Let's go back to sixth grade.

I grew up in, in Indiana.

Sixth grade, my dad had a, um, a sabbatical at Berkeley, but we couldn't afford Berkeley housing coming from small town Indiana.

So we lived in El Cerrito, which, uh, now...

I, I was there lately, I was there recently, and it's all, like, yoga and bubble tea.

At the time, it was not yoga and bubble tea.

It was a l- it was pretty rough.

Please.

No way to spin this as a positive.

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.

Right.

This sport is really popular.

I hopped on earlier with Jon Wertheim and asked him what's going on with this announcement and what the players have ultimately been after with all of this.

[whoosh] [gentle music] They want, uh, a percentage of gross revenue, so when tournaments increase in scale, the players will see in that upside.

The tournaments have been pretty good about the wage increases.

Wimbledon, twenty percent year-over-year raise in the prize money.

US Open is supposed to do something similar, which will put them over $100 million.

As far as consultation and how tournaments are run, tournaments are all for that.

We'd love to have player input, whether it's tennis balls or whether it's roof policy, we'd love player input.

Oh

This is longtime Sports Illustrated writer John Wertheim.

Ray Allen was in He Got Game, and at the time you'd say, oh, an athlete's in a movie, and you figure they're playing themselves, and they've got a cameo.

This was legit acting, and he actually carried it off quite well.

He even told Sports Illustrated writer John Wertheim that his young star, Ray Allen, was a Barbie doll.

It's funny.

I mean, again, this was 25 years ago.

It's a different time in media access.

It's also a different time in sort of coach-player dynamic and who had power.

This is longtime Sports Illustrated writer John Wertheim.

Ray Allen was in He Got Game, and at the time you'd say, oh, an athlete's in a movie, and you figure they're playing themselves, and they've got a cameo.

This was legit acting, and he actually carried it off quite well.

He even told Sports Illustrated writer John Wertheim that his young star, Ray Allen, was a Barbie doll.

It's funny.

I mean, again, this was 25 years ago.

It's a different time in media access.

It's also a different time in sort of coach-player dynamic and who had power.

What is a, what is a story that you wanted to tell?

I, I think one thing that's always interested me is this sort of if, if sports are competition, rivalry is like competition, I, I'm not gonna say the fallback on steroids, but it's accelerated competition.

It sort of, you know, it's, uh, it's supercharged competition.

And rivalry just does something different, and I think Chris and Martina reached a conclusion independently very early that, okay, Chris was gonna rob Martina of a few majors, and Martina was gonna rob Chrissy of a few majors.

And if the other one hadn't existed, they probably would've won more, but maybe not because they made each other better, and they made each other innovate, and they pushed each other.

And there was a benchmark, and there was always someone to measure yourself against.

And I think rivalry really had this sort of multiplier effect for both of them.

But I think you know where I'm going, right?

Yeah

... and it just, it w- it's on me.

It's, it's my shortcoming.

It just didn't...

But, um, no, we, we went over to Barcelona and, and we found this kid.

He, he was 18 years old.

He was the star of the Euros two years ago.

[laughs]

[laughs]

... and it just, it w- it's on me, it's, it's my shortcoming.

It just didn't...

But, um, no, we, we went over to Barcelona and, and we found this kid.

He, you know, 18 years old, he was the star of the Euros two years ago.

We figured he was gonna have a big impact on the World Cup, and it was, um, it was wild.

I mean, it was, it was a great window to me on sort of the difference between developing talent in sports in, in Europe versus, uh, the US.

[laughs]

Kevin, we can continue.

This is John Wertheim here.

This is supposed to be forward-looking, I know.

Uh-huh.

But I, I do wanna start by peering in the rearview mirror a little bit and just saying thanks for whatever it's been, twenty or so years.

I hung up.

I listened.

This show was the perfect antitoxin to, uh, sports radio and bloviating and Stephen A.-ing.

And she was trapped in that, which sounds utterly grim as well.

Yeah.

I mean, bear in mind, this is 25, 30 years ago.

We had much different attitudes about therapy and about mental well-being and being good to yourself.

We did not have the vocabulary.

We also just practically didn't have the infrastructure.

And Again, she's very open.

So it's really awful what, I guess, predominantly female sports people have to go through here.

But, um, there, there still s- seems to be some, uh, some issue.

Yeah.

Th- this is a player who doesn't give up much.

I don't know if you saw her reaction before she spurned, uh, WTA CEO Portia Archer at the trophy presentation ceremony.

I don't know if you saw her reaction on match point.

Not exactly cartwheels.

Um, this is not a player who's particularly expressive.

(laughs)

Mm-hmm.

You need to, like, double fault the third service point of the second game of the second set.

All of these micro bets and these prop bets, I think that's where a lot of the issues arise.

Um, and yeah, I mean, you...

Te- tennis is, I mean, just go through the- go through the checklist, right? I mean, first you need economic incentive.

Um, there certainly is that.

A lot of these suspicious, uh, suspicious wagers are coming where there's much more money wagered on the match than the player could- could ever make.

... it's a, it's a scary thing, JW.

Right.

... one, uh, this is obvious, I have a lot of questions about it.

Um, so but, the... as far as, like, where the calendar goes, preempting Australia is, is what some people are saying.

I think that's difficult.

I'm not sure you can take the thunder, you know.

Australia's probably the only thing in tennis that benefits from people actually having time to look forward to it.

Like, otherwise it's just a run-on sentence.

It said in the press release it's going to be a week.

(laughs)

Um, yeah.

So, so some of this is, uh, that was well said.

Some of this is, is just a direct, uh, ripoff of our brethren, uh, at Vox, uh, Kara Swisher and Scott, uh, Galloway's Wins and Fails.

But something, no, this is a good way to sort of get some of these items.

Some of them are big and sweeping, others are just sort of these things that sometimes fall between the cracks but probably deserve some mention.

So let, I don't know, maybe we'll try to keep these for, like, one minute each.

You gotta, you gotta toast and roast.

And it feels like we're turning people who participated into, in, in tennis into fans of tennis and there's just no chance, if you've seen the last five years of our game, that you're not gonna be here for life.

Right.

One, one of the knocks on tennis...

There, there were a couple of them, right? And one of them was sort of, it was this country club sport and, uh, and then you say, "Well, I don't know.

I look out at the field and, uh, you know, the 38-year-old man certainly did not come from, uh, great wealth.

Neither did a lot of these players playing." And then the other knock on tennis was sort of, it's a wimpy sport.

You go watch what Coco brought to the table first.

L- just to level set.

Go ahead.

No, I mean, I think, I think big picture and then we can get de-...

I mean, I, I think there's a real balance here between granular specifics and then sort of what this represents.

And yeah, I mean, look, if you're trying to represent players, we all think there needs to be more player empowerment, we all think that the percentage of revenue the players get is, is scandalously low, we all think that decisions about balls and schedules and formats for mixed doubles at majors, that it's, it's really crazy that goes on without the players' input.

Okay, fine.

Um, and if you represent players and you can't get emails returned and calls returned and no one's really acknowledging you and players roll their eye- I mean, the tournaments and the, and the tours roll their eyes when you try to contact them and you get meetings on the books and players still feel excluded, you do something dramatic.

But I also think this is just...

Stick with that, but can also, can you be a group that says, "We represent all players," released a statement after the Sinner thing throwing him under the bus, consistently get the details of his case wrong if you also are claiming to represent him as a player, and then throwing strays at random players throughout this lawsuit? Like, that's just, that's just unnecessary to Chris, I mean, to, 'cause it's unnecessary.