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Speaker 1: Bloomberg Audio Studios, podcasts, radio, news. This is Bloomberg Businessweek Daily, reporting from the magazine that helps global leaders stay ahead with insight on the people, companies, and trends shaping today's complex economy. Plus, global business, finance, and tech news as it happens. The Bloomberg Businessweek Daily podcast with Carol Masser and Tim Stenevek on Bloomberg Radio.
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Speaker 2: He's executive editor and senior writer for Sports Illustrated, a correspondent for 60 Minutes, a tennis commentator, the author or co-author of 10 books, including Glory Days, The Summer of 1984, and The 90 Days That Changed Sports and Culture Forever, Strokes of Genius as well, Federer and Nadal in the Greatest Match Ever Played, and many more. John Wertheim is here with us at the U.S.
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Speaker 3: Open.
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Speaker 4: We speak to him each year. It is a highlight. of our US Open coverage, and he's back.
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Speaker 5: John, welcome, welcome.
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Speaker 4: Good to have you with us this year. Good to be here.
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Speaker 6: Kind of toasty out here.
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Speaker 5: It is toasty.
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Speaker 6: Pleasure to be with you.
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Speaker 2: Listen, imagine if you had to be out there playing five sets without any shade.
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Speaker 5: Unthinkable.
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Speaker 4: Yeah, unthinkable.
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Speaker 2: Hey, you know, we're going to talk tennis, but I think one of the hottest topics here is prediction markets.
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Speaker 4: You were outspoken earlier this week.
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Speaker 2: We learned on Monday that Kalshi and the USTA were teaming up, would be the official prediction market partner of the US Open. Here's what you posted in response. We have a full screen here. This is such a disappointing decision, US Open. Not a week goes by when the tennis integrity unit that you helped fund fails to announce a match-fixing scandal, and you take sponsorship money from a platform predicated on profiting from inside information.
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Speaker 4: No way to spin this as a positive.
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Speaker 7: Um.
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Speaker 6: Yeah. I mean, I think I'm not naive. I realize it's 2026. We are where we are with this kind of money flooding the sports marketplace. I just think tennis is a unique situation.
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Speaker 4: Right.
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Speaker 6: Individual sport. It's very corruptible. And that is not theoretical. I mean, there are all sorts of. Man, not a week, literally, like I said, not a week goes by when there isn't some sort of press release about a match-fixing scandal. The players get the brunt of this. They can't take any of this revenue. They can't use the product. I mean, imagine if somebody said, hey, Heineken's our sponsor, but if anyone drinks Heineken, they're suspended. I mean, it's something problematic about taking money from a product so problematic. The athletes themselves can't use it, but the institutions can benefit. But I distinguish between an individual sport and a team sport. Tennis has this corruption problem, and also these players get the brunt of the abuse. The WTA, the women's tour in particular, their entire task force set up to deal with death threats from angry bettors. And now the USTA, which is not a standalone tournament, but it is a federation, a national federation, is getting in bed with. I mean, again, I also differentiate between sports betting, between draft, you know, whatever, FanDuel and DraftKings, and Couchy and PolyMarket. I did a 60-minute piece on PolyMarket a few months ago, and I'm sure you guys know this, but I think people just think, oh, you know, hey, Tommy Paul's going to win, Tommy Paul's going to lose. I think people that have played on that know that. It's begging for insiders with inside information to manipulate the market. All of these sort of the kooky bets that someone that knows something, it leads to violence. It's not as regulated as sports betting. I mean, it's just it's so honestly, it's just for lack of better. It's so lame for the USDA to be doing this. It's beyond hypocritical. It's just irresponsible.
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Speaker 3: And again.
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Speaker 6: I'm not the town.
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Speaker 5: I get it.
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Speaker 6: It's 2026. I understand what the reality is. Tennis Channel, where I work, takes sponsorship. Sports Illustrated has its own betting platform. I mean, I'm not holier than thou about this. I just expected more from the USTA.
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Speaker 8: So you're mentioning here sports betting platforms and making the distinctions with prediction markets here, though it's maybe a little bit of a squishy line between them. WTA, haven't they had a partnership with FanDuel now for like five years?
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Speaker 6: Yeah, and there are all these data... The euphemism is sort of data rights, but nobody cares about first serve percentages for the sake of analytics. This is all about betting. It's really problematic. And again, tennis is so easily corruptible and corrupted, and if the The integrity of competition goes, we're left with pro wrestling. This is the foundation of all sports. And for a tennis institution to just align themselves like this, and yeah, I mean, it's really problematic. The WTA and the ATP have these deals. They'll say, listen, active players can't have these sponsorships, but some of this money from data rights goes into the pension, so players are in fact betting. I mean, I think that's kind of a difference without a distinction.
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Speaker 4: Okay, nobody from the USTA is here to.
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Speaker 2: you know, go into why they did this, but I imagine maybe they would say, well, look, we are a business and we, we, we need money to fund this. We take sponsorships from lots of different organizations and groups. Uh, we use the money to fund tennis and throughout the United States and support the next generation of champions for, you know, the U S and abroad. Um, but a cynic might say, well, couldn't you just pass up the, maybe the few million dollars or whatever it was for the partnership.
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Speaker 4: I don't know.
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Speaker 9: Yeah.
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Speaker 6: I mean, couldn't you do a deal with ticket master where you forbid the reselling of independent tickets on the secondary market? And the USDA, I get it. There's a fiduciary duty here. I mean, you guys see this is a wildly popular, successful event. You want to capitalize this. You want your revenues to be as much. You've got to draw some lines here, though. And for a sport in particular, again, we're not talking about the Yankees and we're not talking about the Lakers. I mean, for an individual sport where not only there's a huge corruption problem. But players have death threats. You are getting in bed and fomenting sports gambling on these prediction markets where if you know anything about Polymarket and Kalshi, again, it's a little squishy maybe. But again, this is not your conventional sports book. This is a whole different level.
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Speaker 8: So you mentioned there Ticketmaster, and that's another area of outrage at this U.S. Open and every year, and how the USTA, like other artists, event organizers, does have some ability here to step in and restrict how much of the inventory.
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Speaker 10: Goes to resale. That's not something they've chosen to do.
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Speaker 8: But that's a really interesting point because the USTA's stance on all of this is that they will look at what the tickets then go for in the resale market and will say, well, look, we're clearly leaving money on the table. We know we could charge so much more, but we're only charging this $ 65 face value for a grounds pass that in reality doesn't really exist. Do you see that as a valid stance from them? Or do you think there's more they could then be doing to step in and control the resale market a bit?
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Speaker 6: I think some of this is just the organizational structure. This is a non-profit.
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Speaker 5: You walk around here.
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Speaker 6: You don't go to a Yankees game and they talk about the community activism and we talk about our underprivileged kids are playing baseball. The Yankees are a for-profit entity. People accept that. The USDA tries to thread this needle where they're a non-profit. They position themselves as NGO and in the spirit of Billie Jean King. Then you realize how wildly crassly commercial they've become. And I just think you draw some lines. I also, I think there's a business case to be made making your event affordable and accessible. Yeah, you'll leave a few bucks on the table today, but if you're talking about growing a long-term business, I think even though, I mean, never sort of morals throw that out the window. I mean, I think there's a business case to be made. There are nuances here. restrict 5,000 seats every day are going to go for face value. I mean, there are ways to massage this. Just sort of going for whoever gets the biggest stack of chips wins, I don't think is a great strategy.
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Speaker 4: Okay, so I promised we'd talk about some tennis. We will in a second.
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Speaker 2: One more on influencers because I feel like this is the first year we're just talking about influencers and how it's been really polarizing. You made a really good point on social media. You posted, like, I don't understand the need for influencers right now. This sport is really popular.
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Speaker 6: I'm really struggling. I'm totally open-minded about this. I don't think this is a crisis.
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Speaker 7: It's fun.
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Speaker 6: It's funny. You wish the influencers had a little more sense of tennis, that they weren't putting up their ring lights when someone's ready to serve. For all that plagues tennis, we're talking about death threats. We're talking about prediction markets. We're talking about unaffordability and inaccessibility. I don't think influencers is a huge– my outrage meter is ticked. But I don't get it. I mean, I understand why the frozen yogurt shop on my block would want influencers. The USDA is wildly popular. The tickets have been sold. The media rights deal is what it is. I get it for the influencers.
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Speaker 5: Yeah, you come here.
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Speaker 6: It's a party. Look how cool I am. I'm standing outside. Garth Arash Stadium, and I'm wearing my brand. I get it for the content creators, but I don't know why the USTA needs this. On the other hand, I do have to say, what do we say? Tennis is a stodgy sport, the purest rule. It doesn't make changes. It doesn't adapt to the times. I think you can't have it both ways. Invite the influencers. It would be nice if, you know, maybe as a condition for getting your credential, you had to take a 30 minute quiz the same way we have to do with, you know, sexual harassment before we can give them a 30 second, 30 minute quiz.
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Speaker 9: You don't.
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Speaker 6: Start talking when you're two feet from the court. You don't use your ring cam when the player's ready to serve. But I'm more amused by it than outraged, honestly.
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Speaker 4: Okay, I can get on board with that quiz. Let's talk tennis, Molly.
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Speaker 10: We've got to talk tennis.
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Speaker 8: So something that I feel really passionately about is keeping doubles alive and to see the changes that the men's tour proposed very quietly at Wimbledon. Not officially, but it's been out there that we know that they're proposing cutting draws, cutting prize money starting in two years. The players have not really been involved in this at all. It seems like The doubles specialist is on a path to extinction.
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Speaker 10: How are we going to keep doubles alive? This doesn't seem sustainable.
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Speaker 6: I mean, the good news is this is a tour decision, so this doesn't affect the majors. So at the U.S. Open, they'll keep doubles. Wimbledon will keep doubles.
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Speaker 5: It's hard.
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Speaker 6: I mean, the singles players don't want to mess with doubles, right? It's time-consuming. The finances don't make sense. You can get injured. The season's long enough as it is. And the doubles, there isn't much crossover. I mean, I looked it up during Wimbledon. If you had the top 100 singles players and the top 100 doubles players at a party there'd be like 198 people in the room. Like there's no, there's no crossover.
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Speaker 10: More on the women's side.
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Speaker 6: The women's are much better.
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Speaker 5: Yeah.
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Speaker 6: And I think that's, that's the answer to your question though, which.
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Speaker 5: I think is a good one. I love doubles.
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Speaker 6: I don't get it. Don't you want more inventory? Don't you want more jobs? I mean, all these other sports leagues, what does.
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Speaker 5: The NBA want? More games.
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Speaker 6: Put a team in Seattle. We need an 18 game NFL season. Every other sport.
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Speaker 4: And you expand to China.
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Speaker 5: Exactly.
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Speaker 6: So I'm not sure why you're cutting product and jobs, but I think, yeah, if you like doubles, women's tennis is where you should focus your energy.
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Speaker 8: I feel like my proposal to this, I don't know if it would help maybe, is instead of when they're doing the mixed doubles here and bringing all the single stars into it, why don't you pair a single star with a double specialist?
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Speaker 10: Just real quick. What do you think?
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Speaker 9: Maybe?
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Speaker 11: Yeah.
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Speaker 6: The single stars just have very little incentive to play. You want my idea? As long as we're playing McKenzie Consultant. Give the doubles players all sorts of... The doubles players say, listen, of course, you don't market us, you don't promote us. Give the doubles player their own YouTube channel and say, listen, we'll give you a universal basic income and if you can go sell sponsorship, you do a pro-am, you have your own YouTube channel for doubles... Basically, eat what you kill and see if your product is viable. Give up some of the commercial rights to the doubles players. Let them try to sell it. If it's truly a great product that just happens to be underpromoted, it's like a band. You guys go out and sell your own CDs.
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Speaker 4: John Wertheim, we love him. We love him when you join us here on Bloomberg Business Week Daily.
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Speaker 7: We are at the U.S.
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Speaker 2: Open. That's John Wertheim of Sports Illustrated of 60 Minutes.
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Speaker 4: Stay with us. More from Bloomberg Business Week Daily coming up after this.
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Speaker 1: You're listening to the Bloomberg Businessweek Daily Podcast. Catch us live weekday afternoons from 2 to 5 Eastern. Listen on Apple CarPlay and Android Auto with the Bloomberg Business app. Or watch us live on YouTube.
00:12:11
Speaker 2: I want to bring you Ben Rothenberg because he knows a lot about tennis. He's covered professional tennis for the New York Times, Slate, the BBC, CNN. He's the host of the No Challenges Remaining podcast. He's the author of of the 2024 biography, Naomi Osaka, her journey to finding her power and her voice. Now you can find his writing on his sub stack, Bounces.
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Speaker 4: The tennis writer and reporter, Ben Rothenberg, joins us here at the U.S.
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Speaker 5: Open.
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Speaker 9: Hey, Ben.
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Speaker 7: Thanks for having me, guys.
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Speaker 4: Yeah, we are happy to have you.
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Speaker 2: I just want to start with your impression of the Open this year. I mean, you've been to what? 14 of these.
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Speaker 9: Yeah i think 14 ever pressed the first time 14 years ago.
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Speaker 4: Yeah so how is this one different than the one you covered 14 years ago.
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Speaker 9: It feels more and more like it's having a bit of an identity crisis i think it's fair to say about what the u.s open is anymore like is it a place where people go tennis fans go watch tennis is it a place where people who want to be part of some sort of really elite you know aspirational scene go to take photos of themselves and holding cocktails foremost and or is it a place that's here for gambling and people to bet on and to cheer on like they're at a racetrack.
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Speaker 7: I mean, all these forces, those latter two, have.
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Speaker 9: Really increased in prominence and disruptiveness, I think, in the last year especially. Those were not forces that were really on the ground anywhere near as much, let's say, even three years ago, and now they're really.
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Speaker 7: really rearing their heads.
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Speaker 8: Well, you know, we also get to talk, you know, really nerdy tennis stuff with you, which I really want to nerd out on because something I read in one of your recent stuff stacks was how the U S open goes about scheduling these matches.
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Speaker 4: And I love this something.
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Speaker 8: This was fascinating because I was just studying the lineup of the courts today to see that all of the matches that have featured Argentinians have I've been on Court 11.
00:13:48
Speaker 7: There you go.
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Speaker 10: And it is not a coincidence. Tell us why.
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Speaker 9: Yeah, so I got the really cool chance to be in the room where it happens with the scheduler. So tournament director Eric Buderak, tournament referee Jake Garner, Wayne McEwen, who's the Grand Slam supervisor, and a sort of rotating cast of other officials from both ATP and WTA Tours had reps there at different times.
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Speaker 7: Checking in on the schedule.
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Speaker 9: And it's as Boudirac called it, like a thousand piece jigsaw puzzle. They're trying to put together with no picture on the box, largely for the jigsaw puzzle. And yeah, so we mentioned one of the things they do that I had not really picked up on, or I maybe noticed that I didn't know why, is what they call stacking, putting different matches with people from the same country on the same court back to back so that for Argentine TV, it can be guaranteed that those.
00:14:27
Speaker 7: Matches won't overlap with each other.
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Speaker 9: And then we will show both those matches in their entirety if they just keep their cameras focused on court 11.
00:14:35
Speaker 2: What about the, and this comes up every year, Ben, but how late these matches go?
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Speaker 4: I mean, what did we have? Did we have Venus starting after midnight on Sunday night?
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Speaker 9: She started at 12.13 a.m., which was the latest ever start to use of the match.
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Speaker 7: I can tell you the times I've been leaving, I left at 3 a.m. after that match, and 2.30 the next day, 2 a.m.
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Speaker 5: After that.
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Speaker 9: Last night was a quote-unquote early night at 1 a.m. I didn't stay for the end of Zverev. But it's been a long issue with the US Open. It seems to be getting worse. I mean, bluntly, I think if you're not talking about best-of-five is the issue here. You're not being serious about it. Best-of-five is this huge variable match length, and there have been a few long men's matches. Both variable matches so far were five sets. It ran well into the night. Joke between five sets that pushed Venus back. I mean, best-of-five creates enormous variability in match length times, and it really can lead to uncertainty. And in the long end, push these things way back.
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Speaker 4: Is it great for West Coast TV, though?
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Speaker 7: I mean, it's not even, honestly, that early on the West Coast.
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Speaker 9: I mean, Venus Williams' match was starting at 9.15, which is kind of late for a sporting event to be starting even.
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Speaker 7: So there's no real winner, I think.
00:15:33
Speaker 9: I mean, obviously, the West Coast is there as sort of a backup for some audience. But, no, it's not great for them, and it's not great for the players. I mean, no functional sport starts sporting events.
00:15:43
Speaker 7: After midnight.
00:15:44
Speaker 8: And it's not like nothing has been done about this. It wasn't that long ago that we were playing best of five, still have to win by two in the fifth set. So now all of the slams have instituted final set tie breaks, go to a match tie break at 10 points instead of the usual seven.
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Speaker 10: But you do see Wimbledon, of course, they have a curfew.
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Speaker 8: The French Open, they only play until the darkness.
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Speaker 7: They have a night session now.
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Speaker 10: They do have a night session now, but for a long time they didn't.
00:16:08
Speaker 7: For a long time they didn't.
00:16:09
Speaker 10: So is there something more the U.S. Open can do here?
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Speaker 8: Or is this also just the spirit of being in New York under the lights and part of what the experience is?
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Speaker 9: Since I've been coming here, I think there were at least three or four matches that went after 2.30 a.m. that lasted that long. The late finish for a while was 2.26 a.m. There were three different matches that coincidentally all finished at 2.26. There was a three-way tie for the record. And then actually Sinner and Alcaraz broke that record and finished at 240-something, I think, in 2022. But yeah, I think they're not serious about it. I think they're not bothered by it. There would be changes. You could start the night session earlier. Or again, this best-of-five thing. I mean, when you have matches that last four and a half hours, it's very hard to fit them into a primetime slot if they're one of two matches in the schedule. So if they wanted to fix it, best-of-five is the culprit. I think you're not serious about it if you don't talk about that. But they've decided they want to keep it this way, and the players... have not revolted against it. The men could have. I think the men I mean, if I was a men's player, I'd be like, the women get the same money we do for playing best-of-three.
00:17:05
Speaker 7: Why shouldn't we just put best-of-three also?
00:17:06
Speaker 10: Good point. Men's doubles no longer plays best-of-five.
00:17:09
Speaker 5: That's right.
00:17:09
Speaker 7: Yeah, Wimbledon took that away. No one else has that now.
00:17:11
Speaker 5: That's right. I don't know.
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Speaker 4: That would be such a change. It would be a huge change.
00:17:15
Speaker 9: But if people talked about doing it maybe just for the first, like, four rounds of the tournament, even still, that'd be a change. I mean, but if you need to see, I don't know, Djokovic out there for four and a half hours and, like, he's breaking down physically and it's going badly, and Zverev, too, has already spent, like, almost.
00:17:28
Speaker 7: Ten hours on court through two rounds... I don't think we need that. That seems like a lot.
00:17:32
Speaker 8: So you had another column recently that we were also chatting about that's about this scene that all of these players are engaged in outside of the scene that is the U.S.
00:17:41
Speaker 10: Open, which is also very sceney.
00:17:42
Speaker 8: But there's a lot of parties, a lot of brand activations, things that the players need to engage in when they're not here at the grounds. And Sabalenka, the top seed on the women's side, she kind of got asked about this in press the other day and seemed to get quite irritated, seeming that the reporter was almost insinuating that they're just out there partying all week and not really training.
00:18:00
Speaker 10: But tell us, what are all these parties that these players are going to?
00:18:03
Speaker 7: This has become an increasingly busy week, the week before the U.S. Open, certainly. And most of them are brand activations.
00:18:09
Speaker 9: And the reporter did say, after a week of parties and fun, is it nice to focus on tennis? So I understand why she took the question that way. And she was like, no, this is all... you know, brand work that's no fun. I shouldn't use the word no fun, but basically it's all brand assignments and activations largely. And, you know, there used to be players back, you know, 15, 20 years ago would go play a warm-up tournament in New Haven, Connecticut the week before the U.S.
00:18:28
Speaker 11: Open.
00:18:28
Speaker 6: Yeah, no longer.
00:18:29
Speaker 9: And that's no longer there because they all have so many obligations in these brand activations. Now they play the mixed doubles mostly during the day so they can get to do things later that night if they want to.
00:18:37
Speaker 7: And, yeah, it's changed.
00:18:39
Speaker 2: But the whole reason behind that is because this is a big part of their income. I mean, look at any of their shirts, their endorsements, you know, Taylor Fritz talking about Chipotle every which way and that because he's paid by Chipotle to do that. So it's like, uh, this is part of their income and they have to do these appearances as a lay person watching this and somebody who understands getting exhausted by just a regular job. I can't imagine having to do all those commitments while also trying to maintain fitness, get enough rest and God knows whatever, you know, um, time zone you're on.
00:19:11
Speaker 9: Yeah, I think players and their teams are often in denial about how much toll that can take because it's hard to say no to these offers, this money, when tennis playing careers are limited. Only, you know, most players are only at the top of the sport for, let's say a decade, if they're lucky tops. And so they're trying to maximize those opportunities.
00:19:25
Speaker 5: You know, yeah.
00:19:26
Speaker 7: Sponsors are there like Sabalenka. When I saw that she was doing, it was like judging a.
00:19:30
Speaker 9: Lookalike contest in Brooklyn on behalf of her sports training partner. Like she's, it looks kind of fun in the pictures, but it is still an obligation.
00:19:36
Speaker 5: I'm sure it's part of.
00:19:37
Speaker 9: Her contract for this company to do some sort of in-person activity the week before the U S open to help the brand out. And she's fulfilling that. But I do think, and I cover this with Naomi Osaka and the book.
00:19:46
Speaker 7: I wrote about her.
00:19:47
Speaker 9: Uh, I do think that the piling up and piling of an accumulation of more and more deals and more and more obligations and all those brands wanting their, you know, sort of pound of flesh essentially to give your time in exchange for this money, I do think took a toll on her ultimately. And, and was part of the reason that she did burn out the way she did.
00:20:03
Speaker 8: We only have a little bit more time here left men, but I want to ask, um, if you are going to write another book about another player, um, Who's your shortlist of who's going to be about?
00:20:12
Speaker 7: I don't have one in mind currently.
00:20:14
Speaker 9: I think the sort of the and I imagine there's going to be a lot of books about Novak Djokovic written in the next few years.
00:20:21
Speaker 7: And he's fascinating. There's so many different layers to him to different angles. Like, you know, eight different books that all.
00:20:26
Speaker 9: Kind of cover different things from him, whether it's his success on court, what he means to Serbia and sort of Serbian nationalism. what he, you know, his role in the pandemic and sort of that sort of stand he took and how he's defined that way and his sort of odd views on what he would call science. There's, you know, honestly, there's lots of different ways to go about him. Longevity in the sport, you know, disrupting the big three, different, you know, geopolitical things he's been involved in, again, with East and Europe versus West and such. And he's a fascinating character.
00:20:53
Speaker 7: And so he'd be very cool to cover.
00:20:56
Speaker 9: If I was going to imagine it, though, I imagine it being like a 1,200-page book. And I don't know if anyone would be able to lift it, much less read it.
00:21:02
Speaker 10: Well, we'll give you time to write it. No need now.
00:21:04
Speaker 4: I mean, look, it's the best of five sets. Exactly.
00:21:06
Speaker 2: It's going to be a big one. Hey, Ben, really good to get some time with you. Appreciate it. That's the tennis writer and reporter, Ben Rothenberg. Check out his sub stack. Cannot say enough about it. It's called Balances. He started it a couple of years ago. He's covered pro tennis for the New York Times, for the Slate, for BBC, CNN, and he hosts the No Challenges Remaining podcast.
00:21:26
Speaker 1: You're listening to the Bloomberg Businessweek Daily Podcast. Catch us live weekday afternoons from 2 to 5 Eastern. Listen on Apple CarPlay and Android Auto with the Bloomberg Business app.
00:21:37
Speaker 10: Or watch us live on YouTube.
00:21:41
Speaker 4: Now, Molly, you think about the partners that the U.S.
00:21:44
Speaker 2: Open has had, and there's none probably that are as iconic and longstanding. As IBM, the company has been working with the nonprofit for more than 30 years on technicals, on analytics, on technology. And we got a couple of great voices from IBM to talk a little bit about that partnership and what they're doing.
00:22:03
Speaker 4: We've got Tyler Seidel. a technical director for.
00:22:05
Speaker 2: IBM with us here at the US Open, and Cameron Stanhouse, global VP of sports and entertainment. Both of them join us on site here at the US Open.
00:22:13
Speaker 4: Welcome, welcome. Thanks for joining us.
00:22:14
Speaker 10: Yeah, thanks for having us. Nice sunny day. We haven't seen many of these.
00:22:17
Speaker 4: We haven't, but this one is extra sunny.
00:22:20
Speaker 5: It is.
00:22:20
Speaker 4: And like I was saying earlier, I mean, it could be worse.
00:22:23
Speaker 2: We could be out on the court for like three or four sets and have no shade. But yeah, we're happy to be here, especially when it is not raining. Cameron, I want to start with you because you handle sports and entertainment at IBM and the partnerships there.
00:22:35
Speaker 4: I'm just wondering where on the spectrum of what you do, the U.S. Open falls.
00:22:40
Speaker 10: Yeah, I mean, we, as you mentioned, we've been the U.S.
00:22:42
Speaker 3: Open for 34 years. Our longest standing partnership is Wimbledon. We sang with them in 1990, but. The really interesting thing about US Open Wimbledon and the master's through 30 plus years is that we've been with them on this digital transformation journey since the very beginning, right? We built their first website. We introduced their first ops in around 2009. We started infusing in AI insights in 2017. And so we've been with them through every single step of how they want to transform. And one of the things I love about the U.S. Open is that they have a continual push for innovation and they're not afraid to try new things. And so, I mean, you can see that this year, right, we're all living through the construction of the new Arthur Ashe Stadium, which is amazing, but they're not afraid to try new things. And so we've introduced some new features this year that our first of its kind, something called Serve Quality, which we're really excited about. But it's one of our marquee partnerships. It's also in our backyard. IBM's global headquarters are in New York. And so we're really excited to celebrate this moment in New York City with US Open.
00:23:38
Speaker 8: There are a few other features, too, that are unique to this year. A bit more going on with the app, right, Tyler?
00:23:43
Speaker 5: Yeah. So as Cameron said, we're super excited about Serve Quality.
00:23:47
Speaker 11: There's a lot of features that you can get on the app besides that, such as the draws, the scores, the stats, the statistics. So A lot of our team has actually been here for about two or three weeks already just doing setup. There's so much activity that's going on. This has been a three-week tournament pretty much. But what you could get out there, which we're excited about, is server quality. It's a new stat in Tennis. It hasn't been done before. And we've gained access to the LIMP tracking data that's coming off the cameras. They've captured the XYZ coordinates of the ball, but now it's actually capturing now 21 joins that we're analyzing. We're analyzing that at 50 frames per second. It accumulates about 1.2 billion different data points that come up with a serve quality score for each and every player. So you can actually get that within the new feature called Live Updates, which is your own personalized homepage where there's a lot of activity that's going on around the grounds. So Live Updates is telling the fan more personalized to you what you may want to see, what's the most exciting matches with those insights and perspective that you may not get.
00:24:39
Speaker 4: Otherwise. What's the camera, Tyler, that it's following? Is it the same one that does the Hawkeye? Is it different?
00:24:44
Speaker 12: Okay.
00:24:44
Speaker 11: Yeah. So we're taking all that data and then we're applying our AI on top of it to come up with that sort of quality score.
00:24:49
Speaker 8: And is this also going to then somehow factor into the also like the IBM probability and insights to win as well?
00:24:55
Speaker 3: Yeah, so right now they're separate, but I think it will be a big factor coming forward.
00:24:59
Speaker 10: We've been doing live likelihood to win for the.
00:25:01
Speaker 3: Last couple of years and the pre-match projection for a while, taking both the structured data so that everybody has the head-to-head of who's been playing the best, who has the best records throughout the tournament, but looking at that unstructured data.
00:25:12
Speaker 10: So who has a new coach? Who has a lingering injury?
00:25:14
Speaker 3: What are the broadcasters and commentators saying? taking all that into consideration for a pre-match projection. And it's really fun to watch the AI update live throughout the course of the match.
00:25:25
Speaker 10: So that is not included right now, but it will be something as a consideration moving forward.
00:25:29
Speaker 11: Yeah, and we're constantly looking at ways to follow our features because one of the main goals of the USDA is to engage with fans. This is really their biggest showcase of the year for the USDA. So as Cameron said, we started with the pre-match likelihood to win. Then we went to live likelihood to win, updating after every single point. And now this year, we've introduced key moments, which is that, hey, explainability. What are those turning points? What are the deciding factors of a match? To explain that to the user, why the momentum is shifting the way it's shifting.
00:25:55
Speaker 8: I want to talk more about this likelihood to win because there's just so much about protection markets right now. And everyone wants to know the odds, whether it's before the match, during the match, how these things are changing in real time. We talked about the U.S. Open's new partnership with Kalshi. We see you guys have the likelihood to win. We've seen that WTA has been a partner with FanDuel for a number of years now. Talk about these odds here, where you guys fit in. And, you know, do you get the sense that people are using these kinds of insights here to also make their own predictions?
00:26:25
Speaker 9: Absolutely.
00:26:25
Speaker 10: We like to stay agnostic.
00:26:27
Speaker 3: For us, we provide a great feature that helps fans engage with the match and helps broadcasters have some fun commentary.
00:26:34
Speaker 10: And then however you people use those insights is up to them. That's right.
00:26:37
Speaker 8: Yeah, the folks in the ESPN booth do refer to those quite a bit there.
00:26:41
Speaker 3: It's a healthy discussion and argument point. And we have a great highlight reel when they love to disagree with the AI and then it groups them wrong.
00:26:49
Speaker 10: It's our favorite thing to do every morning.
00:26:50
Speaker 5: Yeah, we've... I love that.
00:26:53
Speaker 11: Yeah, we've had a really good accuracy rate, and especially within the finals. And we go against the grain. Obviously, the two finalists deserve to be there. You know, you've gone through the whole draw, but there's been some times when we've gone against the favorable pick and we've been right, so.
00:27:09
Speaker 3: Even with the Djokovic match, I think it was after the first set, it had the tides turning and it actually predicted Djokovic to lose and everybody was arguing with it on TV and it ended up being right. There's a lot that goes into it and it's really fun.
00:27:23
Speaker 10: All of this is to keep people engaged with the match in more ways.
00:27:26
Speaker 3: We talk about all the people that are walking through these doors and these gates, right?
00:27:30
Speaker 10: A million people coming to the U.S.
00:27:32
Speaker 3: Open, but 14 million people are at home and online engaging with our platforms.
00:27:36
Speaker 10: And so this is just ways that we can keep them in touch and fodder for discussion.
00:27:40
Speaker 4: So Tyler, how much smarter does that prediction tool get each year?
00:27:43
Speaker 5: Yeah, we're constantly looking at it. We have retrospectives. We look at how it performed.
00:27:47
Speaker 11: It's getting smarter each year because not only does it take into the hard data, so all the stats and statistics about.
00:27:52
Speaker 5: Coming into the U.S.
00:27:53
Speaker 11: Open, such as previous tournaments, such as Sits of Value Open and how they're performing in this tournament. It's also accounting for trusted sources and millions of articles and blogs and media.
00:28:02
Speaker 5: So it's picking that up, natural language.
00:28:04
Speaker 11: So if there's something that we're not getting in the hard data, the hard stats, we're picking that up through the natural language of these articles.
00:28:11
Speaker 2: So we're speaking with Tyler Seidel, Technical Director at IBM, and Cameron Stanhouse, Global VP of Sports and Entertainment at IBM. We're here on site at the U.S. Open. Cameron, When we think about these partnerships, it's been 34 years that IBM and the USTA and the US.
00:28:24
Speaker 4: Open have been together.
00:28:25
Speaker 2: The return on investment and just tracking for you from the perspective of, okay, I have a limited amount of money I get to spend every year and deploy, and we can choose different events to do it at. How do you measure the return on investment from the money that you spend here?
00:28:43
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's a combination of looking at brand statistics as well as how we're able.
00:28:47
Speaker 10: To entertain clients on the site.
00:28:48
Speaker 4: I think.
00:28:50
Speaker 3: The reason why we pick sports partnerships is everybody knows who IBM is. Many people do not know what we do. If you used a credit card today, you used IBM technology, nobody knows that. But the sports partnerships we have are living, breathing case studies of what's possible when you work with IBM consultants and IBM technology and allow you to touch and feel in a way that makes sense. So For us, we look for opportunities to demonstrate our capabilities, and there's no better place to do that in tennis, which is why we've been in the tennis tournaments for so long with Wimbledon and the US Open.
00:29:18
Speaker 10: And like I said, this.
00:29:20
Speaker 3: Being our home court advantage, we're putting tons of our clients and tons of our employees through here to be able to showcase what we do every day.
00:29:29
Speaker 8: We were talking before with another guest about all of the parties that happen in and around the U.S.
00:29:33
Speaker 5: Open.
00:29:34
Speaker 10: I think you guys have one next week. Is that right? At Madison Square Park?
00:29:36
Speaker 9: Yes.
00:29:37
Speaker 10: Yes, I see. Parties are a little different for us.
00:29:39
Speaker 3: Tyler being on the technology team is here early, early and late, late.
00:29:43
Speaker 10: But yeah, we want to celebrate this moment with the rest of the New Yorkers.
00:29:47
Speaker 3: And again, our apps are about bringing people closer to the game, even if they can't be here.
00:29:51
Speaker 10: So we will be hosting a pop-up at Madison Square Park.
00:29:53
Speaker 3: We did it last year, but we'll have different AI fun games and tools. Bring your friends, family, any fans. and come hang with us in the park and watch the matches. We'll be live streaming them. So just a great way to stay engaged.
00:30:04
Speaker 10: So it's me, you, and Watson. Yes, exactly.
00:30:06
Speaker 4: Exactly.
00:30:07
Speaker 10: Great.
00:30:08
Speaker 5: Amazing.
00:30:09
Speaker 10: Me and my closest friends.
00:30:10
Speaker 2: Hey, Tyler, I know you can't talk about next year yet at this point, but as you kind of think about what you've seen over this last week, over the last two weeks, and what you'll see from IBM over the next week, how are you already thinking about the way you're going to change things for next year?
00:30:22
Speaker 11: Yeah, I mean, we're already thinking about 2027 and perhaps 2028. I've had conversations with my counterpart at the U.S. State, Brian Ryerson, who's the head of digital strategy. And we're constantly just having conversations with, you know, how are things working as this tournament's going on? What would be cool if we were going to roll this out next year? Take a week off or so, I want to say, after the U.S. Open, and then we'll regroup, do that full retrospective, start doing some planning for next year. But, you know, I don't want to jump too far ahead of the horse. But I want to say, you know, this is the first year that we're doing sort of quality. So it'd be really interesting once we start having multiple years on the Red Velvet. Is there any correlations that we can make based on the data that we're seeing?
00:31:00
Speaker 1: All right.
00:31:00
Speaker 4: Well, we're looking forward to keeping an eye on that.
00:31:02
Speaker 2: A big thank you to both of you for joining us here on Bloomberg Businessweek Daily at the U.S. Open. That's Tyler Seidel, Technical Director for IBM. Also, Cameron Stanhouse, Global Vice President of Sports and Entertainment.
00:31:12
Speaker 4: Stay with us. More from Bloomberg Businessweek Daily coming up after this.
00:31:20
Speaker 1: You're listening to the Bloomberg Businessweek Daily Podcast. Catch us live weekday afternoons from 2 to 5 Eastern. Listen on Apple CarPlay and Android Auto with the Bloomberg Business app. Or watch us live on YouTube.
00:31:35
Speaker 2: It's about tennis here at the U.S. Open, but it's not just about tennis. Anyone who has been here understands that the tennis gets almost as much attention as the food and drink. And the man who makes that happen is Chris Studley. He is back with us. He's managing director of event services for the USTA. He joins us here at the U.S.
00:31:53
Speaker 5: Open.
00:31:53
Speaker 4: Chris, you did not bring any chicken nuggets.
00:31:56
Speaker 5: I'm so sorry.
00:31:57
Speaker 4: Or caviar nuggets.
00:31:58
Speaker 10: Or Heineken's, but we got those earlier.
00:31:59
Speaker 4: We did get those earlier.
00:32:00
Speaker 5: They're delicious, aren't they?
00:32:01
Speaker 10: They're pretty good.
00:32:02
Speaker 2: Can you just give us, we talked to the folks at Bacardi yesterday, just some staggering numbers of expecting close to 800,000 honey deuces sold this year. What are the other numbers that you can tell us about what goes into the food and drink at an event like this?
00:32:16
Speaker 12: You know, everything's up this year. The fans are up everything. We did over 300,000 people during fan week. So you're seeing more sales across the board just naturally. But the honey deuce number is always like the tracker, right? So that 800,000 number, it would be a jump from the 738 we did last year.
00:32:33
Speaker 5: Fans love it. Across the board, the salt tank experience. I think everybody's seen that.
00:32:39
Speaker 4: Mine was too long for us today.
00:32:40
Speaker 10: We were hoping you were going to bring us one.
00:32:42
Speaker 5: We could probably make that happen a little later. We'll get one dropped off. I will tell you.
00:32:46
Speaker 4: We will have to pay for it, guys. Just so you know, we paid for everything.
00:32:50
Speaker 5: Absolutely.
00:32:51
Speaker 12: But no, they usually do about 300 sandwiches in the city a day. And they're doing over 1,500 a day.
00:32:56
Speaker 4: They do 300 sandwiches a day in the city.
00:32:58
Speaker 5: And then they close.
00:32:59
Speaker 9: Oh, my God.
00:33:00
Speaker 5: I think I.
00:33:01
Speaker 10: Saw it from the founder who's been out here.
00:33:03
Speaker 8: He was saying, what is it, like 1,500 pounds of beef they go through every day or something crazy?
00:33:08
Speaker 5: Yes.
00:33:09
Speaker 10: I mean, we've talked a lot about influencers on this show.
00:33:12
Speaker 9: Yes.
00:33:13
Speaker 8: A lot of them are out there with the ring lights, you know, showing you the outfits, what to wear to the U S open.
00:33:17
Speaker 10: There's a lot of food influencers too.
00:33:20
Speaker 5: There are, there are.
00:33:21
Speaker 12: And to touch on the influencer thing for a second, you know, we have a code of conduct and we've educated our staff to try to make that all stop.
00:33:27
Speaker 5: And, and, you know, the ring lights, you're saying exactly, exactly. Okay.
00:33:31
Speaker 12: You know, there's, there's a whole new element of fan that's out to that's helped grow in the game of tennis. And we want to make sure people are enjoying it properly, right. And the way it's meant to be. So never want to impact the fan experience whatsoever. Um, but, There is the food influencer that's out. And, I mean, it's a culinary experience when you're here watching tennis. So we do enjoy it.
00:33:48
Speaker 2: How do you guys choose the restaurants that are here and that are allowed to be here?
00:33:53
Speaker 3: Yeah.
00:33:53
Speaker 12: So we work with our partners, Levy Restaurants, who run a number of major arenas, stadiums across the country. And they're best in class in everything they do. And we look for what is the latest in food, right? I mean, in your own personal lives, you probably experience different foods. And sometimes you're into things. Sometimes you're not.
00:34:09
Speaker 5: And we'll look at what's hot at the moment and also what fans are craving.
00:34:13
Speaker 12: When you come to the U.S. Open, you're spending more time here than you would at any other sporting event, right? You go to a baseball game, they've actually sped it up, and it used to be one of the longer length of stays. Hockey, football, you know.
00:34:24
Speaker 4: Well, let me– hold on.
00:34:24
Speaker 2: I just want to pause there because not everybody listening or watching right now has had the experience of being here. But just to give some context, you could get an 11 o'clock entry here during this week, and you could likely be here until– 10 p.m. watching tennis with that one ticket, even if you don't have a night pass.
00:34:40
Speaker 12: You can even come at 9.30 in the morning this week. You know, we don't switch our gates until 11 until next Thursday. So you're going to spend multiple meal periods here. So we want to have the best offering in all of sports and enable you to try one thing. Let's say you go to Miznan, which is new with us this year at Court 7, and you want to try their special green beans. And I am not a healthy eater, but they're amazing, so I do recommend them. And then you go to Saltank later on for dinner. I mean, you can have those great experiences across.
00:35:05
Speaker 10: You've talked about the time spent here.
00:35:07
Speaker 8: We're going to talk about the money spent, too, because this is a very premium offering, as you've said. Talk about the pricing decisions that go into for the food, the drink. We had the Bacardi execs on here the other day talking about the honey juice. They said they don't price the honey juice. Is that something that you and your team do?
00:35:24
Speaker 5: Yeah, the USTA works alongside Levy Restaurants.
00:35:26
Speaker 12: There's a number of factors that go into it between labor, product costs, all the above. I can tell you that any funds raised, obviously, with USTA goes back into growing the game of tennis. So at the end of the day, it's doing good, right? But we're very conscious. We look at every other venue in this tri-state area to make sure our prices are in line with others. You're not seeing things that are way out of whack. And by the way, when it is a little higher, it's better quality usually when you really dig deep into it.
00:35:51
Speaker 2: Also, the logistics of getting the food out here from a kitchen, from a restaurant, and doing it out here, there are costs associated with that. We'll take Salt Hank, for example, $ 39 for the sandwich that everybody's talking about.
00:36:02
Speaker 4: The line was huge for that.
00:36:04
Speaker 2: Is there any sort of breakdown that you could give us about, okay, how much of that goes to Salt Hank, how much of that goes to the USCA, that sort of thing?
00:36:10
Speaker 5: There's definitely shares there. I can't get into the specifics, but it's all pretty proprietary.
00:36:16
Speaker 4: Is that the right way to think about it? There are a lot of different stakeholders here.
00:36:21
Speaker 2: There's the USTA part of it that does the infrastructure that puts on the event. There's the actual food costs associated with it, getting the food out here, and the labor costs associated with it.
00:36:30
Speaker 4: Am I thinking about the stakeholders, right?
00:36:32
Speaker 5: Yeah, I think so.
00:36:33
Speaker 12: And then USTA operating it and providing the facility to do so.
00:36:36
Speaker 5: Yeah, those are the keys.
00:36:38
Speaker 8: Talk to us a little bit more about who gets to be in these stands here as the food and drink vendors.
00:36:44
Speaker 10: There are some that are here every year.
00:36:47
Speaker 8: Are there others that are almost auditioning, like a rotating cast of who's going to get that next spot?
00:36:52
Speaker 12: We get inquiries all year long. I mean, we'll get them now saying, can I come next year? And a lot of it is, what are our fans responding to? We'll look at all the data afterwards. I mean, we see how many sandwiches they'll sell at the end. We'll look at that, right? It also goes into who can operate at this level. Because when you talk about Saltank, for instance, 300 sandwiches in the city closes down.
00:37:12
Speaker 5: We're doing 1,500 a day. Can you scale up?
00:37:15
Speaker 12: And the team at Levy does a phenomenal job of getting in that stand with them and making sure we can turn food out that's still high quality.
00:37:21
Speaker 8: You know, something I've always even wondered too is like the guys who are out here selling ice cream and it's like, it is a hot day.
00:37:28
Speaker 10: I mean, that's up to them, of course, to get the freezers, make sure this is all cool. But there's a lot of logistics involved in this.
00:37:33
Speaker 12: A lot of logistics. And ice cream is a great one. As an example, we worked with Van Leeuwen to develop our own custom flavor.
00:37:39
Speaker 4: I know. My son loves it. It's amazing.
00:37:42
Speaker 5: It's my personal favorite, and I wasn't the only voter on it.
00:37:44
Speaker 4: Can you get it outside of the U.S. Open or no?
00:37:46
Speaker 5: You can't.
00:37:46
Speaker 4: You can't even buy it?
00:37:47
Speaker 5: Just here. Interesting.
00:37:49
Speaker 4: I wonder if it will be so successful they will decide to.
00:37:52
Speaker 5: We have to talk about it, for sure.
00:37:54
Speaker 2: That's something you guys have to figure out. I came during Fan Week with my son. We were here on Arthur Ashe Kids Day. It was a great experience. It was incredibly crowded, as it shows the demand for this. Some of the lines for food were really long. How do you manage that? What's the math that you do to try to figure out, okay, we don't want people spending too much.
00:38:14
Speaker 4: Time in lines and missing too much cash?
00:38:17
Speaker 5: Absolutely.
00:38:18
Speaker 12: Fan Week in particular and Kids Day this year, now was the first day that we were actually really open after our concert the Friday before. So a lot of stands were just getting going, not an excuse by any stretch. We always want the first experience somebody has the first day to be just as good as final Sunday, right? So we work with Levy to try to figure out operationally, how many bodies do you need making drinks? How many bodies do you need serving that burger?
00:38:39
Speaker 5: You know, that type of thing.
00:38:41
Speaker 12: I think the popularity of the Savannah Bananas brought more people out here.
00:38:44
Speaker 5: That's interesting.
00:38:45
Speaker 2: Yeah, we didn't even get to see the Savannah Bananas because they were so popular. The line to meet them was like an hour long, which is fine. We weren't here to see the Savannah Bananas, but we were able to get some ice cream. But there was also like, would you say that you... For next year, you learned a lot from that day because it was a different day this year and it was so popular.
00:39:04
Speaker 5: Absolutely.
00:39:05
Speaker 12: I mean, Savannah Bananas in particular, selling out stadiums across the country, right? And I'm talking baseball stadiums, football stadiums. We brought them here to Arthur Ashe and obviously it doesn't hold as many people and they came out in droves to see them. So weather plays a big role.
00:39:18
Speaker 5: You never know. I mean, year over year, you've got to look at every single aspect of it.
00:39:21
Speaker 8: Totally.
00:39:21
Speaker 4: Totally.
00:39:22
Speaker 10: Thank you so much for joining us, Chris Studley.
00:39:23
Speaker 8: He's Managing Director of Events Services for the USTA here at the US Open.
00:39:28
Speaker 10: One last thing before you go, Chris. What are you having for dinner tonight?
00:39:31
Speaker 5: Oh, I don't know.
00:39:32
Speaker 6: I don't know.
00:39:33
Speaker 12: I mean, I like to wander the food village and kind of pick.
00:39:35
Speaker 4: But there are sit-down restaurants, too, here.
00:39:37
Speaker 5: Absolutely. And we even mentioned we have a brand new one this year with Cosme. Oh, my goodness. You know, I highly recommend it.
00:39:42
Speaker 10: We've got to talk about it next year.
00:39:44
Speaker 3: Absolutely.
00:39:44
Speaker 5: You'll come back to join us? For sure.
00:39:45
Speaker 8: Okay.
00:39:46
Speaker 10: And you'll tell us what you have for dinner.
00:39:47
Speaker 4: Will do.
00:39:48
Speaker 9: Perfect.
00:39:48
Speaker 8: You know, the one thing, Tim, that I want to get that I haven't gotten yet this year is, you know, we don't talk a lot about these $ 100 chicken nuggets with the caviar.
00:39:57
Speaker 4: You don't have to get the caviar. You can just get the nuggets.
00:39:59
Speaker 10: That's right. Maybe the cost comes down a bit on that.
00:40:02
Speaker 8: But something else that they have there is this chocolate chip cookie, this brown butter cookie that I went to try to get the other night.
00:40:08
Speaker 10: They were sold out.
00:40:09
Speaker 4: Okay. Well, maybe tonight you can get one.
00:40:11
Speaker 3: Maybe.
00:40:11
Speaker 10: You got to go early.
00:40:12
Speaker 5: All right.
00:40:12
Speaker 4: Talk to Chris.
00:40:13
Speaker 2: He's managing director of event services for the USTA joining us on site here at the USF.
00:40:17
Speaker 4: And Chris Dudley, thank you again. Good to see you.
00:40:20
Speaker 1: This is the Bloomberg Businessweek Daily Podcast, available on Apple, Spotify, and anywhere else you get your podcasts. Listen live weekday afternoons from 2 to 5 p.m. Eastern on Bloomberg.com, the iHeartRadio app, TuneIn, and the Bloomberg Business app. You can also watch us live every weekday on YouTube and always on the Bloomberg Terminal.
Speaker 1: Bloomberg Audio Studios, podcasts, radio, news. This is Bloomberg Businessweek Daily, reporting from the magazine that helps global leaders stay ahead with insight on the people, companies, and trends shaping today's complex economy. Plus, global business, finance, and tech news as it happens. The Bloomberg Businessweek Daily podcast with Carol Masser and Tim Stenevek on Bloomberg Radio.
00:00:33
Speaker 2: He's executive editor and senior writer for Sports Illustrated, a correspondent for 60 Minutes, a tennis commentator, the author or co-author of 10 books, including Glory Days, The Summer of 1984, and The 90 Days That Changed Sports and Culture Forever, Strokes of Genius as well, Federer and Nadal in the Greatest Match Ever Played, and many more. John Wertheim is here with us at the U.S.
00:00:52
Speaker 3: Open.
00:00:52
Speaker 4: We speak to him each year. It is a highlight. of our US Open coverage, and he's back.
00:00:57
Speaker 5: John, welcome, welcome.
00:00:58
Speaker 4: Good to have you with us this year. Good to be here.
00:01:00
Speaker 6: Kind of toasty out here.
00:01:01
Speaker 5: It is toasty.
00:01:02
Speaker 6: Pleasure to be with you.
00:01:03
Speaker 2: Listen, imagine if you had to be out there playing five sets without any shade.
00:01:06
Speaker 5: Unthinkable.
00:01:07
Speaker 4: Yeah, unthinkable.
00:01:08
Speaker 2: Hey, you know, we're going to talk tennis, but I think one of the hottest topics here is prediction markets.
00:01:14
Speaker 4: You were outspoken earlier this week.
00:01:16
Speaker 2: We learned on Monday that Kalshi and the USTA were teaming up, would be the official prediction market partner of the US Open. Here's what you posted in response. We have a full screen here. This is such a disappointing decision, US Open. Not a week goes by when the tennis integrity unit that you helped fund fails to announce a match-fixing scandal, and you take sponsorship money from a platform predicated on profiting from inside information.
00:01:39
Speaker 4: No way to spin this as a positive.
00:01:42
Speaker 7: Um.
00:01:43
Speaker 6: Yeah. I mean, I think I'm not naive. I realize it's 2026. We are where we are with this kind of money flooding the sports marketplace. I just think tennis is a unique situation.
00:01:55
Speaker 4: Right.
00:01:56
Speaker 6: Individual sport. It's very corruptible. And that is not theoretical. I mean, there are all sorts of. Man, not a week, literally, like I said, not a week goes by when there isn't some sort of press release about a match-fixing scandal. The players get the brunt of this. They can't take any of this revenue. They can't use the product. I mean, imagine if somebody said, hey, Heineken's our sponsor, but if anyone drinks Heineken, they're suspended. I mean, it's something problematic about taking money from a product so problematic. The athletes themselves can't use it, but the institutions can benefit. But I distinguish between an individual sport and a team sport. Tennis has this corruption problem, and also these players get the brunt of the abuse. The WTA, the women's tour in particular, their entire task force set up to deal with death threats from angry bettors. And now the USTA, which is not a standalone tournament, but it is a federation, a national federation, is getting in bed with. I mean, again, I also differentiate between sports betting, between draft, you know, whatever, FanDuel and DraftKings, and Couchy and PolyMarket. I did a 60-minute piece on PolyMarket a few months ago, and I'm sure you guys know this, but I think people just think, oh, you know, hey, Tommy Paul's going to win, Tommy Paul's going to lose. I think people that have played on that know that. It's begging for insiders with inside information to manipulate the market. All of these sort of the kooky bets that someone that knows something, it leads to violence. It's not as regulated as sports betting. I mean, it's just it's so honestly, it's just for lack of better. It's so lame for the USDA to be doing this. It's beyond hypocritical. It's just irresponsible.
00:03:28
Speaker 3: And again.
00:03:30
Speaker 6: I'm not the town.
00:03:31
Speaker 5: I get it.
00:03:33
Speaker 6: It's 2026. I understand what the reality is. Tennis Channel, where I work, takes sponsorship. Sports Illustrated has its own betting platform. I mean, I'm not holier than thou about this. I just expected more from the USTA.
00:03:44
Speaker 8: So you're mentioning here sports betting platforms and making the distinctions with prediction markets here, though it's maybe a little bit of a squishy line between them. WTA, haven't they had a partnership with FanDuel now for like five years?
00:03:56
Speaker 6: Yeah, and there are all these data... The euphemism is sort of data rights, but nobody cares about first serve percentages for the sake of analytics. This is all about betting. It's really problematic. And again, tennis is so easily corruptible and corrupted, and if the The integrity of competition goes, we're left with pro wrestling. This is the foundation of all sports. And for a tennis institution to just align themselves like this, and yeah, I mean, it's really problematic. The WTA and the ATP have these deals. They'll say, listen, active players can't have these sponsorships, but some of this money from data rights goes into the pension, so players are in fact betting. I mean, I think that's kind of a difference without a distinction.
00:04:40
Speaker 4: Okay, nobody from the USTA is here to.
00:04:43
Speaker 2: you know, go into why they did this, but I imagine maybe they would say, well, look, we are a business and we, we, we need money to fund this. We take sponsorships from lots of different organizations and groups. Uh, we use the money to fund tennis and throughout the United States and support the next generation of champions for, you know, the U S and abroad. Um, but a cynic might say, well, couldn't you just pass up the, maybe the few million dollars or whatever it was for the partnership.
00:05:10
Speaker 4: I don't know.
00:05:11
Speaker 9: Yeah.
00:05:11
Speaker 6: I mean, couldn't you do a deal with ticket master where you forbid the reselling of independent tickets on the secondary market? And the USDA, I get it. There's a fiduciary duty here. I mean, you guys see this is a wildly popular, successful event. You want to capitalize this. You want your revenues to be as much. You've got to draw some lines here, though. And for a sport in particular, again, we're not talking about the Yankees and we're not talking about the Lakers. I mean, for an individual sport where not only there's a huge corruption problem. But players have death threats. You are getting in bed and fomenting sports gambling on these prediction markets where if you know anything about Polymarket and Kalshi, again, it's a little squishy maybe. But again, this is not your conventional sports book. This is a whole different level.
00:05:56
Speaker 8: So you mentioned there Ticketmaster, and that's another area of outrage at this U.S. Open and every year, and how the USTA, like other artists, event organizers, does have some ability here to step in and restrict how much of the inventory.
00:06:14
Speaker 10: Goes to resale. That's not something they've chosen to do.
00:06:18
Speaker 8: But that's a really interesting point because the USTA's stance on all of this is that they will look at what the tickets then go for in the resale market and will say, well, look, we're clearly leaving money on the table. We know we could charge so much more, but we're only charging this $ 65 face value for a grounds pass that in reality doesn't really exist. Do you see that as a valid stance from them? Or do you think there's more they could then be doing to step in and control the resale market a bit?
00:06:48
Speaker 6: I think some of this is just the organizational structure. This is a non-profit.
00:06:53
Speaker 5: You walk around here.
00:06:54
Speaker 6: You don't go to a Yankees game and they talk about the community activism and we talk about our underprivileged kids are playing baseball. The Yankees are a for-profit entity. People accept that. The USDA tries to thread this needle where they're a non-profit. They position themselves as NGO and in the spirit of Billie Jean King. Then you realize how wildly crassly commercial they've become. And I just think you draw some lines. I also, I think there's a business case to be made making your event affordable and accessible. Yeah, you'll leave a few bucks on the table today, but if you're talking about growing a long-term business, I think even though, I mean, never sort of morals throw that out the window. I mean, I think there's a business case to be made. There are nuances here. restrict 5,000 seats every day are going to go for face value. I mean, there are ways to massage this. Just sort of going for whoever gets the biggest stack of chips wins, I don't think is a great strategy.
00:07:49
Speaker 4: Okay, so I promised we'd talk about some tennis. We will in a second.
00:07:52
Speaker 2: One more on influencers because I feel like this is the first year we're just talking about influencers and how it's been really polarizing. You made a really good point on social media. You posted, like, I don't understand the need for influencers right now. This sport is really popular.
00:08:08
Speaker 6: I'm really struggling. I'm totally open-minded about this. I don't think this is a crisis.
00:08:11
Speaker 7: It's fun.
00:08:12
Speaker 6: It's funny. You wish the influencers had a little more sense of tennis, that they weren't putting up their ring lights when someone's ready to serve. For all that plagues tennis, we're talking about death threats. We're talking about prediction markets. We're talking about unaffordability and inaccessibility. I don't think influencers is a huge– my outrage meter is ticked. But I don't get it. I mean, I understand why the frozen yogurt shop on my block would want influencers. The USDA is wildly popular. The tickets have been sold. The media rights deal is what it is. I get it for the influencers.
00:08:40
Speaker 5: Yeah, you come here.
00:08:41
Speaker 6: It's a party. Look how cool I am. I'm standing outside. Garth Arash Stadium, and I'm wearing my brand. I get it for the content creators, but I don't know why the USTA needs this. On the other hand, I do have to say, what do we say? Tennis is a stodgy sport, the purest rule. It doesn't make changes. It doesn't adapt to the times. I think you can't have it both ways. Invite the influencers. It would be nice if, you know, maybe as a condition for getting your credential, you had to take a 30 minute quiz the same way we have to do with, you know, sexual harassment before we can give them a 30 second, 30 minute quiz.
00:09:14
Speaker 9: You don't.
00:09:15
Speaker 6: Start talking when you're two feet from the court. You don't use your ring cam when the player's ready to serve. But I'm more amused by it than outraged, honestly.
00:09:22
Speaker 4: Okay, I can get on board with that quiz. Let's talk tennis, Molly.
00:09:25
Speaker 10: We've got to talk tennis.
00:09:26
Speaker 8: So something that I feel really passionately about is keeping doubles alive and to see the changes that the men's tour proposed very quietly at Wimbledon. Not officially, but it's been out there that we know that they're proposing cutting draws, cutting prize money starting in two years. The players have not really been involved in this at all. It seems like The doubles specialist is on a path to extinction.
00:09:49
Speaker 10: How are we going to keep doubles alive? This doesn't seem sustainable.
00:09:52
Speaker 6: I mean, the good news is this is a tour decision, so this doesn't affect the majors. So at the U.S. Open, they'll keep doubles. Wimbledon will keep doubles.
00:10:00
Speaker 5: It's hard.
00:10:01
Speaker 6: I mean, the singles players don't want to mess with doubles, right? It's time-consuming. The finances don't make sense. You can get injured. The season's long enough as it is. And the doubles, there isn't much crossover. I mean, I looked it up during Wimbledon. If you had the top 100 singles players and the top 100 doubles players at a party there'd be like 198 people in the room. Like there's no, there's no crossover.
00:10:23
Speaker 10: More on the women's side.
00:10:24
Speaker 6: The women's are much better.
00:10:25
Speaker 5: Yeah.
00:10:25
Speaker 6: And I think that's, that's the answer to your question though, which.
00:10:27
Speaker 5: I think is a good one. I love doubles.
00:10:29
Speaker 6: I don't get it. Don't you want more inventory? Don't you want more jobs? I mean, all these other sports leagues, what does.
00:10:33
Speaker 5: The NBA want? More games.
00:10:34
Speaker 6: Put a team in Seattle. We need an 18 game NFL season. Every other sport.
00:10:38
Speaker 4: And you expand to China.
00:10:39
Speaker 5: Exactly.
00:10:40
Speaker 6: So I'm not sure why you're cutting product and jobs, but I think, yeah, if you like doubles, women's tennis is where you should focus your energy.
00:10:47
Speaker 8: I feel like my proposal to this, I don't know if it would help maybe, is instead of when they're doing the mixed doubles here and bringing all the single stars into it, why don't you pair a single star with a double specialist?
00:10:57
Speaker 10: Just real quick. What do you think?
00:10:59
Speaker 9: Maybe?
00:10:59
Speaker 11: Yeah.
00:11:00
Speaker 6: The single stars just have very little incentive to play. You want my idea? As long as we're playing McKenzie Consultant. Give the doubles players all sorts of... The doubles players say, listen, of course, you don't market us, you don't promote us. Give the doubles player their own YouTube channel and say, listen, we'll give you a universal basic income and if you can go sell sponsorship, you do a pro-am, you have your own YouTube channel for doubles... Basically, eat what you kill and see if your product is viable. Give up some of the commercial rights to the doubles players. Let them try to sell it. If it's truly a great product that just happens to be underpromoted, it's like a band. You guys go out and sell your own CDs.
00:11:39
Speaker 4: John Wertheim, we love him. We love him when you join us here on Bloomberg Business Week Daily.
00:11:44
Speaker 7: We are at the U.S.
00:11:44
Speaker 2: Open. That's John Wertheim of Sports Illustrated of 60 Minutes.
00:11:48
Speaker 4: Stay with us. More from Bloomberg Business Week Daily coming up after this.
00:11:56
Speaker 1: You're listening to the Bloomberg Businessweek Daily Podcast. Catch us live weekday afternoons from 2 to 5 Eastern. Listen on Apple CarPlay and Android Auto with the Bloomberg Business app. Or watch us live on YouTube.
00:12:11
Speaker 2: I want to bring you Ben Rothenberg because he knows a lot about tennis. He's covered professional tennis for the New York Times, Slate, the BBC, CNN. He's the host of the No Challenges Remaining podcast. He's the author of of the 2024 biography, Naomi Osaka, her journey to finding her power and her voice. Now you can find his writing on his sub stack, Bounces.
00:12:30
Speaker 4: The tennis writer and reporter, Ben Rothenberg, joins us here at the U.S.
00:12:33
Speaker 5: Open.
00:12:34
Speaker 9: Hey, Ben.
00:12:34
Speaker 7: Thanks for having me, guys.
00:12:35
Speaker 4: Yeah, we are happy to have you.
00:12:37
Speaker 2: I just want to start with your impression of the Open this year. I mean, you've been to what? 14 of these.
00:12:43
Speaker 9: Yeah i think 14 ever pressed the first time 14 years ago.
00:12:46
Speaker 4: Yeah so how is this one different than the one you covered 14 years ago.
00:12:49
Speaker 9: It feels more and more like it's having a bit of an identity crisis i think it's fair to say about what the u.s open is anymore like is it a place where people go tennis fans go watch tennis is it a place where people who want to be part of some sort of really elite you know aspirational scene go to take photos of themselves and holding cocktails foremost and or is it a place that's here for gambling and people to bet on and to cheer on like they're at a racetrack.
00:13:12
Speaker 7: I mean, all these forces, those latter two, have.
00:13:14
Speaker 9: Really increased in prominence and disruptiveness, I think, in the last year especially. Those were not forces that were really on the ground anywhere near as much, let's say, even three years ago, and now they're really.
00:13:24
Speaker 7: really rearing their heads.
00:13:26
Speaker 8: Well, you know, we also get to talk, you know, really nerdy tennis stuff with you, which I really want to nerd out on because something I read in one of your recent stuff stacks was how the U S open goes about scheduling these matches.
00:13:38
Speaker 4: And I love this something.
00:13:39
Speaker 8: This was fascinating because I was just studying the lineup of the courts today to see that all of the matches that have featured Argentinians have I've been on Court 11.
00:13:48
Speaker 7: There you go.
00:13:49
Speaker 10: And it is not a coincidence. Tell us why.
00:13:50
Speaker 9: Yeah, so I got the really cool chance to be in the room where it happens with the scheduler. So tournament director Eric Buderak, tournament referee Jake Garner, Wayne McEwen, who's the Grand Slam supervisor, and a sort of rotating cast of other officials from both ATP and WTA Tours had reps there at different times.
00:14:06
Speaker 7: Checking in on the schedule.
00:14:06
Speaker 9: And it's as Boudirac called it, like a thousand piece jigsaw puzzle. They're trying to put together with no picture on the box, largely for the jigsaw puzzle. And yeah, so we mentioned one of the things they do that I had not really picked up on, or I maybe noticed that I didn't know why, is what they call stacking, putting different matches with people from the same country on the same court back to back so that for Argentine TV, it can be guaranteed that those.
00:14:27
Speaker 7: Matches won't overlap with each other.
00:14:28
Speaker 9: And then we will show both those matches in their entirety if they just keep their cameras focused on court 11.
00:14:35
Speaker 2: What about the, and this comes up every year, Ben, but how late these matches go?
00:14:39
Speaker 4: I mean, what did we have? Did we have Venus starting after midnight on Sunday night?
00:14:43
Speaker 9: She started at 12.13 a.m., which was the latest ever start to use of the match.
00:14:48
Speaker 7: I can tell you the times I've been leaving, I left at 3 a.m. after that match, and 2.30 the next day, 2 a.m.
00:14:53
Speaker 5: After that.
00:14:54
Speaker 9: Last night was a quote-unquote early night at 1 a.m. I didn't stay for the end of Zverev. But it's been a long issue with the US Open. It seems to be getting worse. I mean, bluntly, I think if you're not talking about best-of-five is the issue here. You're not being serious about it. Best-of-five is this huge variable match length, and there have been a few long men's matches. Both variable matches so far were five sets. It ran well into the night. Joke between five sets that pushed Venus back. I mean, best-of-five creates enormous variability in match length times, and it really can lead to uncertainty. And in the long end, push these things way back.
00:15:22
Speaker 4: Is it great for West Coast TV, though?
00:15:25
Speaker 7: I mean, it's not even, honestly, that early on the West Coast.
00:15:27
Speaker 9: I mean, Venus Williams' match was starting at 9.15, which is kind of late for a sporting event to be starting even.
00:15:31
Speaker 7: So there's no real winner, I think.
00:15:33
Speaker 9: I mean, obviously, the West Coast is there as sort of a backup for some audience. But, no, it's not great for them, and it's not great for the players. I mean, no functional sport starts sporting events.
00:15:43
Speaker 7: After midnight.
00:15:44
Speaker 8: And it's not like nothing has been done about this. It wasn't that long ago that we were playing best of five, still have to win by two in the fifth set. So now all of the slams have instituted final set tie breaks, go to a match tie break at 10 points instead of the usual seven.
00:15:58
Speaker 10: But you do see Wimbledon, of course, they have a curfew.
00:16:01
Speaker 8: The French Open, they only play until the darkness.
00:16:05
Speaker 7: They have a night session now.
00:16:06
Speaker 10: They do have a night session now, but for a long time they didn't.
00:16:08
Speaker 7: For a long time they didn't.
00:16:09
Speaker 10: So is there something more the U.S. Open can do here?
00:16:12
Speaker 8: Or is this also just the spirit of being in New York under the lights and part of what the experience is?
00:16:17
Speaker 9: Since I've been coming here, I think there were at least three or four matches that went after 2.30 a.m. that lasted that long. The late finish for a while was 2.26 a.m. There were three different matches that coincidentally all finished at 2.26. There was a three-way tie for the record. And then actually Sinner and Alcaraz broke that record and finished at 240-something, I think, in 2022. But yeah, I think they're not serious about it. I think they're not bothered by it. There would be changes. You could start the night session earlier. Or again, this best-of-five thing. I mean, when you have matches that last four and a half hours, it's very hard to fit them into a primetime slot if they're one of two matches in the schedule. So if they wanted to fix it, best-of-five is the culprit. I think you're not serious about it if you don't talk about that. But they've decided they want to keep it this way, and the players... have not revolted against it. The men could have. I think the men I mean, if I was a men's player, I'd be like, the women get the same money we do for playing best-of-three.
00:17:05
Speaker 7: Why shouldn't we just put best-of-three also?
00:17:06
Speaker 10: Good point. Men's doubles no longer plays best-of-five.
00:17:09
Speaker 5: That's right.
00:17:09
Speaker 7: Yeah, Wimbledon took that away. No one else has that now.
00:17:11
Speaker 5: That's right. I don't know.
00:17:13
Speaker 4: That would be such a change. It would be a huge change.
00:17:15
Speaker 9: But if people talked about doing it maybe just for the first, like, four rounds of the tournament, even still, that'd be a change. I mean, but if you need to see, I don't know, Djokovic out there for four and a half hours and, like, he's breaking down physically and it's going badly, and Zverev, too, has already spent, like, almost.
00:17:28
Speaker 7: Ten hours on court through two rounds... I don't think we need that. That seems like a lot.
00:17:32
Speaker 8: So you had another column recently that we were also chatting about that's about this scene that all of these players are engaged in outside of the scene that is the U.S.
00:17:41
Speaker 10: Open, which is also very sceney.
00:17:42
Speaker 8: But there's a lot of parties, a lot of brand activations, things that the players need to engage in when they're not here at the grounds. And Sabalenka, the top seed on the women's side, she kind of got asked about this in press the other day and seemed to get quite irritated, seeming that the reporter was almost insinuating that they're just out there partying all week and not really training.
00:18:00
Speaker 10: But tell us, what are all these parties that these players are going to?
00:18:03
Speaker 7: This has become an increasingly busy week, the week before the U.S. Open, certainly. And most of them are brand activations.
00:18:09
Speaker 9: And the reporter did say, after a week of parties and fun, is it nice to focus on tennis? So I understand why she took the question that way. And she was like, no, this is all... you know, brand work that's no fun. I shouldn't use the word no fun, but basically it's all brand assignments and activations largely. And, you know, there used to be players back, you know, 15, 20 years ago would go play a warm-up tournament in New Haven, Connecticut the week before the U.S.
00:18:28
Speaker 11: Open.
00:18:28
Speaker 6: Yeah, no longer.
00:18:29
Speaker 9: And that's no longer there because they all have so many obligations in these brand activations. Now they play the mixed doubles mostly during the day so they can get to do things later that night if they want to.
00:18:37
Speaker 7: And, yeah, it's changed.
00:18:39
Speaker 2: But the whole reason behind that is because this is a big part of their income. I mean, look at any of their shirts, their endorsements, you know, Taylor Fritz talking about Chipotle every which way and that because he's paid by Chipotle to do that. So it's like, uh, this is part of their income and they have to do these appearances as a lay person watching this and somebody who understands getting exhausted by just a regular job. I can't imagine having to do all those commitments while also trying to maintain fitness, get enough rest and God knows whatever, you know, um, time zone you're on.
00:19:11
Speaker 9: Yeah, I think players and their teams are often in denial about how much toll that can take because it's hard to say no to these offers, this money, when tennis playing careers are limited. Only, you know, most players are only at the top of the sport for, let's say a decade, if they're lucky tops. And so they're trying to maximize those opportunities.
00:19:25
Speaker 5: You know, yeah.
00:19:26
Speaker 7: Sponsors are there like Sabalenka. When I saw that she was doing, it was like judging a.
00:19:30
Speaker 9: Lookalike contest in Brooklyn on behalf of her sports training partner. Like she's, it looks kind of fun in the pictures, but it is still an obligation.
00:19:36
Speaker 5: I'm sure it's part of.
00:19:37
Speaker 9: Her contract for this company to do some sort of in-person activity the week before the U S open to help the brand out. And she's fulfilling that. But I do think, and I cover this with Naomi Osaka and the book.
00:19:46
Speaker 7: I wrote about her.
00:19:47
Speaker 9: Uh, I do think that the piling up and piling of an accumulation of more and more deals and more and more obligations and all those brands wanting their, you know, sort of pound of flesh essentially to give your time in exchange for this money, I do think took a toll on her ultimately. And, and was part of the reason that she did burn out the way she did.
00:20:03
Speaker 8: We only have a little bit more time here left men, but I want to ask, um, if you are going to write another book about another player, um, Who's your shortlist of who's going to be about?
00:20:12
Speaker 7: I don't have one in mind currently.
00:20:14
Speaker 9: I think the sort of the and I imagine there's going to be a lot of books about Novak Djokovic written in the next few years.
00:20:21
Speaker 7: And he's fascinating. There's so many different layers to him to different angles. Like, you know, eight different books that all.
00:20:26
Speaker 9: Kind of cover different things from him, whether it's his success on court, what he means to Serbia and sort of Serbian nationalism. what he, you know, his role in the pandemic and sort of that sort of stand he took and how he's defined that way and his sort of odd views on what he would call science. There's, you know, honestly, there's lots of different ways to go about him. Longevity in the sport, you know, disrupting the big three, different, you know, geopolitical things he's been involved in, again, with East and Europe versus West and such. And he's a fascinating character.
00:20:53
Speaker 7: And so he'd be very cool to cover.
00:20:56
Speaker 9: If I was going to imagine it, though, I imagine it being like a 1,200-page book. And I don't know if anyone would be able to lift it, much less read it.
00:21:02
Speaker 10: Well, we'll give you time to write it. No need now.
00:21:04
Speaker 4: I mean, look, it's the best of five sets. Exactly.
00:21:06
Speaker 2: It's going to be a big one. Hey, Ben, really good to get some time with you. Appreciate it. That's the tennis writer and reporter, Ben Rothenberg. Check out his sub stack. Cannot say enough about it. It's called Balances. He started it a couple of years ago. He's covered pro tennis for the New York Times, for the Slate, for BBC, CNN, and he hosts the No Challenges Remaining podcast.
00:21:26
Speaker 1: You're listening to the Bloomberg Businessweek Daily Podcast. Catch us live weekday afternoons from 2 to 5 Eastern. Listen on Apple CarPlay and Android Auto with the Bloomberg Business app.
00:21:37
Speaker 10: Or watch us live on YouTube.
00:21:41
Speaker 4: Now, Molly, you think about the partners that the U.S.
00:21:44
Speaker 2: Open has had, and there's none probably that are as iconic and longstanding. As IBM, the company has been working with the nonprofit for more than 30 years on technicals, on analytics, on technology. And we got a couple of great voices from IBM to talk a little bit about that partnership and what they're doing.
00:22:03
Speaker 4: We've got Tyler Seidel. a technical director for.
00:22:05
Speaker 2: IBM with us here at the US Open, and Cameron Stanhouse, global VP of sports and entertainment. Both of them join us on site here at the US Open.
00:22:13
Speaker 4: Welcome, welcome. Thanks for joining us.
00:22:14
Speaker 10: Yeah, thanks for having us. Nice sunny day. We haven't seen many of these.
00:22:17
Speaker 4: We haven't, but this one is extra sunny.
00:22:20
Speaker 5: It is.
00:22:20
Speaker 4: And like I was saying earlier, I mean, it could be worse.
00:22:23
Speaker 2: We could be out on the court for like three or four sets and have no shade. But yeah, we're happy to be here, especially when it is not raining. Cameron, I want to start with you because you handle sports and entertainment at IBM and the partnerships there.
00:22:35
Speaker 4: I'm just wondering where on the spectrum of what you do, the U.S. Open falls.
00:22:40
Speaker 10: Yeah, I mean, we, as you mentioned, we've been the U.S.
00:22:42
Speaker 3: Open for 34 years. Our longest standing partnership is Wimbledon. We sang with them in 1990, but. The really interesting thing about US Open Wimbledon and the master's through 30 plus years is that we've been with them on this digital transformation journey since the very beginning, right? We built their first website. We introduced their first ops in around 2009. We started infusing in AI insights in 2017. And so we've been with them through every single step of how they want to transform. And one of the things I love about the U.S. Open is that they have a continual push for innovation and they're not afraid to try new things. And so, I mean, you can see that this year, right, we're all living through the construction of the new Arthur Ashe Stadium, which is amazing, but they're not afraid to try new things. And so we've introduced some new features this year that our first of its kind, something called Serve Quality, which we're really excited about. But it's one of our marquee partnerships. It's also in our backyard. IBM's global headquarters are in New York. And so we're really excited to celebrate this moment in New York City with US Open.
00:23:38
Speaker 8: There are a few other features, too, that are unique to this year. A bit more going on with the app, right, Tyler?
00:23:43
Speaker 5: Yeah. So as Cameron said, we're super excited about Serve Quality.
00:23:47
Speaker 11: There's a lot of features that you can get on the app besides that, such as the draws, the scores, the stats, the statistics. So A lot of our team has actually been here for about two or three weeks already just doing setup. There's so much activity that's going on. This has been a three-week tournament pretty much. But what you could get out there, which we're excited about, is server quality. It's a new stat in Tennis. It hasn't been done before. And we've gained access to the LIMP tracking data that's coming off the cameras. They've captured the XYZ coordinates of the ball, but now it's actually capturing now 21 joins that we're analyzing. We're analyzing that at 50 frames per second. It accumulates about 1.2 billion different data points that come up with a serve quality score for each and every player. So you can actually get that within the new feature called Live Updates, which is your own personalized homepage where there's a lot of activity that's going on around the grounds. So Live Updates is telling the fan more personalized to you what you may want to see, what's the most exciting matches with those insights and perspective that you may not get.
00:24:39
Speaker 4: Otherwise. What's the camera, Tyler, that it's following? Is it the same one that does the Hawkeye? Is it different?
00:24:44
Speaker 12: Okay.
00:24:44
Speaker 11: Yeah. So we're taking all that data and then we're applying our AI on top of it to come up with that sort of quality score.
00:24:49
Speaker 8: And is this also going to then somehow factor into the also like the IBM probability and insights to win as well?
00:24:55
Speaker 3: Yeah, so right now they're separate, but I think it will be a big factor coming forward.
00:24:59
Speaker 10: We've been doing live likelihood to win for the.
00:25:01
Speaker 3: Last couple of years and the pre-match projection for a while, taking both the structured data so that everybody has the head-to-head of who's been playing the best, who has the best records throughout the tournament, but looking at that unstructured data.
00:25:12
Speaker 10: So who has a new coach? Who has a lingering injury?
00:25:14
Speaker 3: What are the broadcasters and commentators saying? taking all that into consideration for a pre-match projection. And it's really fun to watch the AI update live throughout the course of the match.
00:25:25
Speaker 10: So that is not included right now, but it will be something as a consideration moving forward.
00:25:29
Speaker 11: Yeah, and we're constantly looking at ways to follow our features because one of the main goals of the USDA is to engage with fans. This is really their biggest showcase of the year for the USDA. So as Cameron said, we started with the pre-match likelihood to win. Then we went to live likelihood to win, updating after every single point. And now this year, we've introduced key moments, which is that, hey, explainability. What are those turning points? What are the deciding factors of a match? To explain that to the user, why the momentum is shifting the way it's shifting.
00:25:55
Speaker 8: I want to talk more about this likelihood to win because there's just so much about protection markets right now. And everyone wants to know the odds, whether it's before the match, during the match, how these things are changing in real time. We talked about the U.S. Open's new partnership with Kalshi. We see you guys have the likelihood to win. We've seen that WTA has been a partner with FanDuel for a number of years now. Talk about these odds here, where you guys fit in. And, you know, do you get the sense that people are using these kinds of insights here to also make their own predictions?
00:26:25
Speaker 9: Absolutely.
00:26:25
Speaker 10: We like to stay agnostic.
00:26:27
Speaker 3: For us, we provide a great feature that helps fans engage with the match and helps broadcasters have some fun commentary.
00:26:34
Speaker 10: And then however you people use those insights is up to them. That's right.
00:26:37
Speaker 8: Yeah, the folks in the ESPN booth do refer to those quite a bit there.
00:26:41
Speaker 3: It's a healthy discussion and argument point. And we have a great highlight reel when they love to disagree with the AI and then it groups them wrong.
00:26:49
Speaker 10: It's our favorite thing to do every morning.
00:26:50
Speaker 5: Yeah, we've... I love that.
00:26:53
Speaker 11: Yeah, we've had a really good accuracy rate, and especially within the finals. And we go against the grain. Obviously, the two finalists deserve to be there. You know, you've gone through the whole draw, but there's been some times when we've gone against the favorable pick and we've been right, so.
00:27:09
Speaker 3: Even with the Djokovic match, I think it was after the first set, it had the tides turning and it actually predicted Djokovic to lose and everybody was arguing with it on TV and it ended up being right. There's a lot that goes into it and it's really fun.
00:27:23
Speaker 10: All of this is to keep people engaged with the match in more ways.
00:27:26
Speaker 3: We talk about all the people that are walking through these doors and these gates, right?
00:27:30
Speaker 10: A million people coming to the U.S.
00:27:32
Speaker 3: Open, but 14 million people are at home and online engaging with our platforms.
00:27:36
Speaker 10: And so this is just ways that we can keep them in touch and fodder for discussion.
00:27:40
Speaker 4: So Tyler, how much smarter does that prediction tool get each year?
00:27:43
Speaker 5: Yeah, we're constantly looking at it. We have retrospectives. We look at how it performed.
00:27:47
Speaker 11: It's getting smarter each year because not only does it take into the hard data, so all the stats and statistics about.
00:27:52
Speaker 5: Coming into the U.S.
00:27:53
Speaker 11: Open, such as previous tournaments, such as Sits of Value Open and how they're performing in this tournament. It's also accounting for trusted sources and millions of articles and blogs and media.
00:28:02
Speaker 5: So it's picking that up, natural language.
00:28:04
Speaker 11: So if there's something that we're not getting in the hard data, the hard stats, we're picking that up through the natural language of these articles.
00:28:11
Speaker 2: So we're speaking with Tyler Seidel, Technical Director at IBM, and Cameron Stanhouse, Global VP of Sports and Entertainment at IBM. We're here on site at the U.S. Open. Cameron, When we think about these partnerships, it's been 34 years that IBM and the USTA and the US.
00:28:24
Speaker 4: Open have been together.
00:28:25
Speaker 2: The return on investment and just tracking for you from the perspective of, okay, I have a limited amount of money I get to spend every year and deploy, and we can choose different events to do it at. How do you measure the return on investment from the money that you spend here?
00:28:43
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's a combination of looking at brand statistics as well as how we're able.
00:28:47
Speaker 10: To entertain clients on the site.
00:28:48
Speaker 4: I think.
00:28:50
Speaker 3: The reason why we pick sports partnerships is everybody knows who IBM is. Many people do not know what we do. If you used a credit card today, you used IBM technology, nobody knows that. But the sports partnerships we have are living, breathing case studies of what's possible when you work with IBM consultants and IBM technology and allow you to touch and feel in a way that makes sense. So For us, we look for opportunities to demonstrate our capabilities, and there's no better place to do that in tennis, which is why we've been in the tennis tournaments for so long with Wimbledon and the US Open.
00:29:18
Speaker 10: And like I said, this.
00:29:20
Speaker 3: Being our home court advantage, we're putting tons of our clients and tons of our employees through here to be able to showcase what we do every day.
00:29:29
Speaker 8: We were talking before with another guest about all of the parties that happen in and around the U.S.
00:29:33
Speaker 5: Open.
00:29:34
Speaker 10: I think you guys have one next week. Is that right? At Madison Square Park?
00:29:36
Speaker 9: Yes.
00:29:37
Speaker 10: Yes, I see. Parties are a little different for us.
00:29:39
Speaker 3: Tyler being on the technology team is here early, early and late, late.
00:29:43
Speaker 10: But yeah, we want to celebrate this moment with the rest of the New Yorkers.
00:29:47
Speaker 3: And again, our apps are about bringing people closer to the game, even if they can't be here.
00:29:51
Speaker 10: So we will be hosting a pop-up at Madison Square Park.
00:29:53
Speaker 3: We did it last year, but we'll have different AI fun games and tools. Bring your friends, family, any fans. and come hang with us in the park and watch the matches. We'll be live streaming them. So just a great way to stay engaged.
00:30:04
Speaker 10: So it's me, you, and Watson. Yes, exactly.
00:30:06
Speaker 4: Exactly.
00:30:07
Speaker 10: Great.
00:30:08
Speaker 5: Amazing.
00:30:09
Speaker 10: Me and my closest friends.
00:30:10
Speaker 2: Hey, Tyler, I know you can't talk about next year yet at this point, but as you kind of think about what you've seen over this last week, over the last two weeks, and what you'll see from IBM over the next week, how are you already thinking about the way you're going to change things for next year?
00:30:22
Speaker 11: Yeah, I mean, we're already thinking about 2027 and perhaps 2028. I've had conversations with my counterpart at the U.S. State, Brian Ryerson, who's the head of digital strategy. And we're constantly just having conversations with, you know, how are things working as this tournament's going on? What would be cool if we were going to roll this out next year? Take a week off or so, I want to say, after the U.S. Open, and then we'll regroup, do that full retrospective, start doing some planning for next year. But, you know, I don't want to jump too far ahead of the horse. But I want to say, you know, this is the first year that we're doing sort of quality. So it'd be really interesting once we start having multiple years on the Red Velvet. Is there any correlations that we can make based on the data that we're seeing?
00:31:00
Speaker 1: All right.
00:31:00
Speaker 4: Well, we're looking forward to keeping an eye on that.
00:31:02
Speaker 2: A big thank you to both of you for joining us here on Bloomberg Businessweek Daily at the U.S. Open. That's Tyler Seidel, Technical Director for IBM. Also, Cameron Stanhouse, Global Vice President of Sports and Entertainment.
00:31:12
Speaker 4: Stay with us. More from Bloomberg Businessweek Daily coming up after this.
00:31:20
Speaker 1: You're listening to the Bloomberg Businessweek Daily Podcast. Catch us live weekday afternoons from 2 to 5 Eastern. Listen on Apple CarPlay and Android Auto with the Bloomberg Business app. Or watch us live on YouTube.
00:31:35
Speaker 2: It's about tennis here at the U.S. Open, but it's not just about tennis. Anyone who has been here understands that the tennis gets almost as much attention as the food and drink. And the man who makes that happen is Chris Studley. He is back with us. He's managing director of event services for the USTA. He joins us here at the U.S.
00:31:53
Speaker 5: Open.
00:31:53
Speaker 4: Chris, you did not bring any chicken nuggets.
00:31:56
Speaker 5: I'm so sorry.
00:31:57
Speaker 4: Or caviar nuggets.
00:31:58
Speaker 10: Or Heineken's, but we got those earlier.
00:31:59
Speaker 4: We did get those earlier.
00:32:00
Speaker 5: They're delicious, aren't they?
00:32:01
Speaker 10: They're pretty good.
00:32:02
Speaker 2: Can you just give us, we talked to the folks at Bacardi yesterday, just some staggering numbers of expecting close to 800,000 honey deuces sold this year. What are the other numbers that you can tell us about what goes into the food and drink at an event like this?
00:32:16
Speaker 12: You know, everything's up this year. The fans are up everything. We did over 300,000 people during fan week. So you're seeing more sales across the board just naturally. But the honey deuce number is always like the tracker, right? So that 800,000 number, it would be a jump from the 738 we did last year.
00:32:33
Speaker 5: Fans love it. Across the board, the salt tank experience. I think everybody's seen that.
00:32:39
Speaker 4: Mine was too long for us today.
00:32:40
Speaker 10: We were hoping you were going to bring us one.
00:32:42
Speaker 5: We could probably make that happen a little later. We'll get one dropped off. I will tell you.
00:32:46
Speaker 4: We will have to pay for it, guys. Just so you know, we paid for everything.
00:32:50
Speaker 5: Absolutely.
00:32:51
Speaker 12: But no, they usually do about 300 sandwiches in the city a day. And they're doing over 1,500 a day.
00:32:56
Speaker 4: They do 300 sandwiches a day in the city.
00:32:58
Speaker 5: And then they close.
00:32:59
Speaker 9: Oh, my God.
00:33:00
Speaker 5: I think I.
00:33:01
Speaker 10: Saw it from the founder who's been out here.
00:33:03
Speaker 8: He was saying, what is it, like 1,500 pounds of beef they go through every day or something crazy?
00:33:08
Speaker 5: Yes.
00:33:09
Speaker 10: I mean, we've talked a lot about influencers on this show.
00:33:12
Speaker 9: Yes.
00:33:13
Speaker 8: A lot of them are out there with the ring lights, you know, showing you the outfits, what to wear to the U S open.
00:33:17
Speaker 10: There's a lot of food influencers too.
00:33:20
Speaker 5: There are, there are.
00:33:21
Speaker 12: And to touch on the influencer thing for a second, you know, we have a code of conduct and we've educated our staff to try to make that all stop.
00:33:27
Speaker 5: And, and, you know, the ring lights, you're saying exactly, exactly. Okay.
00:33:31
Speaker 12: You know, there's, there's a whole new element of fan that's out to that's helped grow in the game of tennis. And we want to make sure people are enjoying it properly, right. And the way it's meant to be. So never want to impact the fan experience whatsoever. Um, but, There is the food influencer that's out. And, I mean, it's a culinary experience when you're here watching tennis. So we do enjoy it.
00:33:48
Speaker 2: How do you guys choose the restaurants that are here and that are allowed to be here?
00:33:53
Speaker 3: Yeah.
00:33:53
Speaker 12: So we work with our partners, Levy Restaurants, who run a number of major arenas, stadiums across the country. And they're best in class in everything they do. And we look for what is the latest in food, right? I mean, in your own personal lives, you probably experience different foods. And sometimes you're into things. Sometimes you're not.
00:34:09
Speaker 5: And we'll look at what's hot at the moment and also what fans are craving.
00:34:13
Speaker 12: When you come to the U.S. Open, you're spending more time here than you would at any other sporting event, right? You go to a baseball game, they've actually sped it up, and it used to be one of the longer length of stays. Hockey, football, you know.
00:34:24
Speaker 4: Well, let me– hold on.
00:34:24
Speaker 2: I just want to pause there because not everybody listening or watching right now has had the experience of being here. But just to give some context, you could get an 11 o'clock entry here during this week, and you could likely be here until– 10 p.m. watching tennis with that one ticket, even if you don't have a night pass.
00:34:40
Speaker 12: You can even come at 9.30 in the morning this week. You know, we don't switch our gates until 11 until next Thursday. So you're going to spend multiple meal periods here. So we want to have the best offering in all of sports and enable you to try one thing. Let's say you go to Miznan, which is new with us this year at Court 7, and you want to try their special green beans. And I am not a healthy eater, but they're amazing, so I do recommend them. And then you go to Saltank later on for dinner. I mean, you can have those great experiences across.
00:35:05
Speaker 10: You've talked about the time spent here.
00:35:07
Speaker 8: We're going to talk about the money spent, too, because this is a very premium offering, as you've said. Talk about the pricing decisions that go into for the food, the drink. We had the Bacardi execs on here the other day talking about the honey juice. They said they don't price the honey juice. Is that something that you and your team do?
00:35:24
Speaker 5: Yeah, the USTA works alongside Levy Restaurants.
00:35:26
Speaker 12: There's a number of factors that go into it between labor, product costs, all the above. I can tell you that any funds raised, obviously, with USTA goes back into growing the game of tennis. So at the end of the day, it's doing good, right? But we're very conscious. We look at every other venue in this tri-state area to make sure our prices are in line with others. You're not seeing things that are way out of whack. And by the way, when it is a little higher, it's better quality usually when you really dig deep into it.
00:35:51
Speaker 2: Also, the logistics of getting the food out here from a kitchen, from a restaurant, and doing it out here, there are costs associated with that. We'll take Salt Hank, for example, $ 39 for the sandwich that everybody's talking about.
00:36:02
Speaker 4: The line was huge for that.
00:36:04
Speaker 2: Is there any sort of breakdown that you could give us about, okay, how much of that goes to Salt Hank, how much of that goes to the USCA, that sort of thing?
00:36:10
Speaker 5: There's definitely shares there. I can't get into the specifics, but it's all pretty proprietary.
00:36:16
Speaker 4: Is that the right way to think about it? There are a lot of different stakeholders here.
00:36:21
Speaker 2: There's the USTA part of it that does the infrastructure that puts on the event. There's the actual food costs associated with it, getting the food out here, and the labor costs associated with it.
00:36:30
Speaker 4: Am I thinking about the stakeholders, right?
00:36:32
Speaker 5: Yeah, I think so.
00:36:33
Speaker 12: And then USTA operating it and providing the facility to do so.
00:36:36
Speaker 5: Yeah, those are the keys.
00:36:38
Speaker 8: Talk to us a little bit more about who gets to be in these stands here as the food and drink vendors.
00:36:44
Speaker 10: There are some that are here every year.
00:36:47
Speaker 8: Are there others that are almost auditioning, like a rotating cast of who's going to get that next spot?
00:36:52
Speaker 12: We get inquiries all year long. I mean, we'll get them now saying, can I come next year? And a lot of it is, what are our fans responding to? We'll look at all the data afterwards. I mean, we see how many sandwiches they'll sell at the end. We'll look at that, right? It also goes into who can operate at this level. Because when you talk about Saltank, for instance, 300 sandwiches in the city closes down.
00:37:12
Speaker 5: We're doing 1,500 a day. Can you scale up?
00:37:15
Speaker 12: And the team at Levy does a phenomenal job of getting in that stand with them and making sure we can turn food out that's still high quality.
00:37:21
Speaker 8: You know, something I've always even wondered too is like the guys who are out here selling ice cream and it's like, it is a hot day.
00:37:28
Speaker 10: I mean, that's up to them, of course, to get the freezers, make sure this is all cool. But there's a lot of logistics involved in this.
00:37:33
Speaker 12: A lot of logistics. And ice cream is a great one. As an example, we worked with Van Leeuwen to develop our own custom flavor.
00:37:39
Speaker 4: I know. My son loves it. It's amazing.
00:37:42
Speaker 5: It's my personal favorite, and I wasn't the only voter on it.
00:37:44
Speaker 4: Can you get it outside of the U.S. Open or no?
00:37:46
Speaker 5: You can't.
00:37:46
Speaker 4: You can't even buy it?
00:37:47
Speaker 5: Just here. Interesting.
00:37:49
Speaker 4: I wonder if it will be so successful they will decide to.
00:37:52
Speaker 5: We have to talk about it, for sure.
00:37:54
Speaker 2: That's something you guys have to figure out. I came during Fan Week with my son. We were here on Arthur Ashe Kids Day. It was a great experience. It was incredibly crowded, as it shows the demand for this. Some of the lines for food were really long. How do you manage that? What's the math that you do to try to figure out, okay, we don't want people spending too much.
00:38:14
Speaker 4: Time in lines and missing too much cash?
00:38:17
Speaker 5: Absolutely.
00:38:18
Speaker 12: Fan Week in particular and Kids Day this year, now was the first day that we were actually really open after our concert the Friday before. So a lot of stands were just getting going, not an excuse by any stretch. We always want the first experience somebody has the first day to be just as good as final Sunday, right? So we work with Levy to try to figure out operationally, how many bodies do you need making drinks? How many bodies do you need serving that burger?
00:38:39
Speaker 5: You know, that type of thing.
00:38:41
Speaker 12: I think the popularity of the Savannah Bananas brought more people out here.
00:38:44
Speaker 5: That's interesting.
00:38:45
Speaker 2: Yeah, we didn't even get to see the Savannah Bananas because they were so popular. The line to meet them was like an hour long, which is fine. We weren't here to see the Savannah Bananas, but we were able to get some ice cream. But there was also like, would you say that you... For next year, you learned a lot from that day because it was a different day this year and it was so popular.
00:39:04
Speaker 5: Absolutely.
00:39:05
Speaker 12: I mean, Savannah Bananas in particular, selling out stadiums across the country, right? And I'm talking baseball stadiums, football stadiums. We brought them here to Arthur Ashe and obviously it doesn't hold as many people and they came out in droves to see them. So weather plays a big role.
00:39:18
Speaker 5: You never know. I mean, year over year, you've got to look at every single aspect of it.
00:39:21
Speaker 8: Totally.
00:39:21
Speaker 4: Totally.
00:39:22
Speaker 10: Thank you so much for joining us, Chris Studley.
00:39:23
Speaker 8: He's Managing Director of Events Services for the USTA here at the US Open.
00:39:28
Speaker 10: One last thing before you go, Chris. What are you having for dinner tonight?
00:39:31
Speaker 5: Oh, I don't know.
00:39:32
Speaker 6: I don't know.
00:39:33
Speaker 12: I mean, I like to wander the food village and kind of pick.
00:39:35
Speaker 4: But there are sit-down restaurants, too, here.
00:39:37
Speaker 5: Absolutely. And we even mentioned we have a brand new one this year with Cosme. Oh, my goodness. You know, I highly recommend it.
00:39:42
Speaker 10: We've got to talk about it next year.
00:39:44
Speaker 3: Absolutely.
00:39:44
Speaker 5: You'll come back to join us? For sure.
00:39:45
Speaker 8: Okay.
00:39:46
Speaker 10: And you'll tell us what you have for dinner.
00:39:47
Speaker 4: Will do.
00:39:48
Speaker 9: Perfect.
00:39:48
Speaker 8: You know, the one thing, Tim, that I want to get that I haven't gotten yet this year is, you know, we don't talk a lot about these $ 100 chicken nuggets with the caviar.
00:39:57
Speaker 4: You don't have to get the caviar. You can just get the nuggets.
00:39:59
Speaker 10: That's right. Maybe the cost comes down a bit on that.
00:40:02
Speaker 8: But something else that they have there is this chocolate chip cookie, this brown butter cookie that I went to try to get the other night.
00:40:08
Speaker 10: They were sold out.
00:40:09
Speaker 4: Okay. Well, maybe tonight you can get one.
00:40:11
Speaker 3: Maybe.
00:40:11
Speaker 10: You got to go early.
00:40:12
Speaker 5: All right.
00:40:12
Speaker 4: Talk to Chris.
00:40:13
Speaker 2: He's managing director of event services for the USTA joining us on site here at the USF.
00:40:17
Speaker 4: And Chris Dudley, thank you again. Good to see you.
00:40:20
Speaker 1: This is the Bloomberg Businessweek Daily Podcast, available on Apple, Spotify, and anywhere else you get your podcasts. Listen live weekday afternoons from 2 to 5 p.m. Eastern on Bloomberg.com, the iHeartRadio app, TuneIn, and the Bloomberg Business app. You can also watch us live every weekday on YouTube and always on the Bloomberg Terminal.
