By Randy Walker
@TennisPublisher
The Tennis Center at Crandon Park on Key Biscayne, the beautiful island paradise and former site for the Miami Open, is often part of discussions when this combined Masters 1000 ATP and WTA showcase is held at Miami’s Hard Rock Stadium.
While discussions about this venue usually are in comparison to the new host site, this year there is another reason to talk about the Key Biscayne facility – and it showcases a pathway to how to help get more people playing tennis in the United States.
Since the Miami Open left Key Biscayne in 2018, the venue gradually fell into neglect. The Tennis Center at Crandon Park was run by Dade County and relied on public tax-payer funding to keep the facility operational. Dade County had to pay for all of the upkeep, without any help from the International Management Group, the owners of the Miami Open, since they were no longer associated with the facility since the tournament moved to Hard Rock Stadium.
With public, tax-payer funded money being precious and often scarce, Dade County was looking at over $1 million in losses in running and keeping up the Crandon Park tennis facility. With public pressure always scrutinizing where public money is best spent, Dade County severely cut services at the facility and looked at closing down operations after first severely cutting court time and services.
Enter, the Florida section of the U.S. Tennis Association.
USTA Florida, headed by executive director Laura Bowen, has a Public Park Tennis Management program, as outlined here Public Park Support Division – USTA Florida – where the organization can assist financially-challenged cities and towns with their public tennis facilities in a number of ways, including potentially taking over the management and upkeep of the facility entirely. Starting in late December and early January, USTA Florida took over the management of the Tennis Center at Crandon Park, virtually saving it from being shut down for public use entirely. USTA Florida runs several other public tennis parks in Florida, such as in Vero Beach, Gainesville and Fort Walton Beach among others.
USTA Florida will keep The Tennis Center at Crandon Park up and running for public use and if they receive a long-term contract to run the facility from Dade County, they will invest some of the USTA resources into greater facility upgrades. There is no discussion, as of now, about the status of the facility’s stadium court, which hosted the Miami Open finals since 1994, but has been mostly dilapidated since the tournament left in 2018 as you can see in the video “What Does Former Miami Open Stadium Court Look Like Now?” via YouTube here However, stay tuned.
What the USTA Florida section is doing at the Tennis Center at Crandon Park – and other municipalities in Florida – brings up a larger issue. If USTA Florida is helping to bring back public park tennis with the resources it receives from the USTA national office – and, of course, from the U.S. Open – shouldn’t the other 16 sections that make of the U.S. Tennis Association do the same with similar programs?
The USTA has a mission – the promote and develop the growth of tennis. The money that is made at the massively successful U.S. Open filters out around the nation to promote and develop the growth of tennis. It wants more people to play tennis. It’s goal is to get 35 million tennis players in the United States by 2035. The first venue to get more people playing tennis is the public park. These people are not going to invest to join a private club or in more elaborate lessons or leagues if they don’t first play or love the sport. It starts at a public park, where the costs for entry are the lowest. With a coffer of tens and hundreds of millions of dollars earned at the U.S. Open, the USTA invests the profits back into promoting and enhancing tennis in the United States. Making money – or not losing money – is not the priority of the USTA when it invests its funds back in the sport, unlike municipalities in towns across the country, who are pressured by city councils, mayors and tax payers to properly use their budgeted money. If a USTA entity is running a public park facility, it’s OK if it loses money – it’s part of its investment in the sport. And, to boot, a USTA staff can run the programming at the public park, which means that there is a qualified and certified teaching professional implementing proper programming to enthusiastically introduce people into the sport – and keep them there.
So, tennis players and fans can now not only enjoy watching the best players in the world play at the Miami Open at the Hard Rock Stadium campus but they can continue to play tennis and make use of the public courts at the former home of this great tournament.
