few people remember lacoste as a tennis player. arthur ashe was a great tennis player but an even greater humanitarian. to understand venus williams, you have to follow the money and listen to what she says. she has always said that she would never tell us when she would be retiring from tennis and for years and years since before “all lives matter”-gate where she promptly pivoted to selling eleven pants at cincy tourney (her brand that was bought out by lacoste), venus has been a wellness entrepreneur. so, report on her as a tennis player all you want. she knows who she is and anybody whose been listening and following the $ can easily find out.
Nicely done. One thing about the Venus wild cards that rubs the wrong way: There is a presumption that WCs go to players who are relevant, were recently relevant or are widely expected to soon be relevant. Venus doesn’t fit any of those criteria. From the WTA website, she hasn’t won consecutive matches since Cincinnati 2019. That is a long time. I don’t blame her. I blame the tournaments. They need to stop offering her wild cards. Separately, I’ve often wondered about the business sense of some wild cards. Do they really produce meaningful additional ticket sales? That is, how many people who weren’t otherwise going to Indian Wells would buy a ticket because Venus got a wild card? I wondered the same about Halep in Miami. Maybe a small number of Romanians living in Miami. But if we’re talking about additional ticket sales, it doesn’t seem like it could be a lot.
few people remember lacoste as a tennis player. arthur ashe was a great tennis player but an even greater humanitarian. to understand venus williams, you have to follow the money and listen to what she says. she has always said that she would never tell us when she would be retiring from tennis and for years and years since before “all lives matter”-gate where she promptly pivoted to selling eleven pants at cincy tourney (her brand that was bought out by lacoste), venus has been a wellness entrepreneur. so, report on her as a tennis player all you want. she knows who she is and anybody whose been listening and following the $ can easily find out.
Nicely done. One thing about the Venus wild cards that rubs the wrong way: There is a presumption that WCs go to players who are relevant, were recently relevant or are widely expected to soon be relevant. Venus doesn’t fit any of those criteria. From the WTA website, she hasn’t won consecutive matches since Cincinnati 2019. That is a long time. I don’t blame her. I blame the tournaments. They need to stop offering her wild cards. Separately, I’ve often wondered about the business sense of some wild cards. Do they really produce meaningful additional ticket sales? That is, how many people who weren’t otherwise going to Indian Wells would buy a ticket because Venus got a wild card? I wondered the same about Halep in Miami. Maybe a small number of Romanians living in Miami. But if we’re talking about additional ticket sales, it doesn’t seem like it could be a lot.