The following slide illustrates
the subject of creating illusions with numbers. Look at the numbers
designated as players for Team Tournaments, Team Challenge, and
Junior Team Tennis. The sum listed is 96,735. Again, knowing
how easy it is to manipulate data, and learning how much participation
has gone down lately, it's really more likely these are registrations.
And if they indeed list the number of players, it's also likely
the unique player number is much lower than 96,735.
Incidentally, the above slide is from a "Net Generation
Lab" presentation. It states there are 48,485 Junior Team
Tennis players with an astonishingly low 43% retention rate.
Remember it was not even three years ago that the USTA website
stated: "Nearly 100,000 kids nationwide play Junior Team
Tennis annually, thanks to the parents..." You can read
it here, dated February 28, 2017.
Is JTT the poster child for demonstrating
how the USTA programs are not working anymore? I wonder if the
TIA's published participation numbers still count 100,000 JTT
players since they are WAY TOO HIGH!
Should
we trust ANY number the USTA is throwing at us? |
Reading this extremely convoluted
MEMORANDUM (file name UnificationRegAmendments-SAMC2019), a 53-page
monstrosity that probably took many months (years?) to write,
correct and rewrite, I can't help myself thinking that some USTA
staffers had to demonstrate how important it is that they keep
their jobs.
I understand that many people
in USTA sections and out in the tennis trenches do not know what's
in the new structure. I guess all they hear is that there will
be a more structured national ranking and that the tournament/ranking
system will become fairer throughout the country from 2021 on. |