Summer Tennis Series Unveiled

Striving to raise the profile of the professional game in North America, the U.S. Tennis Assn. will launch a summer series involving 10 existing hard-court tournaments covering a six-week stretch leading up to the U.S. Open.

This includes the series opener, the ATP men’s tournament held July 12-18 at UCLA, the Mercedes-Benz Cup, as well as the women’s event, the JPMorgan Chase Open, at the Home Depot Center in Carson July 19-25. For now, the women’s tour’s Acura Classic at Carlsbad is not part of the series.

A news conference to announce the agreement is scheduled today in New York. The USTA’s chief executive of professional tennis, Arlen Kantarian, said Monday that the length of the agreement is for four years with some renewal options.

One of the goals of the deal -- which was more than three years in the making -- is to streamline the tennis schedule with a more cohesive TV package. The final weekend of both events at UCLA and Carson are to be on ESPN, as are most of the tournaments in the partnership. NBC has an existing deal with the RCA Championships at Indianapolis.

“It’s something I think that is going to lift, not only the visibility and profile of tennis, but make these tournaments more economically viable,” Kantarian said. “They’re going to share in whatever revenues are generated through this umbrella sponsorship or other sponsors. It’ll be a nationally branded effort, but still with the same local character that each of them enjoy.

“You see it at the NFL, the NBA. There are certain consistencies from a national perspective. But the Lakers have a very different character than the Knicks. And that will hold true with the character of each of these tournaments.”

Said Tim Leiweke, of AEG, which owns the Carson event: “This is an opportunity to begin to bring some structure and focus for making all of these tournaments much more meaningful and developing some continuity in the schedule. There’s a path to the U.S. Open that makes some sense.”

The series has been a goal of Kantarian’s and the formation of the deal had been long expected. But officials were able to provide another link between the lead-up tournaments and U.S. Open by the introduction of a bonus system for players.

Starting in 2005, the U.S. Open series men’s and women’s champion will be playing for twice the prize money at the U.S. Open. Andy Roddick could have made $2 million had the 2005 bonus system been used in 2003. There would have been the $1 million from winning the Open, plus a $1-million bonus for having the best summer hard-court record.

This year, the series winners will play for an additional 50% of prize money handed out to the U.S. Open champions. The bonuses will be for the top three finishers in the Open series.

The bonus system should help UCLA and Carson secure better player fields. Kantarian said he thought Venus and Serena Williams would end up playing at Carson, and Bob Kramer, the Mercedes-Benz tournament director, is expecting the likes of Marat Safin, Gustavo Kuerten and Lleyton Hewitt.

Leiweke spoke of the benefit to local tennis fans.

“It almost guarantees us the best men and the best women because of the points and the qualification for the Open [bonus pool] becoming a more valuable commodity,” he said. “I think it clearly gives us more national exposure than we were going to get, so that’s very good news for us. And the same for the men’s event. It gives them more national prominence.”

Kramer said that previously the tournament had spent about $40,000 in buying TV time, and is making a larger investment, an extra $100,000, for the “huge upgrade to ESPN.”

“We’re happy to make that commitment,” Kramer said.