Wednesday, August 5, 2009
Sports Boom or Sports Hype?
Posted by John Branston on Wed, Aug 5, 2009 at 11:15 AM
Tennis is booming. Skateboarding is booming. Lacrosse is booming. So are soccer, Ultimate Frisbee, cycling, rock-climbing, extreme kayaking, running, yoga, crew, ju-jitsu, and Pilates. Oh, and football and basketball are doing pretty good. And Americans of all ages are really getting in shape.
Except they're not. And we're not. At least not all sports and certainly not all Memphians.
The latest "boom" sport is tennis, which is supposedly enjoying a 43 percent increase in its popularity since 2000, according to the Sporting Goods Manufacturing Association and the Tennis Industry Association. Some 18 million Americans play at least once a year.
Big deal. Maybe 2000 was the low point for tennis participation. And I played Yahtzee last Christmas. Am I a player to be counted? Guess so, since I played once a year. Hail to the Yahtzee boom! Associations and their publicists and fans are forever telling us that their sport is booming. I'm never quite sure what the point is, but I often suspect it's a setup for a plea for public funding for more of this or that.
Sometimes that's a good idea. Sports, like anything else, go stale. Parks and recreation directors can get stuck in old ruts, unaware of new trends. It's safe to say we probably don't need any more baseball fields.
And I wonder if we need any more tennis courts. I've played tennis pretty regularly for 27 years in Memphis. The sport has become more dispersed. Some trends are clear — bigger racquets and longer shorts to name two of them. More players? The old Wimbleton Sportsplex on Sycamore View has mostly gone from indoor tennis to fitness machines. The indoor and outdoor courts at the Racquet Club are often unused. Granted, those clubs cost money. The public Leftwich and Wolbrecht tennis centers are regularly booked. Tennis NTRP leagues are strong, but they were strong 10, 20, or 30 years ago, too. Steve Lang and Arveal Turner have done a lot to teach and promote tennis to newcomers. If there's a boom, it's partly because of people like them.
"Our numbers are probably flat, but our outreach is as strong as ever," said Lang, executive director of Tennis Memphis, which manages the public courts. "Tennis is affordable compared to golf."
It's a copout to say a sport is so expensive that people cannot afford to play it. Athletes find a way. If they really want to chase a ball, climb a wall or hill, bike, skate, run, lift, or fight, they won't be denied. Many of us geezers started playing tennis on concrete courts with metal nets and weeds growing in the cracks. A new racquet can cost more than $100, but Tennis Memphis will find you one for a lot less than that, and every player I know has too many racquets and would gladly contribute to a racquet drive for new players. There are decaying courts at the old Frayser Tennis Center, which was going strong 20 years ago under the late Don Miller. (Lang says the center is open but unstaffed, and players can play for free if they check in at the community center next to the courts.) Lots of apartment complexes put in tennis courts that are never used. And I don't think I've ever seen anyone hitting on the two courts at LeMoyne Owen. Sure, they're not in good shape, but which comes first, supply or demand?
Tennis is a hard game to learn, even harder if both players can't play. It helps a lot to have someone good hit balls to you. A wall is better than a partner who can't play. Some of the best players in the world learned the game that way back in the day in Hamtramck, Michigan, under the guidance of Jean Hoxie. They didn't have indoor courts. They weren't rich kids. And they won state and national championships. The point is, where there's a will there's a way.
I see Memphis kids playing basketball on outdoor courts with rims with no nets and at indoor community centers. I see them swimming when and where public pools are open, which is to say, not much. I see lots of people riding bikes, running day and night, walking alone on hot outdoor tracks, fishing by the side of the road, throwing Frisbees at Overton Park, and hitting golf balls. I see high school kids playing lacrosse at schools that offer it. Same for volleyball.
Maybe I'm not looking in the right places, but I don't see a boom in some supposedly booming sports, and as far as fitness in the general Memphis population, the eyeball evidence runs the other way. Before anyone builds a new sportsplex at the Fairgrounds or anywhere else, they better get a good read on the true level of popularity and demand for sports in Memphis.
Comments (6)
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I generally agree with you but tennis pros I talk to in other areas as well as Memphis say otherwise. Cardio tennis I believe was a good program. The Half Court set-up for small kids is a good program. More people are entering NTRP team tournaments than ever. When you are in a town that is not growing and losing residents I'm not sure it is as noticeable.
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38103: Tried that, sort of, in pro team tennis, encouraging crowds to yell. And Connors and McEnroe were boors but big draws too, because they were top players.
Re: “Sports Boom or Sports Hype?”
Great blog John.
Tennis is fun but anytime you need another person to do your activity you are not going to get the draw for the sport like get with sports that have a solo component to them. I.e. Basketball, fishing, running, walking.
As for skateboarding, you won't see Memphians doing that unless you comb the neighborhoods or check out my backyard full of neighborhood kids that skate on the halfpipe . Or you come to a skate boarding demo where 400 Memphis youth show up at the drop of a hat....
Here is a quote from Jeff Haley who was the project manager for the new Memorial skate park in Colorado Springs. As of March 2009, it's now the 2nd largest park as in the U.S.
"Skate parks are the real deal and if you build these parks well you will be doing a huge service to your community. ). I feel that a large factor in terms of our decision to add another skatepark to our system would be largely based on that fact that it provides the most used facility based on square footage while costing the least in terms of maintenance. That is a huge component in budget planning and long term return on investment for the community."
$26 to get on the indoor courts at the Bellevue Tennis Center is not "affordable". $14 to play on an outdoor court is also not "affordable". (visit tennismemphis.org to check out their ridiculous prices) Who in the world is going to pay that kind of money to play on these decaying old courts? To say the Frayser courts are free "if you check into the community" is ridiculous because the community center is closed in the evenings so there's no where to check into and all of the gates are locked.
Why is it free to play basketball on the courts outside community centers but it costs $14 to play tennis? That doesn't make sense. Tennis courts don't require anymore maintenance than a basketball court, so why the ridiculous fees?
Stop by the Frayser or Bellevue tennis centers sometime and you will see a big waste of a valuable resource. It's such a shame. I have a group of friends who would love a place to play tennis around downtown, but there's no way we're going to be forking over $14-26 to play a game. I guess that's a "copout"...whatever.
Charge $26 for someone to play a game of tennis and of course you won't see many people playing the sport. Simple as that.
Lower prices draw more people. More people draw more people. etc.
Thomas Anthony
http://www.sportssearchforfree.com
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