Will tennis survive?
Is Tennis Dying?
The numbers might say otherwise, but when you go to the park, does it seem like every year there are fewer kids than there used to be? The core, younger players aren’t growing as fast as we expect. A core player is someone who plays 10 times a year. That’s less than once a month. It’s not a high bar and yet it’s not growing in proportion to the number of youth initiatives.
Why?
Times are changing. Sports used to be one of the best short cuts to a better life. Success earned you a golden ticket to college and one of the easier ways to get famous. Kids could look at Pete Sampras and think maybe if they worked hard, they could be on TV on day too.
YouTube
The internet changed the equation. You could spent a half a million dollars on private lessons and travel to become the next tennis pro or you could start a YouTube channel for free. Simon Konov of Top Tennis Training, a popular YouTuber, will be better off financially and more famous than most of the ATP’s top 500 players.
Traditional media is in steep decline. The physical newspaper and magazine business has almost vanished. Traditional television isn’t watched by today’s youth. They are on YouTube, Twitter, Twitch, and Instagram.
Where are the kids?
Today’s youth have so many entertainment options. They can watch Netflix, YouTube, connect with friends on Instagram, or play a video game. All of these entertainment options are instantly accessible from their phone or any other device that has internet access.
Kids aren’t at the park anymore. They live in their phones. The older generation might write that off as a bad thing. But to them it’s a vast oasis where they can be whoever they want, deeply connected to millions of people anywhere in the world. Their best friends are only reachable online, not in the physical world.
Tennis needs to embrace digital
Tennis needs to be where today’s youth are, not hope to bring the youth to where tennis is right now. If tennis can embrace the digital world, it could grow by orders of magnitude. If it doesn’t, it’s player base will age and eventually the sport will lose relevance.
Where are the video games?
Video games has long since surpassed film and music in revenue. Yet, there is no official tennis video game. The Topspin series was the closest thing that existed. But the last game in the series was released in 2011, almost a decade ago. FIFA, the NBA and NFL on the other hand, have several top-selling annual franchises. How can tennis be relevant if it doesn’t even have content in the biggest entertainment medium?
Hope for the future?
YouTube woes
The best player in the world has 24,000 subscribers on his YouTube channel. That’s a fraction of Simon’s, who isn’t even an active professional. Roger Federer and Raphael Nadal don’t even have active YouTube accounts. The most popular tennis video on YouTube is from Dude Perfect’s channel, which one could argue isn’t actually about tennis.
It’s all about content
Let’s start by improving the ATP’s official YouTube channel. They only have twice as many subscribers as Simon from Top Tennis Training. Why? It’s the content. Most of it is official, and highly produced. Where’s the live stream where a coach takes out their phone on a practice court, starts streaming and chatting with fans. ATP Livestream doesn’t even have chat! The younger generation expects to break the 4th wall between them and their celebrities. They expect the people they follow to be live, everyday, all the time. They want raw, authentic broadcasts and video blogs, not heavily produced video content that looks like it belongs on traditional cable.
Video games
One big reason we don’t have an official tennis video game is the licensing cost. A game developer would have to pay for the license for each player and every venue they used in the game. So even if you only had the slams and the top 10 men and women, you would pay a fortune. That’s excluding the cost of actually developing the game.
What if tennis found a way to not only wave the player license, but fund development of the game? It would be a marketing spend. If they want an already finished game to start with, I suggest this one. Buy the rights to it, make it free to play. It would be advertising for the sport of tennis.
Why I care
I’ve spent the majority of my life playing tennis. I play every weekend and have been watching as long as I can remember. I have fond memories of leaving the TV on all day while a Grand Slam was going on. I remember hanging out with my friends on the local tennis courts.
Now I hopelessly search the internet for the digital equivalent of sitting around a TV watching Wimbledon with my friends. When I go to the park, I just see silence and hear the ghosts of the kids who used to play on those courts.
If Tennis wants to remain relevant, it needs to invest significantly more where today’s youth is spending their time. The tennis player base is aging.
