TENNIS NEEDS A COMMISSIONER. BY GENE SCOTT THE MAN WITH A CRYSTAL BALL.

Written by: Staff on 23rd May 2014

TENNIS NEEDS A COMMISSIONER. BY GENE SCOTT THE MAN WITH A CRYSTAL BALL. |

The following was published in the Oct. 27, 1987, edition of Tennis Week Magazine as a “Vantage Point” column and written by former Tennis Week founder and publisher Eugene L. Scott:

Does anyone still wonder why professional tennis can’t have a commissioner? One only has to examine the game’s structure (sic) to understand how quixotic such a job title would be for our sport. Four men and one woman are currently paid over $1 million a year to administer totally different segments of tennis. None has any authority over the other and, in fact, the five have never sat down together at the same table to discuss common problems.

M. Marshall Happer, 49, is administrator of the Men’s International Professional Tennis Council, which apparently controls the professional men’s game. I say apparently because some say the leading management firms, ProServ, IMG and Advantage International, really run tennis behind the scenes. Yet not only do they not have a vote on the MIPTC (comprised of tournament directors, players and International Tennis Federation representatives) but they are not even invited to attend its meetings as observers. For the past two years, this certainly would have been an Impossibility because two of the management firms sued the MIPTC (and vice versa), though one cannot help but wonder that had the composition of the MIPTC Included agents, the lawsult(s) might not have resulted.

Hamilton Jordan, 43, is the executive director of the ATP (men’s player union) which has three of a total nine votes on the MIPTC, but currently, through real and imagined lobbying, controls the Council.

This control has resulted In extraordinary gains for the players in terms of prize money increases in 1988 (70 percent for Super Series, 18 percent for Regular Series), a pension fund that makes the National Football League benefits look like movie money, and, perhaps most noteworthy, not having to give up anything in return.

Jane Brown, 46, is the managing director of the Women’s International Professional Tennis Council, and while she is Happer’s counterpart for the women’s game, the comparison is unfair and inaccurate. Happer oversees a staff of 35 which has multiple responsibilities including officiating, rule enforcement, public relations for the MIPTC and the Nabisco Grand Prix sponsors, organizing the Nabisco Masters and balancing worldwide player fields. For Brown, most of these duties are handled directly by Virginia Slims, the tour sponsor, or the WITA (women’s player union), and so her staff is small (petite might be an appropriate shading). But despite her modest milieu, Brown is well respected as knowledgable and effective in sorting out the contradictory interests of her tournament director, player and ITF constituency.

Merrett Stierheim, 54, executive director of the WITA, was hired two years ago to take over from the organization’s original commanding officer, Jerry Diamond. The change in leadership was a natural evolution from the pioneering entrepreneurial hand of Diamond to the structured stewardship of Stierheim. The first order of business for Stierheim was to consolidate the offices of the WITA which was split in two with headquarters in San Francisco and a media/administrative arm in Palm Beach. Stierhelm moved both to Dade County In South Florida and turned the trick with a profit by combining the official home of the women players (Key Biscayne Sheraton) and WITA office space in Coconut Grove through the Equitable Real Estate firm which owned both properties. The arrangement is worth a mention because the ATP is still seeking such a sweetheart scenario, and the MIPTC recently considered moving to Raleigh, N.C. (Happer’s home), to save a few hundred thousand dollars in runaway rent and overhead costs extracted (extorted?) for doing business in New York City.

It is easy to single out comparisons between the men’s and women’s circuit but to do so often results in distortion. For example, prize money for the 26 Virginia Slims primary events will increase by 40 percent with a maximum purse of $300,000, while the 30 equivalent men’s tournaments jump to a minimum purse of $500,000 with half offering even more and two pumping In over $1million.

The distortion depends on your point of view as a spectator, player or tournament director. The $300,000 women’s category guarantees five of the top 10 players (and one of the top two). The men’s tournaments have no such guarantee. While to compare the tours is impossible, suffice it to say, that the men professionals play for a lot more money and give far less back than the women. Can you imagine, for instance, asking the top men to reduce the winner’s “take” from 23 percent to 20 percent of the total purse and to double the fine (from $10,000 to $20,000) if they play an event opposite a “primary?” Martina Navratilova, Chris Evert, Pam Shriver and Helena Sukova agreed to just that!

Obviously the women’s tour does have one delicate problem that has not yet surfaced on the men’s circuit — that Virginia Slims, a popular brand of a prominent cigarette company, Philip Morris, is its overall sponsor. It is not easy to address the matter straight-on, especially for anyone connected with women’s tennis, but both Brown and Stierheim steer through a sticky subject as well as anyone possibly could.

They confirm that they “do not recommend that anyone smoke,” “no one smokes in my office,” “I don’t smoke” and that the whole area is a matter of “individual decision.” These deflecting non-endorsements, plus the fact that Virginia Slims takes pains to hire bright and energetic people make it awkward for anyone in the game to object too strenuously.

There you have it. The game’s string quartet: Happer, Jordan, Stierheim and Brown, all able administrators who together almost assume a mythical commissioner’s mantle. The fifth person alluded to in the opening paragraph is John Fogarty, executive director of the U.S. Tennis Association, who while outside of professional tennis’s mainstream must be mentioned because of the U.S. Open’s extraordinary commercial clout.

He has not yet been given authority to spread his wings over the Open’s operation but his administrative experience and salary level put him in the same league with the others should his bailiwick be broadened. (For the Robert Bork fans out there, the four men earn over $200,000 each, Ms. Brown, just under $100,000). Apart from the five above and agents aside, there are also four Grand Slam championships and the men who run them, which further points up the implausibility of identifying one person who can (or would be allowed to) do it all. Unless, of course, you do believe in mythological creatures which would lead some cynic to recommend a chimera for commissioner. This useful animal was a fire-breathing she-monster with the head of a lion, the body of a goat and the tail of a serpent.

Topics: Gene Scott, Tennis, Tennis News, Tennis Week, Vantage Point

Follow 10SBALLS.COM on:

Facebook:

Twitter:

10sBalls_com says:

May 23, 2014 at 10:24 am

TENNIS NEEDS A COMMISSIONER. BY GENE SCOTT THE MAN WITH A CRYSTAL BALL. – http://t.co/oKjaDJ7b00 #tennis #sports