Let the corporate tennis war begin.
The Mercedes-Benz Cup has been held at UCLA annually since 1983,
but the Anschutz Entertainment Group is building the Home Depot
National Training Center and is trying to get the tournament to
move to the new facility in Carson.
Luckily for UCLA and tennis fans, Bob Kramer, the tournament
director, has no plans to move the tournament. In this day and age
in sports, loyalty and caring for the fans is hard to find, which
makes Kramer’s decision amazing. Kramer could easily make
more money by moving the Mercedes-Benz Cup to the Carson
facility.
But, statistically speaking, it looks like this decision
benefits tennis fans and UCLA.
The Mercedes-Benz Cup generates about $300,000 in revenue
annually for UCLA, and helps provide jobs for students. Because of
this, UCLA should exert any power it has to try to keep this
tournament at the on-campus Straus Stadium at the Los Angeles
Tennis Center.
UCLA’s Straus Stadium has 80 years left on its 99-year
lease with the Mercedes-Benz Cup. Not that this lease is preventing
Kramer from moving the tournament to Carson. Major League
Baseball’s Minnesota Twins were nearly contracted even though
they still had a year left on their lease with the Metrodome.
Again, money talks.
We live in a society where athletes need new state-of-the-art
stadiums every few years. In major league baseball, only 16 of the
current 30 stadiums were built before 1990. After 2005, only nine
of those 16 will be left, as seven teams have plans for new
stadiums.
In the NBA and NHL, this stadium frenzy is even worse. Only nine
of the current 28 NBA arenas were built before 1990, and three of
these will be replaced by 2005. In the NHL, only seven of the
current 30 arenas were built before 1990, and three of those will
be replaced by 2005.
Exactly how bad has this new craze in sports gotten? In San
Antonio, the Alamodome was built in 1993. The San Antonio Spurs are
moving to the SBC Center this year, only nine years after the
“old” facility was built. In 2003, the Phoenix Coyotes
will move into a new arena only 11 years after America West Arena
was built.
New stadiums aren’t cheap, either. The cost of a new
stadium for the Philadelphia Phillies is expected to be about $650
million. To make it even worse for Joe Fan, most stadiums are
funded at least partially by taxpayers.
Why continue to build to new stadiums when the old ones worked
just fine? Straus Stadium is an ideal place to watch tennis. There
isn’t a single bad seat in the stadium. Also, its location in
the middle of a beautiful UCLA campus is perfect.
True, there is the infamous UCLA parking problem. But the
horrific parking situation doesn’t stop people from going to
lovely Dodger Stadium.
True, the Home Depot National Training Center might hold more
fans than Straus Stadium (13,000 compared to 7,200). But do you
really think more people would go see tennis than college
basketball games at Pauley Pavilion (capacity 12,819) which rarely
sells out? Pauley Pavilion has a parking problem too. You
don’t hear complaints about that and plans for a new
arena.
With all of these new stadiums and arenas in sports, some of the
tradition and history are lost. Thankfully for the Mercedes-Benz
Cup and UCLA, Kramer has made the right decision.