ATP Promotion Machine Starts Sputtering

Posted on April 19, 2006

By Richard Vach, Tennis-X.com Senior Writer

Back in 1999 when Pete Sampras and Andre Agassi dominated tennis, and also the ATP publicity machine (remember "The Rivalry!"??), European organizers were up in arms about the ATP being too American-centric, concentrating only on the two American stars.

Sure, in retrospect they were two of probably the Top 3 greatest players ever, but what the hell. No. 2-ranked Yevgeny Kafelnikov and No. 4 Thomas Enqvist, the marketing machines that they were, weren't getting their props.

Nowadays it's all Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal, and you don't hear the Americans complaining -- unless it's fans complaining about Andy Roddick and crew failing to put up any big results.

But back then it was all Pete and Andre, and the ATP Euro contingent felt like they were getting the short end of the stick, so the ATP did what they do best. They reacted to the situation. Except the re-action was packaged like a pro-action, a great big campaign blitz to introduce fans to future stars -- future stars such as Mariano Zabaleta, Jan-Michael Gambill and Nicolas Lapentti. Ouch.

This was the infamous "New Balls, Please" campaign, which was well received at the time (as is any campaign to -- gasp -- promote tennis), though you're still today pressed to find a Joe Schmo sports fan in the U.S. who could differentiate Tommy Haas from Tommy Robredo.

Haas, if you weren't paying attention back then, was part of the "New Balls" squad, and went on to challenge Sampras head-on, reaching the No. 2 spot on the ATP Rankings before blowing out his shoulder. Also keeping Haas from breaking out in the spotlight, at least in the U.S., has been his Germanic inability to tolerate stupidity in interviews and promotional situations.

But back to the ATP, over the past year the men's governing body has been forced to react once again, this time when their behind-the-scenes plan to kill doubles was unexpectedly shoved on center stage after their own players sued them. This time the ATP reacted by -- you're probably getting the picture by now -- rolling out a great big campaign blitz to promote doubles, the "Doubles Revolution."

Something about "revolution" rhyming with "evolution" and pictures of apes evolving into the Bryan brothers...something the ATP has since pretty much gotten rid of since receiving feedback of 'Apes? What the hell were you guys thinking?'

The "Doubles Revolution" (sans apes) goes off nominally well when featuring the twin marketing success of the ever-ready Bryan brothers, but stalls when you delve into the abyss of no-name doubles specialists.

Here's some of the ATP Doubles Revolution promotion from this week:

"As a part of the ATP doubles revolution, Spaniards IVAN NAVARRO-PASTOR and DANIEL GIMENO-TRAVER designed a graffiti together with a local artist and the top-seeded Argentine doubles pair MARTIN GARCIA and SEBASTIAN PRIETO."

Well hell, where's the video!?! Sign me up! Is that downloadable from the website? Can I pay to see that through the ATP's new broadband service?

Now maybe I'm just out of touch with how hard Navarro-Pastor/Gimeno-Traver are rocking the mic in Spain, or how Garcia/Prieto are garnering national sports headlines in Argentina, but this seemingly comes in on the lame side of PR efforts.

The problem for the doubles-only players, and the fans for that matter, is that to the ATP it's OK if the Doubles Revolution is lame. It's OK if it's not successful. No harm, no foul. In fact, it's somewhat of an inside joke at ATP headquarters, because doubles is on its way out anyways.

When the doubles players sued the ATP, they "won," dropping their lawsuit and getting some publicity and rankings concessions from the tour, but they also lost.

With the increased publicity the ATP is giving to doubles, behind the scenes it's jiggling the wall plug connected to the life-support system.

As the Bryan brothers admitted a few weeks ago in Miami, doubles is dying a slow, ATP-calculated death. The rankings have been skewed now so doubles-challenged singles players can get directly into doubles draws, while some doubles-only players are finding they no longer make the cut.

"There's no more (doubles) qualifying -- once we retire, the doubles (only) players will be pretty much gone," Mike Bryan said. "They can't break through in the smaller tournaments like we did."

The Bryan brothers lost a chunk of their own money fighting the ATP in court, and while they say they're still looking for answers, the ATP has a choke-hold on doubles. Meanwhile the ATP tournament directors who started the whole doubles problem in the first place are the only winners, sitting off to the side counting their extra cash from not having to pay hotel and food for as many doubles specialists at their events.

Over the last couple years the United States Tennis Association (USTA) has been very pro-active, giving fans the US Open Series, and pushing through the video replay challenge. After the ATP gets done reacting to the doubles brouhaha by killing the sport's sub-genre, just out of curiosity -- is there anything pro-active on the horizon that can maybe help the sport?

Word on the street is that new ATP President Etienne de Villiers has some sport-changing plans in the pipe. So before we collectively jump in the car to go to K-Mart to buy our Navarro-Pastor/Gimeno-Traver t-shirts, how about laying it on us?

Richard Vach is a senior writer for Tennis-X.com who can currently be seen on The Tennis Channel's "Tennis Insiders: Super Insiders" episodes, and was recently awarded "Best Hard News" story for 2005 by the United States Tennis Writers Association.