Greg Childers and Steve Name persuaded the club to host their program with the goal of growing participation among those who weren’t playing the game. The weekly “triples” matches—with three people on each side of the court—involve dance music and trash talk. Participants pay an $8.50 monthly fee, which goes into improving the courts, and must only observe one rule: “Don’t be a jerk.”
Weekly “triples” matches held at the Country Club of Sarasota (Fla.) aren’t designed for serious tennis for serious people, the Sarasota Herald-Tribune reported. Dance music plays as players talk trash and newcomers learn that in this fast-paced version of tennis, much of the etiquette and stodginess that accompany the game go out the window.
Tennis professional Michele Krause coordinates the weekly games, which are played with three people per side in a triangle formation, the Herald-Tribune reported. The ball never really stops moving, as whichever side won the point immediately serves, and Krause uses slightly larger and less bouncy tennis balls, so the rallies last longer and ensures newcomers aren’t constantly losing points for their team by hitting the ball out of bounds.
She has just one rule: “Don’t be a jerk.”
The Saturday morning triples tournaments are part of an experiment in finding new ways to make a private tennis club financially viable and attract newcomers to the sport, the Herald-Tribune reported.
Private tennis clubs have become notoriously tough to manage, with club owners frequently at odds with tennis players, the Herald-Tribune reported. Courts use up a lot of space and are expensive to maintain, with the most avid players dying off and real estate developers are often trying to entice club owners to sell.
Greg Childers and Steve Name saw their tennis friends scattering as clubs got sold off, the Herald-Tribune reported. And they saw fewer people interested in the sport they love. So they decided to intervene.
“The incentives of the club owner and players had not lined up,” Childers said. “Players felt their needs weren’t being listened to. Owners felt that players were overly needy and not necessarily the most profitable demographic.”
The pair started a nonprofit called the Sarasota Community Tennis Association (SCTA) with the goal of being the middleman between the players and club owners, the Herald-Tribune reported. They envisioned a member-run club, with a low cost of entry that will entice newcomers to the sport, while maintaining the tennis community and eliminating several of the headaches that club owners deal with.
“Club owners are, you know, interested in making money,” Childers said. “And the tennis community is interested in playing tennis and being part of a vibrant community.”
The SCTA was born earlier this year, and Name persuaded the Country Club of Sarasota, a gated community that does not require mandatory club membership, to allow them to launch their experiment there, the Herald-Tribune reported. They named it the “Sarasota Sports Club.”
The club’s courts, which has changed hands several times over the years and had fallen into disrepair, had a tiny handful of diehards still playing there when the Sarasota Sports Club launched, the Herald-Tribune reported. Since then, the nonprofit has grown participation to 273 members.
Childers and Name know that a diverse pool of players makes for more fun games, the Herald-Tribune reported. “People who play once a week have very interesting games and people who pay play five times a week have different games,” Greg said. “And so, in order to have a really interesting tennis life, it, it’s great to have a huge variety of players.”
The SCTA negotiated several tiers of membership, with a couple of goals in mind, the Herald-Tribune reported: Have low cost of entry to entice new members. Ensure a portion of funds goes toward improving the facility. Make sure the owner gets a big enough cut to stay happy.
The entry-level fee is just $8.50 a month, the Herald-Tribune reported. For that rate, a player can play Saturday morning triples and substitute for league play twice a week, which means a player could, theoretically, play 12 times a month for just $8.50.
“Now we’re able to attract people who otherwise would never pay $180 a month, but now are in our community,” Name said.
There is a standard flat monthly fee for avid players who want unlimited access to tennis, the pool, gym and locker room ($180 per month), the Herald-Tribune reported. And there is a pay-as-you-go model, which is designed to bring in players who may have been dissuaded from trying the game when the saw the monthly rates and court time fees at typical tennis clubs.
Members who are on the pay-as-you-go plan buy tokens in order to schedule court time, with the per-hour price ranging from roughly $25 per hour to $8 per hour, depending on how many tokens a player buys, the Herald-Tribune reported.
“We’re not a country club where people are following you around and pick up your towels,” Name said. “The members brush their own courts, we volunteer parties, we run our own leagues, you know, we’re doing everything, you know, in a very low overhead way we have, there’s only three employees.”
Instead of a pro shop, they are installing self-serve vending machines where members can buy coffee or fresh tennis balls, the Herald-Tribune reported. There’s no “member services director” scheduling court time and no tennis pro coordinating lessons. Players schedule their own court time online, and pros who want to offer lessons market themselves on the website and simply pay for court time and charge whatever they want.
“We don’t want to get involved in what [the pros] are charging,” Name said. “We don’t want to get involved in what you’re doing or taking a cut or negotiating with you. Go reserve your court online just like any other member and give your lesson.”
All members pay the $8.50 monthly into a club improvement fund that is managed by the membership, ensuring improvement fees go toward actually improving the courts, rather than the owner’s pocket, the Herald-Tribune reported.
With COVID-19 placing a serious damper on group gatherings, tennis is one activity that doesn’t require massive accommodations to play safely, the Herald-Tribune reported. Players are automatically socially distant, and after-match high fives are easily replaced with tapping racquets.
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