Welcome

to Racquet Fuel, where we launch into great conversations and share powerful tools to help you become a stronger Racquet's leader. Your hosts are Kim Bastable, a former All American Tennis player and now the director of tennis management at the University of Florida. And Simon Gale, the USTA senior director of Racquet Sports Development. Today on Racquet Fuel, Novak Djokovic thinks Padel and Pickleball may end up overtaking tennis. Is that okay or something to be feared?

And is it even likely? Kim and Simon had a lively discussion on the topic with Mike Barrell, executive director of tennis at Sporttime. Now, here's Kim and Simon.

Welcome to Racquet Fuel. I'm Kim Bastable, and here I am again with Simon Gale. Simon, I think this is an exciting conversation we're gonna have with Mike. You have known each other for a long time. You've seen the evolution of the industry and the addition of complementary sports.

So are you ready for this lively discussion?

How come every time we start one of these podcasts, it's always you've known each other a long time? It makes us it makes us sound old. But I guess, twenty years probably I've known Mike now?

I'm happy being old, but, yeah, probably about twenty years. Yeah.

I think it's wisdom. There's no old about it. Totally wisdom.

That sounds much better wisdom. But I I've known Mike a long time. He's a subject matter expert in a lot of things and a casual expert in a lot of things with our conversations we've had over the years. They're they're always lively and we are passionate about this subject today. So looking forward to the discussion.

So Mike, welcome to Racquet Fuel. Thanks for joining us today.

Very welcome. Thanks for asking me.

Tell us a little bit about your current role with Sport Time responsible for and maybe give us a little bit of a background on some of your consulting and evolution program. Give us a bit of an overview of your history here.

Right. So currently, I am the executive director of tennis for Sporttime in New York, sounds like a very grand title. What it really means is I look after the coaches and the programs for our company, and our company is based of 12 tennis facilities, kind of 12 plus a little bit of another one. So and we have just over 200 teaching pros, and a lot of a lot of indoor course. We have the biggest indoor club in the world here on Randall's Island just aside Manhattan.

And, yeah, it's very interesting role, really, really very much about we're one of the few few venues that still produce you know, has a kind of mandate to produce tennis players as well. So we we kind of run performance academies within indoor programs, you know, on a commercial basis, which is a little bit challenging. And my my kind of pathway here led me through all sorts of things. Started like most people in a small club teaching with my basketballs, ended up doing tutoring and training for a couple of federations and a lot of stuff around kid's tennis originally. And then the exploration of that was kind of you see how the re the way that you design programs is really you meet people's needs.

And as you start looking at, well, when you meet people's needs, you realize, oh, that stuff we were talking about with kids programs is relevant for everything, really. It's just just assumed that everything was was good with all the other programs, but, actually, they need exactly the same kind of help. So it's taken me through just over 80 countries around the world, a lot of learning experiences, things that were sometimes, you know, a sugar rush. You turn up and do things and leave, and everything would be, oh, that was great, but, oh, really, it didn't change anything. And then really getting into a role here, is much more trying to be impactful, trying to make changes, and almost the opposite end of the spectrum.

You know? When you when you go in and you speak to some things, you end up doing things that are very quick and a and a short thing, and then you realize the the slow burn and the the raise the titanic approach to actually making big commercial companies move forwards in the way that they need to. We're having some successes and having some fun with it. So, yeah, it's all good.

Well, I think if you go back ten years when we would we would be at an annual conference, all we talked about was tennis, and we talked about the director of tennis's role. Fast forward to today and even the most recent conference we're at, the United States Professional Tennis Association rebranded as the Racquet Sports Professional Association. And the role has evolved for a lot of us from director of tennis to director of racket sports, and we've seen complimentary racket sports such as pickleball or Padel start to infiltrate and become part of our day to day operations. How do you view that? And and Sporttime is not immune to this.

You've gone through a pickleball experimentation there with with some of the facilities. How do you view that evolution and the impact it's having on leadership, but specifically how it's impacting, say, tennis delivery as a as a facility?

I think it's very diverse, to be honest. For us, it's not really impacting although we've added pickleball, we haven't added Padel. We've added pickleball to some of our sites. It very much sits like a separate division, so our tennis coaches rarely teach anything other than tennis. We have pickleball coaches.

We we're now gonna build some standalone pickleball facilities, and that that side of the business is is gonna grow and and for sure be an important part of of how this business goes forward. It but I think it's different for different people. I mean, there are other facilities where you you know that their tennis members are playing pickleball and crossing backwards and forth. Here here in New York, it it doesn't cross. We don't really have a lot of people that are tennis players who are playing pickleball.

As I kinda say, it's it's not for what you have to spend on leisure activity here. It's and, you know, for the the cost of putting a court together, the cost of putting land together, doing all those kind of things. The the cost of kind of looking at, you know, what you've got to spend on a racket sports to go inside changes things a little bit. You know, it's weird that you know the tennis divide in the North and the South. It's a diff it's a very, very different annum.

And so up here, we tend to find that the people are in in distinctly different tribes, distinctly different pockets. The tennis people play tennis. The pickleball people play pickleball. And there's not a big crossover. So there's not consequently, there's not a big crossover in our business, and there's not a big crossover in our teaching process.

But I think, you know, the South and other other elements the industry, there are there are some crossovers.

So I'm curious to know, first of all, how big is the biggest indoor club in the world? How many indoor courts?

There was one point where it was 30 indoor courts. It's now 29 indoor courts with six pickleball courts.

Okay. So, yeah, I'm very intrigued by the idea that there's no crossover, and I'm interested in how you monetize in New York because I do think for many of us in other parts of the country, the cost of just an indoor court is feels like it can be high there. And there's the kind of feeling that pickleball is played in public facilities, and there's not as much willingness to pay for court time. So I'm just curious. Can you give us what's an indoor court cost for pickleball and an indoor court for tennis?

Well, so, you know, our our court cost could be anywhere from depending upon the time of the time of the week, and, also, it's been around our facility. So the challenge a little bit I'll I'll sound like I'm I'm skating around this a little bit, but if you're trying to book a court here on Randall's Island right next to Manhattan, you're paying, you know, upwards of a $100 an hour for a court, of course. But if you're going out into the Long Island, it's gonna be very diff but we also have for example, we have a park facility where people, you know, the pickleball people are paying $10 an hour for pickleball court.

Okay. When you say $10 an hour, you mean Pickleball Court $10 an hour? Yeah. Not tennis. What's a tennis court at Randall's Island?

Yeah. No. Tennis court at Randall's Island is is upwards of a $100 an hour.

Okay. But the pickleball court is the same cost?

No. The pickleball court is less. No. The pickleball court I I honestly don't know exactly what the pickleball court cost is, but it's relatively less. Yeah.

We're very much as a facility, very highly programmed. We have over 55 coaches at 29 in your court facility right now. And, you know, there there is a lot of programs. There's a lot of private lessons. There's a lot of group programming.

And off the back of that, there isn't the same for pickle pickleball is much more open play, court time, those kind So we see that this difference in the business. Okay. In terms of coaches, coaches are a lifeblood of tennis, but the courts are the things for for pickleball.

Okay. So the the the real alarm I think came out this summer when Novak Djokovic said, you know, on a club level, tennis is endangered. If we don't do something about it, he says, globally and collectively, Padel, Pickleball, The United States, they're going to convert all the tennis clubs into Padel and Pickleball because it's just more economical. You have one tennis court. You can build three Padel courts on one tennis court.

You do the simple math. It's just much more financially viable for an owner to have a club that has a club to have those types of courts. So how do you respond to those, and have you felt that that threat was happening to your tennis at any of your club?

It's a very deep conversation to have, obviously, and we we started having this once before. The reality is they're very different businesses. Right? So so if we go back to what we're saying, as much as you may be able to convert a court to x number of pickleball courts, you've still got to fill that with players. You know, tennis court, you've got you you may be having for us, it may be one coach, one player, or maybe, you know, four players match.

Pickleball courts, you've got to fill that court time. And then, of course, you're not getting the programming income off the other side of it. So for us, I don't really see that that is going to be a thing. I don't see that the income that you're gonna generate from a set of pickleball courts, you have to work incredibly hard and be very successful in order to generate the same amount of income that you are from a tennis. So so from a geography point of view, if you wanna say that, know, if you wanna use Novak's thing about do the math, from a geography point of view on the pickle side, not necessarily on the Padel side, and we're not experts on the Padel side, the geography looks like, yeah, you're gonna you're gonna generate more money by putting those Pickleball courses.

The reality is most of the time, you're not, and I don't think that's really how people are looking at it. I think how people are looking at is diverse diversifying the portfolio of their offer. You know, they're they're really saying, okay. We have this club. If we offer pickleball as well as tennis, then maybe we can increase our, you know, our revenue based on not being maxed out right now on the tennis side.

We're we're pretty much maxed out on tennis. Putting pickleball courts in for us was a huge gamble because we can sell 30 indoor courts for pretty much from 8AM till 8PM every single day.

And that's what makes sport time unique in that and anywhere in that in that New York Tri State area, especially with indoor courts, it's a unique business model. It's such an intense population and a lack of indoor facilities. The indoor model works very well there. Think for your, as you said earlier, in the South or your outdoor facilities or public parks where places were built twenty, thirty years ago. The tennis demand might not be as high.

There's a couple of open courts and pickleball players knocking down the door and saying, We want a place to play. And the club owner says, Well, this is where the real estate might add up for me. I could get four courts and make something where I was making nothing. So I think we're seeing both sides of the ledger here, aren't we? We've got a New York setup and that high population area and then you've got your clubs that are looking for a way to keep the doors open potentially.

I know that was the case at my old club. We had space, we converted it and it kept the doors open for for the 100,000 a year we made from pickleball. So I think it's going to be very club specific, but you are in a unique situation up there, which I know you're aware of because we've talked about that before.

Yeah. Look, we're aware of it, but but, like, fundamentally, we are a tennis company. So, you know, we've decided for example, we've decided to put in a gym or take out a gym based on our different facilities. We've decided to put in pickleball or take out pickleball based on a different facility. In other words, we we of course, we're looking to maximize our space, but fundamentally, everything does come down to tennis.

Tennis is, you know, tennis is how we earn our money, and tennis is what we do. And and we're always gonna be about tennis first and foremost. And I like what we've done in terms of, you know, almost we've created a separate division for Pickleball, almost a completely separate company, and off you go. Because here, it's a very different crowd. It's literally like it I mean, it it would be like dropping a thrash metal band in the middle of a Taylor Swift concert, putting pickleball people and tennis people together.

It's they're they're not the same group of people. They're really not. And so from that angle, you're kind of looking at it and going, well, here, tennis is one group of people. We're just looking to add another group of people and trying to work out whether that can be successful. But ultimately, if you ask my directors what would they prefer to do, they'll be like, can we get more tennis courts so we can do more programming because we need more tennis?

And and that we're not we're not facing that. And I I tend to feel like there's there's a couple of things. One is I feel like we do a pretty good job. We can always improve. I feel like we do a pretty good job.

We do drive tennis. I think we appeal to a lot of people in the area in terms of the way we go about our role. We try to be as creative and as positive about programming as we possibly can. You know, and there's a bit of it that, you know, for, you know, from my conversations, I I've I'm a fan of all sports, but at the same time, I have no interest in pickle whatsoever. So I may be that unique one that, you know, I may be the dinosaur that doesn't become a Racquet's director and always has a tennis director badge on my head.

But ultimately, for me, it's just a really good, you know, wake up. I always I always say, you know, tongue in cheek, I say pickleball is the joker to Bat You know, Tennis is Batman. Pickleball is a Joker. And if the Joker didn't exist, Batman would just be a fast playboy with a fast car. Right?

So it's kind of like it's it's a great wake up for us as in the tennis industry to turn around and say, okay. There's this other there's this other option out. It's not really the enemy or the arch villain, but there's this other option out there for people to play. And if we do believe they could take people away from tennis, we just have to do a better job. We just have to make sure that we don't sit back on our laurels and go, oh, yeah.

We're tennis. We're on a boom. We're on a massive high, and everybody knows tennis is on a boom. And tennis will always be there because there's only two truly global sports, tennis and soccer. Right?

So wherever you go in the world, you can find a tennis court and play. But at the same time, it's kind of we we we can't sort of sit back and go, well, we're tennis, and therefore, we don't need to try hard or work hard or move with the times and be creative with that program. We actually have to keep considering what our customers need. But I I believe that there isn't really a downside for Tennis aside from some of the downside that Tennis might have created for itself.

Oh, I want you to unpack that. The tennis might have created for itself. Is that lethargy? Is that, you know

Yeah. I mean, I I feel like that. I feel like, you know, we we have tennis courts. We so, you know, we have to be really, really creative with our programming, and we have to be really, really positive about our marketing. And if you wanna look at one thing, you know, it's the pickleball model is very interesting because it's been incredibly good at marketing, and it's then got all of these companies coming into a new market who, you know, the industry that want to promote their product.

And so as a result of that, you know, you get it all the time. And somehow they they switch the Google algorithm so that every time you touch tennis to you know, you search tennis, up comes a pickleball clip, which, you know, I never see a badminton clip or a squash clip or any of those other clips on there. So there's somehow they've been very smart on that one, but, you know, and and we haven't. And we do tend to be a little bit we do tend to be a little bit cap in hand. We do tend to be a little bit like, well, what are the USDA doing for us?

Well, it's not the USDA's job to to to keep us propped up. You know, they're just trying to do what they can do. So, you know, we just have to make sure that we're doing a really good job of understanding our sport, what would bring people to our sport. You know, my background is kids tennis, and if I look at what's going on with kids tennis right now, even across the globe, I'd have to say it's not where it was five years ago. It's not where it was ten years ago.

What do we need to do, Mike, from a because I agree with you. Yeah. Obviously, I worked for the USCA but only for five years. So prior to that, was in the club industry on a day to day basis trying to grow tennis in my area. And I do believe it's the responsibility of of the local business to to drive their sport in the area.

It's not the USCA's job to feed everybody tennis players. You have to do that on a local level. But from a programming point of view, we we tend to have a leaky bucket in this country where for every kid who comes in or adult that comes in, we lose one. And so we're never really growing. And so as a result, what are we missing as a sport?

How do we we've talked about this extensively, the concept of all other youth sports, for example, you know, it's this practice and play, practice on Tuesday, play on the weekends, and there's a commitment to the sport. But tennis is more of a lesson sport and we come for our lesson every week, but we don't actually play much tennis unless we're playing tournaments and so on. So how do we how do we position tennis differently? What are you doing and recommending to the clubs you consult with to try and correct that so we're not this leaky bucket?

Well, fundamentally, there's there's five things. I've always had this model of the the five things that need to be involved in a program, which is competition, lessons, practice, social, and communication, whether that be with parents or who that who that who that is. And you can put marketing in there. And they're and they're big buckets. Right?

So everybody wants to compete in some way. Everybody wants to most people want to learn or improve and whatever that looks like. There's some element of practice, as in going out there experimenting, doing things, hitting balls. That's what we used to do when we were kids, right? We'd go and practice.

It wasn't called practice. We just went and hit balls. That was called practice. There's some element of of this tribalism that we need to really enforce, you know, because socially, most people play a sport to connect with people like me. I I love the somebody once said at a conference I was at in Norway that the word club means people like me.

It doesn't mean the business. It doesn't mean the building. It means a group of people. And somewhere along the line, that needs to be reinforced. Know?

And and so if you look at look if you look at the fundamental human needs of anybody, you'd go, well, everybody wants to everyone wants to feel competent, so everyone wants to improve. Everyone wants to compete or or play or be creative. Everybody wants to be connected, and everyone wants to be communicated with. And if you go to 90% of tennis clubs, I think you'll still if and you say, I want my kid to do tennis, you'll still get given a list of lessons. And fundamentally, that's where we we do fall down, and we've always fall down.

And we try to correct it. We try to push, but you need that needs to be a long term focus. Because unless you're you know, we should be we should be out there rewarding the people who are doing the most creative playing competitive program. What we tend to do is we tend to put competition in a We look at lessons as being the income generator, and we forget entirely about the need to find your people.

Wow. That's pretty that's insightful. That's good stuff.

There was a really good study that was I think it was by the Esporter Group, which which was one of these kind of commercial groups in The UK years ago. And I I may have the data or the stat wrong, but it was it was something like if someone met nine new people in the first year of play, then a 98% member retention. So so therefore, the coach's role becomes, who can I introduce you to? Who can I do that? And if you look at you know, we've talked about how long we've been in the industry.

Right? But if you look at our role as a coach, our role as a coach used to be to organize match plays, organize these mix ins, organize all these events, do all these kind of oh, and we teach tennis lessons lessons as well. Or if we didn't do that, the club always did that really, really well. But then as we focused on income, income, income, income, what's happened? It makes it makes more sense to sometimes, a mix in doesn't earn you as much money as being on core teaching lesson.

But fundamentally, it's of more value to the club and the sport, and so those are the kind of things that you know, we take our certification. Our certification tells us how to teach a lesson. It doesn't teach us how to engage with a group of people.

Well, I think that's one of the things I have conflict with people talking about why pickleball is that pickleball is so social. Because I think it's back to the seventies when I was, you know, a little court attendant at a at a country club on a Saturday morning, and there were so many people there. We had a wait list, and I had to negotiate, you know, an hour for singles, an hour and a half for doubles, and then I had to you know, you go on Court 14 next. And, I mean, there were people just clamoring to play. It was such a social event, and it was people coming out of the woodwork, which I I kinda like into what happens in pickleball at the park or people waiting to play and and all of that.

But, yeah, what do you see as is there a difference? I mean, tennis should be quite social just like pickleball, but I guess it's not perceived that way anymore.

I've said it lots of times, Kim. Like, pickleball just took the tennis playbook from the nineteen seventies, ninety day. You know, if there was that famous book the famous book used to buy, I think most coaches in The US bought it at some point. It was a folder by Greg Grover called creative programming or something, And it had these little cartoon drawings on it, and it literally was a whole sheet of different tournaments you could run all the way through a year. I've spoken to some pros and they're like, I've got two copies of that.

I've got three copies of that. It was so valuable. There's a book. And and it's one of those things where you kinda go, we like, that's exactly what Pickleball is doing right now. And a fair play, you know, they're they're well done and all those kind of but at the same time, it's stuff that we used to do.

I mean, I don't see Pickleball doing I don't see Pickleball doing anything right now that I go, oh, wow. That would be so good for tennis that tennis didn't already do. You know?

Yeah. Would agree a 100%. That that Greg Grover binder was probably my bible, my survival guide in the the late nineties, early two thousands. And my I have 24 members this weekend. What am I gonna do with them?

Flip it open. Perfect. I got six courts, 24. We're doing this mixer and it's interesting that you fast forward to today and that's Pickleball's big big selling point is the social amongst other things and and and I agree. They're doing a great job with it.

We've probably gotten away from that to an extent and I think the professionalization in the business of tennis has pushed us into, hey, we've got a lot of certified pros who need to make a living. They need forty hours of work every week. We're not in the business of getting people to play. We're in the business of getting pros forty hours and and free for a sport time for example, real estate's valuable. If I can make $200 from an hour versus a 100 for a court rental, a lesson is better revenue than play.

So it's a there's almost a conflict of interest there. We want to grow the sport, but we need to make money whereas I'm not sure the business of pickleball is there yet. I'm afraid over time, it will probably become just like tennis, very play based and level based and and it needs to generate revenue once you get past the beginner phase. It will be interesting to see if teaching pros mess that up to an extent over time. So it's an interesting situation and and my question to you is, have we become a little too pro dependent and therefore we've gotten away from some of that play because there's so many lessons needed to keep pros busy?

Well, mean, it's interesting because obviously, as soon as the USPTA changed their name last or two weeks ago, you know, there was a lot of social media buzz and all these different things. And, you know, I'm trying to be as as PC as I possibly can even though I do tend to not always tread that line as well as I could. But, know, I'm really, really reflecting on it because because it's something that you know, I used to be a tennis consultant. That's what I did. Now I work in industry.

That's a little different, and and I I still have the crossovers. I'm still consulting and doing different things, but it it's really as you as you said, industry is is asking for a certain thing. And by that by industry, I mean, anyone that's making money out of tennis or or taking money. There is there's people like tennis purists, and I I would put myself in the tennis purist bucket, where tennis is like like our faith. It's almost like our religion.

I mean, I've been to like I said, I I was in China once and somebody said to me, did you ever think you'd be in China with tennis? And I said, I never thought I'd be leaving the pub, you know, as a tennis coach. And I've been to 80 something countries, and I getting into getting into this big time and not making tennis would would literally be like, you know, cheating on my wife. It would be like that. It would be it it feels like it would be the wrong thing to do.

That's one side of my brain. The other side of my brain is this this side of my brain, which is but this is the industry, and we have to make money, and we have to support people's lives and their incomes and all of those kind. And then now, of course, the USDA has this incredibly difficult job in the center where it's Where does it go? Does it support the clubs with what the clubs are asking to do, which might be diversifying? Does it stay pure to tennis and keep the faith, so to speak, on that side of things?

How how does it fit? And I think, you know, it's very easy when you take one mindset to go, well, this is what everybody should do. This is what everybody should do. But ultimately, there there is a challenge between those three buckets. There is a challenge between, you know, if if you like this pure pure sport, the federation, and the and they're not, they're all the same, and they can't be all the same.

You know, if if The US the USTA in its role is is probably gonna gonna need to he's gotta understand everything, and it's gonna be really challenging for them as they move forwards to to to to do those kind of things. I I sort of feel like we're we're starting to get a handle on ultimately what's the best business. You know? Ultimately, the best business is not just about making money. Ultimately, the best business is about making people happy.

Right? Ultimately, we are in a people business, and therefore, like, our pickle side of things last season, it's different this year, but we we marked up five courts with, I think, like, 18 pickleball courts or something crazy last year, and we had very little occupancy. And what it allowed our members to do was get more court time and get more chances to play and for us to do a few more events. And as a result of that, we had we had less complaints about not being able to get a court. So we've kind of left it almost on that model and not fully programmed 29 courts from four till eight every night, which is what we used to do with 25 courts, because we feel like there has to be some flexibility, some freedom to keep people happy.

So could we could we program it? Yeah. We could massively program it. We could fill the courts all the time. The challenge a little bit is that's a very short term business.

And I think when we start talking about business, there's two bits to it. The one of one of it is how do we make money in the short term? And the other thing is how do we not recession proof our business, but how do we, you know, how do we ensure the robustness of our business in the long and the robustness of our business in the long term, I I kind of believe, is keeping our tennis people happy.

That's insightful. That's I love that you kind of look past the ultimate just money, money, money. I think that's excellent.

Well, don't get me wrong. We make a lot of money.

Well, I know that. But I mean, that's not the ultimate always the goal. The the it does sort of work itself out if you keep people happy. Ultimately, they are coming back for years and years. And yeah.

So I'm curious what you know. You are from The UK. What's what are you seeing of pickleball back there? Is is any real traction happening? I have kids who live there.

I have seen one pickleball court that exists there, but I don't believe it's nearly what's happening. I'm just curious your take on that.

I don't honestly, don't really have have a handle. The LTA seems to have a affiliation with Padel, which I think is very different to Pickle.

Right.

Because I think I think the very nature of how you pick up the sport, you know, for for me, Pickle is you know, everyone says, well, Pickle's so easy, but that means you can pick it up and put it down very easily. Right? So there's not there's not a a steep learning curve. There's not, you know, there's not this sort of concept of of expert mastery, which I see in Padel. I mean, I watch Padel and I go, wow.

I don't watch Pickle very often. When I do, I never really go, wow. So, you know, even recreational Padel players, I'm like, wow. They're clever. They can do this, this, and this.

So look. There's this thing, isn't there? I mean, it's like anything we have in life. There's this thing of something if something's easier, it's it's But how much long term value does that have? I've we you know, I spent ten years in the South.

I like a game of cornhole. Right? I tried to perfect my technique with a bottle of beer in my hand. Right? But ultimately, at the end of the day, I know I'm, you know, I haven't played for months.

I don't I don't if I put ever if I turn up and there's a board, I'll go toss some bags in a hole. It's kind of like there is a group of obviously hardcore pickle people who who this is a big thing for them and they are gonna do that. I don't think that's the majority of people quite yet. And the challenge with it being an easy sport is, you know, you don't necessarily have to engage to master it. So whereas when when we talk about numbers, you know, we can get very, very obsessed with numbers, but how many people are playing?

And that for for me, that's kind of not really vital statistic because if you look at how many people are driving Formula One racing cars and how much income is that generating, this is, you know, how many how many people are playing, I don't know, pickup game of of basketball in the street or soccer in the street, how much income is that generating? It's not the the industries don't really align. And when you look at those numbers, it's kind of yeah. So what I do think is that in some areas of Europe, for example, we have a lot of Eastern European coaches. I don't think Pickle is ever gonna take off there because they look at sport as being something serious and something you need to master.

And if you're gonna spend the the money you have on that, you're expecting to get some kind of return. Yeah. Reasons people play different sport.

Yeah. No. I think that's a a good observation. I know you have a motor development in your background and, you know, the whole skill acquisition and there's been some studies about whether this does translate. And I believe you would agree that motor development wise, it doesn't translate, but it does get people out to a club and it maybe doesn't.

I've heard people say they are intrigued to try tennis now that they have been around a tennis club or on a court. I don't know that their skills they have from playing pickleball will translate, but do you know, their interest in racket sports might be increasing.

Yeah. I I would say there's I mean, the demoted skills translate. Some some do. Invariably, some do. Some do.

Right? This but no different to if you create a great soccer player, they'll have great footwork on a tennis court kind of thing. You know? It doesn't have to be a racket thing for it to translate. There there's benefit in being active full stop, whatever you do.

You know? So there there are different there are different views of that. I I think it's more of a like you said, it's more of a mental social concept. It's more of a, oh, I might try this now. As as a result of playing pickleball, I might try 10.

I don't think that that there really is that bigger crossover. I could be very, very wrong, but we're not seeing that big a crossover, and I'm not hearing from other people there's a big crossover. And then now, you know, a lot of people have talked about kids pickleball, and that's that's a big challenge for pickleball. That's their their big challenge because she doesn't come with heroes. It doesn't come with, you know, it doesn't come with all the media.

It doesn't come with everything else, and it it doesn't come with the kind of the skateboard trick mentality. You know, you watch a tennis match and you go, wow. And that was incredible, and this was amazing, and the ball was going so fast and this, that, and the other. And then, you know, that's what I mean by the skateboard trick mentality. It's like, why do people fail at skateboarding or, you know, try and do a trick and fail a 100 times and still keep going?

Because it's really cool when you can do it. And I think we underestimate that with tennis. It's like tennis is tennis is one of those sports where when you can do it well, you can strut around the court like a peacock because this is something big. Right? This is something serious.

It's that skateboard trick mentality. And so we're always trying to make things easier. But if every everything was about being easier, everyone would be in a McDonald's every day. Right? So it's not necessarily about easier.

It's sometimes about, I wanna accept a challenge. I wanna try and do this. I wanna engage more. I think, really, we just have to keep these things as very separate buckets. We have to understand that some clubs are going to want to add pickleball to their range of products that they offer.

No different to if they and this might sound a little facetious, but no different to if they want to improve their restaurant. If their members are happier by offering a wider range of products, then great. But I really see them as being very different.

Well, to use your McDonald's quote, they never used to offer salads either and now they do. That So opened up a whole new market. So look, this has been very entertaining as always a conversation with you, Mike, and there's at least half a dozen quotes that people could take away and I've probably got one or two new ones even after all the years we've been been chatting. So it's always entertaining and and a lot to unpack there. But if we if we wrap this up, is there one or two things that you would would leave Racquet Fuel listeners with in terms of maybe centered around your recommendation on the importance of growing tennis and what you your responsibility as a a provider is.

Yeah. Look, I feel really we don't have to be divided on any of this. If you believe that you only want to teach tennis for the rest of your life or you only want to work in tennis for the rest of your life, or you as a club only want to do the rest of your life, then just go and be successful at that. Just work hard at doing that. Just be focused.

You know, it's it's very my my path is really interesting. I got to do all this traveling, do all these things about kids tennis because I identified it as something I was okay at and nobody else was good at. I literally was the one eyed man in the world of the blind when I started doing it. It was kind of that kind of approach. And then I just focused on it for more than ten years.

I just that's all I did. And so I feel like but that's that's one thing. We shouldn't be saying we shouldn't be complaining. We should be just be doing what we do best and try and constantly get better every day. If you feel like other comp you know, whatever I wanna call them, complimentary racket sports or other activities or other things you wanna be engaged in, your facility is demanding that of you and you're happy to do that, then you should also do that.

You know, it it's but it seems to be an anti this and anti that. You know, if you're if you're all tennis, you're anti this. No. I'm not I'm not anti any sport in any way, shape, or form, and I'm and I'm certainly not you know, I certainly understand the needs of different businesses. And I think that the sport and the industry hats and understanding that, we all need to do that.

We all need to understand that we have no industry, we have no sport. But if we have no sport and a focus on that sport, then the industry loses its way very quickly as well. So it's kind of like you have to switch between the two and go, I get it. I get that some people may wanna do this a different way. I get that clubs do need money to keep their doors open and answer to shareholders and those kind of things.

But I also get that there'll be some people out there who purely wanna do tennis, and that does not mean they're a dinosaur. It does not mean that they're not moving with the times. You can move with the times and stay very, very clearly in the tennis space.

I think that's well said. I think it's interesting when I look back to the Novak Djokovic quote, I think it's just he just puts a little too much generalization on the subject, and he's just assuming that, you know, numbers and spaces and it's too simplified. And I like the way you put it that it's certainly a business related decision and something that is it's dependent on what you want to sort of be when you grow up. And it's very much your right to stay in the tennis world or to add. I was just thinking when you spoke, you know, if somebody said, I want you to bring Tiddlywinks and have it in our bar area and, you know, I mean, your answer might be no.

I mean, why why do they feel so much pressure to add all these many sports? And it really is a case by case decision, and and every club needs to manage it to their own clientele. So I think you give good advice.

Lots of country clubs have golf. Some of them have bridge. Some of them Yes. All kinds of things, you know. We've we've had all these different things.

There are many sports in clubs in Europe. My my the last tennis club I worked at in Europe, we had rugby, we had tennis, we had squash, we had ping pong, we had soccer, we had cricket. That was our club. So, you know, it it's not to say that we can't do that. And as I said to somebody the other day, they are clubs are gonna look to tennis teaching pros to help do this because some of the activities we run are not million miles away, and our teaching pros are one of the few this is, I think, an important thing to remember.

One of the few groups of sports coaches out there that are universally trained and certified and have expertise and earn an income from them. So there's always gonna be expertise if people wanna translate or move from tennis across the pickle.

Yeah. Yeah. That's good. Excellent talk, Mike. Really appreciate your time.

I know we've provided some insightful information for our listeners today on Racquet Fuel, so thank you for being with us.

Thanks for asking me. I really appreciate it. Great to chat to you both.

Cheers, Mike.

That's all for today on Racquet Fuel. We'll see you next time.

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