Wednesday, March 25, 2009

BUSINESS NEWS

WTA’s Scott Surprises Tennis by Leaving for Collegiate Conference Position

Just a few months ago Larry Scott was widely being spoken about as the man to finally bring sense to the alphabet soup that is the world leadership of tennis and finally become the overall commissioner of both the men’s and women’s game. Now, after an amazing U turn, he has announced he is to turn his back on the sport altogether.
Scott, 44, was without doubt the most successful leader of women’s tennis and his list of achievements in six years at the helm of the WTA Tour is star studded.  Most importantly he successfully led the fight to finally achieve equal prize money at all four of the sport’s Grand Slam tournaments and he brokered the six-year, $88 million title sponsorship commitment from Sony Ericsson that left so many sports open mouthed in admiration and envy.
Basically, in the six years he has been in charge of the WTA Tour since moving from the ATP and succeeding the hugely disappointing Kevin Wolff, Scott was either responsible and hugely involved with establishing a fivefold increase in sponsorship revenue, a 250 percent increase in overall revenue, a 40 percent increase in prize money and $710 million in new stadium investments.
But now he is moving to an area of sports administration that is frankly alien to him, the American collegiate system, and will become Commissioner of the NCAA’s PAC-10 Conference. Those outside of the United States open their eyes quizzically, particularly in Europe where so much of the power base in world tennis now lies, simply asking why?
Scott’s answer in his carefully worded statement doesn’t seem to answer the question and there is no mention of the fact he may well be doubling his salary to a figure in excess of $2 million a year. He maintains: “With women’s professional tennis more popular than ever, the Tour in the strongest business position in its history and a fantastic senior management team in place, now is the right time for me to embrace a new challenge consistent with my family and personal goals, and leave room for the next generation of Tour leadership to take on new responsibilities.”
His only real dealings with American collegiate sport was to captain the Harvard tennis team in the mid 1980’s and win All American honors before graduating.  Now On July 1, midway through the Wimbledon championships which for many mark the high water mark of the tennis year, Scott will replace Tom Hansen, who announced his retirement last year after 26 years as the commissioner of the NCAA’s Pac-10 Conference.
“They were looking for a different kind of leader from, let’s say, other conferences typical in this position,” Scott said “They see this as a turning point for the Pac-10 and are looking for a new approach to promoting and branding the conferences as well as television and sponsorships.”

Now the inquest will begin on why he has decided to move on. Clearly there are issues that he doesn’t feel he can ever win such as getting the Williams sisters to adhere to every part of his Roadmap plans for the women’s tour which means competing again at Indian Wells where they still insist they were racially abused early in the decade. And is widely believed that Sony Ericsson will not renew their contract when the current deal expires in two years time. Dee Dutta, the conduit of the deal, has long since left the company and the fact Maria Sharapova has been largely inactive since signing to become a World Amabassador for the company, missing two Sony Ericsson Opens and the year ending Sony Ericsson WTA Tour Championships in Qatar, have not helped.
It should also be remembered that although Scott’s tenure at the WTA has been full of successes, he was an integral part of the ATP’s deal with the Swiss marketing company ISL in the late 1990’s that caused huge embarrassment . After ditching many front line and committed sponsors to make way for an umbrella deal with ISL, the company went bankrupt, causing Scott and the former CEO of the ATP Mark Miles to do much back peddling.
Clearly Scott’s experience in brokering good television deals was paramount in the new appointment and he added: ““I’ve picked up on the sense that some people feel that the Pac-10 may not be boxing at their appropriate weight, so to speak. One of the skill sets that I bring is dealing with television for 15 years and dealing with all of the major networks over that time.”
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Real Estate Developer Dellis Cay Sponsors 2009 Key Biscayne

Dellis Cay, an exclusive 560-acre private island resort located in the Turks & Caicos Islands (TCI), just 565-miles south of Miami, is a host sponsor of Miami.
Opening in 2010, the extremely exclusive retreat will be managed by the Mandarin Oriental Hotel Group and will feature the most lavish spa in the Caribbean designed by Kengo Kuma. Dellis Cay will feature a wide variety of amenities ranging from a tennis center, a 9-hole golf course, a jogging trail and a full array of watersports activities such as certified scuba diving and windsurfing.

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Philippoussis Leaves Tennis and Returns to Melbourne

Now he really has given up trying to play. Mark Philippoussis has left his American base in Las Vegas and returned home to Melbourne.
The 32-year old, who reached No. 8 in the world and the finals of both Wimbledon and the U.S. Open, suffered several career setbacks because of injury problems with both knees, and numerous attempted comeback attempts have come to nothing. For some time now he has appeared more often in the gossip magazines than tennis publications because of his seemingly endless stream of glamorous girlfriends. Now, with no more tennis on the horizon, he has gone back to the beachside suburb of Williamstown.
"I want to stay in Williamstown because I love it," said Philippoussis, known as ‘The Scud’ for his booming serve. "Everyone that I care about is here. The reason I was living in America was because when I played tournaments it was easy to be based there. I could go from tournament to tournament and have a week off but now that I’m not playing tournaments I just wanted to come home."
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Sharapova is in Miami, But Not to Play Tennis

She might not be able to play tennis these days, and she has still not set a date for her return, but there is still other business for Maria Sharapova to attend to. She isn’t on court at the Sony Ericsson Open in Miami, but she receives millions in sponsorship from the company so she is in town to meet and greet.
And on Wednesday Maria is due to make an appearance at the Cole Haan store in Coral Gables. Anyone showing up could enter a contest to win one of five prizes of tickets to the Sony Ericsson Open and a Cole Haan handbag.

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We Hear---
--that former world number one and 2005 U.S. Open Champion Kim Clijsters will announce her plans for 2009 on Thursday following speculation that she could return to the women's tour. The 25-year-old will unveil her plans at the tennis center in her home town of Bree, where she has been training in recent weeks. She is expected to target Cincinnati, Toronto and the U.S. Open for her comeback after more than two years in retirement.
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