Tennis Channel CEO Steve Bellamy: the Tennis-X Interview

Posted on October 25, 2004

Tennis-X caught up with The Tennis Channel President and Founder Steve Bellamy last month in a series of interviews during the US Open, where the entrepreneur spoke at length on the state of the sport, and the chance of you seeing (if you're not already) TTC in your U.S. household by late 2004 or early 2005.

Tennis Channel Founder Steve Bellamy is an intense character -- focused not only on everyone in the U.S. being able to watch a fuzzy yellow ball going back and forth across a net, but intense in all his pursuits -- past, present and future.

Among his passions are vegetarianism ("It's ****-ed up what happens to animals. I remember when I was younger, eating at McDonald's and crying for the cow, thinking 'Why do we do this?', we build giant super centers to cater to every whim and need of some animals, while arbitrarily other animals that we have decided to eat hang upside down on a hook that goes through their leg while blood slowly drains from their slit neck for four days while they go nuts yelping and crying in a slow agonizing death...I'm a strict vegan."), his years as a junior player ("I was probably the hardest-working mediocre junior player ever."), music ("I had been a musician, a drummer my adolescent years, then switched to guitar in college and started a band -- within six months we were travelling around the midwest playing gigs...I didn't go to class a lot"), and, of course, tennis. Ironically, though he spent much of college life on the road, he was just chosen to receive the 2005 Distinguished Entrepreneur Award from one of the most prestigious business schools in the country, the Kelley School of Business at Indiana University.

He has been no different in his fanatical desire to create, virtually from scratch, a cable network devoted to tennis. And it hasn't been easy.

"It's my own hell because I'm literally sentenced to being awake 20 hours a day -- it's work," Bellamy says. "It's kind of like pumping water at a well -- I'm pumping and the water's right there, but until we're in every home in America, if I stop pumping the water will go back down."

Independent Business magazine described Bellamy as a "one-man tennis tsunami -- a cross between P.T. Barnum, Don King, Bill Gates and Billy Graham." Bellamy appears the blonde California surf dude, belying his Indiana upraising, but speaks with the directness and intensity of an on-task salesman pushing his product -- and his product is not just The Tennis Channel, but the sport in its entirety.

"We're in all 50 states now," says Bellamy regarding the roll-out of The Tennis Channel in the U.S. "It's only been up for a little over a year, and probably by the end of the year we will have been distributed to more cable systems than almost any startup network in the history of television. It's a Cinderella story in cable. The beginning of ESPN and MTV they took three, four years (before they caught on). The Golf Channel was near bankrupt, they had to save the thing, it was underwater unconscious floating to the bottom, they had to pull it back out. We've got Time-Warner (cable network) done, Adelphia, Cox, NCTC, RCN, Insight and all these big cable companies, they're done, they're on. I anticipate in the near future, almost everyone in the whole industry will be cleared. It's not tooting our own horn, it's unbelievable for tennis. The Tennis Channel is not doing it just for The Tennis Channel, it's about your business, these players' business, this business' business, it's going to help us all."

Once Bellamy gets warmed up his language gets more collegial, his gesturing becomes more pointed, and you feel his passion for the game at somewhere around 11 on the volume dial.

"You can accuse me of a lot -- I have a ****y haircut, or I might be brash or say a dumb thing in a press conference or something, but you can't criticize me for trying to do the right thing in the best interest of tennis and good luck to you trying to knock me off strategy. I want to grow the sport and I will do everything in my power to pummel those in my way."

Tennis has always been a hit-or-miss prospect for fans in the U.S., with television deals between ESPN, the ATP, the WTA, and other stakeholders constantly debuting, folding, changing, switching networks or being tossed aside for the dreaded tape-delay. The most constant over the years has been television coverage of the slams. Now with The Tennis Channel already the majority stakeholder in non-slam coverage in the U.S., Bellamy is treading lightly in an effort to avoid disrupting the most popular inlet while still growing viewership.

"The primary focus of the channel is to grow the game," Bellamy says. "The slams are the one area of where tennis is working on television. There's part of me that wants to program badminton and ping pong during the slams to not take one eyeball off those other broadcaster's telecasts. Tennis succeeds when everyone is watching tennis, and if I've got tennis on too many confusing places, I'm going to hurt tennis. At the same time there's all kinds of wonderful things going on at these slams that aren't televised.

This year's US Open, says Bellamy, was one example.

"We've got a daily highlight show running two times a day that are press conferences and things of that ilk...Our first day Todd Martin retires, our second day Wayne Ferreira retires, every day you've got players talking about these magic moments. We're doing juniors, we'll tape the boys and girls finals and show them Monday when the Open's over. We're going to work with the slams to find the best way to compliment what is going on, not to cannibalize what is going on."

Dining in the packed Player's Lounge at the US Open, Bellamy gestures around him.

"Tennis is so screwed up because of almost everyone in this room, this table is talking about how everyone at that table sucks, everyone is fighting for this teeny pie, and no one is growing the pie," Bellamy says. "So I don't want to be the guy that cannibalizes things -- I want to be the guy who grows that pie."

With The Tennis Channel reportedly near completion of its deal with Comcast, the largest cable carrier in the U.S., Bellamy finds himself far away from the days when the channel existed as hundreds of thousands of dollars in debt on numerous personal credit cards.

"I was literally searching for rich people," says Bellamy of the early days of the channel. Investors were wary of an entire channel dedicated to what the ATP and WTA could barely get on TV under their own efforts.

"I was searching for anyone that had capital," Bellamy says. "Our financial syndicate had nearly collapsed, I was like a scavenger out there. We were a million dollars in debt, we had 23 employees, we had about $29,000 in the bank, our Time-Warner deal was about to expire, all I did 24 hours a day was hustle and try to find money -- I was relentless. Literally at 4:30 a.m. one morning I found this private investment bank out of Boston that had just done an XM (satellite) deal. I sent an e-mail to this guy who looked most likely to play tennis, and the next day he called me like, 'I got this stuff, I don't remember talking to you but tell me more,' and that held the investment syndicate together and the channel got up about one second before the Time-Warner deal expired, literally 11:59:59, we ended up with tones and color bars. That was how we started."

As viewers will attest to, the content quality in the early days of The Tennis Channel was...sporadic, to say the least.

"Literally we had no time (in the beginning), anything that was remotely tennis we just started stuffing it on there, just filling it," Bellamy recalls with a smile. "We had the rights to a lot of live stuff so we took some good feeds, but our original programming was, like, 'At 6:00 we need a show at 7:00, so push play on that camera over there,' and 'Hi this is Steve here...,' there was no rhyme or reason. Now we're getting in the groove, we've got five or six series that we're shooting constantly, we've shot 40 shows this week alone. The programming that we build is really spectacular and the 3rd party stuff is good."

While The Tennis Channel won't be in a majority of U.S. homes until the remaining distributor deals go through, Bellamy says he is turning around the disheartening tennis-on-TV statistics in the U.S. over the past couple years.

"I'll give you a great example," Bellamy says. "The year 2002 in October, where tennis had 17 professional tournaments, we had well over $10 million of prize money with (ATP) Paris and Madrid -- tennis, in terms of quantity of broadcasts, of the 2,029 broadcasts of professional sports on American television, tennis had seven. (He pauses for effect) Arm wrestling had eight. (Pause) Dog Show had 23, Lumberjacking had 37. We were just not on television. And of those seven broadcasts, none were live and none were really in a watchable time slot."

Nowadays The Tennis Channel is the lone source in the U.S. for live tennis on a weekly basis, this month showing live daily coverage of the ATP Madrid and Paris events, among others.

"The tours in general have been fantastic," said Bellamy on the level of cooperation received from the ATP and WTA.

There's not much the ATP or WTA haven't done for The Tennis Channel?

"Nothing," Bellamy says. "I know you guys are the rebels, it would probably make better press if I said 'Those ****ers did X-Y-Z,' but they've been spectacular. The (players') agents have been spectacular, the players have been spectacular...We're trying to do things to make the industry bigger, and everyone's helping. They weren't in the beginning. A lot of the 'regime changes' in the industry have factored into our success. It's like nearly all of the people who were making it hard for me to do my gig were knocked out of their jobs...I want to bring more money into the industry. Not just for our business, but a higher tide raises all the boats."

Now, 17 months after the channel's debut, Bellamy needs a bigger boat.

In addition to The Tennis Channel H.Q. in Santa Monica, California, the organization employs more than 100 people in seven offices around the country, and is currently constructing a new studio.

But the best is yet to come.

The Tennis Channel is in negotiation with Comcast Cable and DirecTV and other leading distributors in the U.S. Not wanting to jinx the process, Bellamy won't be pinned down on how far along the negotiations are.

"I am not able to say much about the upcoming deals other than we have a bunch of new distributors coming on shortly that will make the network extremely accessible to everyone in the country." When asked about the channel being on in Atlanta but nowhere else on Comcast, Bellamy replied, "We do have over a quarter of a million subscribers in Atlanta on various cable systems and the satellite provider Voom. We are on Comcast in Atlanta and if you want to speculate off of that -- you can. I would challenge every fan of racket sports to call their cable operator or satellite provider as often as possible. The only way the distributors know what networks to add is by their customers who pay their bills. We are a little independent network competing for one or two channel spots against hundreds of other channels owned by huge multi-billion dollar media conglomerates with tons of leverage. The only real leverage we have is the quality of the programming and the quantity of consumers who say 'We are going to switch distributors if we can't get the channel.' Although, I can't give you the answer that you want -- by the end of the year, places that don't get The Tennis Channel will be the minority, not the majority and most people in America should have at least a couple of different ways to get the channel by the end of the year."

The Tennis Channel has snared more than 50 cable affiliates, but Comcast is the biggest fish.

"The Tennis Channel wants to be on Comcast, and Comcast wants The Tennis Channel to be on Comcast, so we're just working through all the issues to make that happen," Bellamy says. "Comcast is basically the largest media business in the world now, they are like a jumbo jet and they need a longer runway than the smaller cable networks."

Yeah, the fish analogy was better.

Not content to broadcast American-heavy content like ESPN and USA Network do during their grand slam coverage, Bellamy has a vision for growing tennis in the U.S., familiarizing American fans with the top-ranked players no matter where they originate from.

"In regard to growing tennis in America, I think the three drivers are going to be the Latin men, the Russian and middle European-ish women, and the American players," Bellamy says. "So we are really trying to do a lot to make those people the stars and the household names. This week alone we shot a whole (David) Nalbandian show, a whole (Carlos) Moya show, just finishing a (Rafael) Nadal show. To me it's very important to make these guys big stars, they're going to be in the second week of every slam, and same of the Americans, same with the Russian women."

Sounds good.

Now quit circling and bring that Comcast jumbo jet in for a landing.

Richard Vach is a senior writer for Tennis-X.com.

Postscript: The Tennis Mantra of Steve Bellamy

"Every day I fight for the premise that tennis is the best professionally-played sport. I'd love to get that across, we play against the whole world, not just players from one country. You don't have to be 6-foot-5 or above. So if you're an NBA basketball star you basically have to be 6-5 or above, so that knocks down your competitive universe to a small fraction of the population, that's your competition. Tennis players have to play against 8 billion people, the whole world, they have to play all year 'round, its mano-a-mano, there's no coaching, there's a hideous, heinous travel schedule, you stop for a month, you have an injury -- you're hosed...It's made the talent bar rise so high, I fight that battle every day across the country on radio shows...It is really important to us to open up these athlete's lives and show how interesting and cool and dynamic and painful and excruciating it is (to play pro tennis)...I want that out there, I want people to understand it.

"I'm passionate about creating a healthy society. Tennis literally is the only sport that keeps you fit for life. You look at baseball, basketball, football, you quit those sports. That leaves you with tennis, skiing, and golf. Skiing is not accessible, golf you get no exercise, tennis you can do you whole frickin' life; day, night, indoors, outdoors, summer, winter, everywhere in the world and at every skill level. I want to grow tennis because I think it will be a great thing for our society."

For more info on getting The Tennis Channel in your area, go to: http://www.thetennischannel.com/getttc/default.aspx.