in Montreal for the ATP tournament but attendance was down in Toronto for the WTA event.

Montreal traditionally does better than Toronto regardless of whether the men or women are playing there and also had the benefit of having two Canadian males reach the semifinals for the first time in the Open era when Milos Raonic and Vasek Pospisil faced off.

“Tennis in Canada really won this week,” Tennis Canada CEO Michael Downey told CTV. “It just doesn’t get any better than this. We’ll have a ton of people watching [Raonic vs. Pospisil) and at the end of the day it’s great for Canadian tennis and we’re going to have kids picking up a racket on Monday morning and that’s going to be really great for the sport.”

Toronto tournament director Karl Hale pulled out all stops to try and drive ticket sales in Toronto, where he put on men’s matches on three consecutive days including ATP player James Blake, Bernard Tomic and former Grand Slam champions Pete Sampras, Jim Courier and John McEnroe.

The government in Ontario gave Toronto a grant to the tournament for sport so they used that for the legends at no extra cost.

“We have had the Legends for several years now,” Hale said. “ Every year at the end of the event we actually poll our fans to see what they would like. It’s not our decision in putting the Legends in. It’s our fan feedback. We try to give them the players that they want. Based on just my personal feeling on Friday night and Saturday night and even (on Sunday), it was very well received. They did a great job. So we will review it after the tournament and see, going forward, where we go from here.”

However, Hale went on to say that fans wanted to see some ATP action, but that their experience with the concept during the tournament wasn’t all positive.

“We actually polled our fans (before the event) to see what they thought of this type of event based on players that had lost first round in the past. It was very well received” he said. “So this year we gave it a try. The reviews were definitely mixed, so we will look at it after.”

Hale also said that ticket sales were down but that they knew that would be the case going in as they decided not to put up bleachers this year. Only three sessions were very well attended; Friday and Saturday night and the Sunday final. Plus, there were two big player pullouts.

“We lost Maria Sharapova and Victoria Azarenka,” he said. “They are definitely fan favorites. We would have liked to have had them. It definitely impacts our sales, but considering during the week Serena did a fantastic job, all of her matches were well attended and she’s a fan favorite, so we’re very happy to have her. We still had 17 of the top 20, which is a great field in any right, even a Grand Slam. We knew that going in to make this experience more intimate, which I think everyone can agree has been very successful, so we knew that we were going to take a hit to go forward with our event.”

Downey was very upbeat as the crowd flooded the gates in Montreal, and he can see that tennis is establishing its place in the sports landscape.

“Hockey is a religion in this country and it’s always going to have a special place in all Canadians’ minds but there’s room for others sports and we know that our sport is going to continue to grow,” he said.

Downey also noted that because so many people are immigrating to Canada from all over the world, that the sports demographics is changing and helping tennis, which is an international game.

In the past, Hale and Tennis Canada have talked about crisscrossing the draws in Montreal and Toronto, so that both sexes play in both cities. But the logistics to pull that off are extremely complicated.

The tournament used to be played in back to back weeks but that ended when Cincinnati because a combined event and the tours pushed Tennis Canada to combine theirs. The compromise was the “virtual” combined tournament that they have now, with matches being televised in both cities on site.

Hale added that he has not spoken to Octagon, which owns the Carlsbad, California tournament that is played the week before Toronto and that is shopping its sanction round. Tennis Canada could conceivably buy that sanction, sell it elsewhere and then move its women’s event women back a week as a Premier 5 level event to be played before its ATP one.

A number of volunteers at the Toronto event say that one of the reasons for decreased attendance at their event is many hardcore fans make the five hour drive to Montreal to see the men.

“We have had no discussions in trying to split the weeks or anything at this time,” Hale said. “We are just focused on the events, the virtual combined concept. The TV product is fantastic, and we’re just going forward with that at this time.”