World TeamTennis

And then all of a sudden I got a, a text with, uh, an app from his son.

And then it was just the process from there of hooking it together with Tom Ocker and Tom Ocker of all things back in Tulsa, where I'm from in Oklahoma, played in world team tennis back in 76.

That's where I saw Chris Everett and he was there.

Let's see, Fru McMillan, Francois Doerr, And also, I have a picture of Bobby Riggs looking right at my camera with a sugar daddy coat on.

ridiculous that he's not in.

Oh, I know.

He has one of the bigger statistics for World Team Tennis that he won the most games at 1,312 games in World Team Tennis.

Oh,

I've always, I've always done well in team environments.

Whether it be junior Davis Cup or World Team Tennis or county, county events, I've always enjoyed the team atmosphere of stuff.

Yeah, just hanging out with everyone and being able to bounce off people.

That's it.

John,

what's your opinion of World Team Tennis?

You mean watching it?

As a spectator.

Right.

For people who don't understand what the devil we're talking about.

In world team tennis, where you get a point for every win... and a point for every game.

Let's say you're seven points up with one match to go, right? Right.

And I know we're all excited about the announcements that have happened recently.

It's the Bundesliga, World Team Tennis.

Do you want to talk a little bit about that? Because that's the most recent and also why this strategy

seems to make sense.

Yeah, I mean, I would say that our sports portfolio, Scott, resembles a business portfolio.

So we've got some large cap properties and partners that are continuing to grow.

And then we're taking some bets and making some bets on some growth properties, whether that's Love Volleyball or World Team Tennis, others that you've mentioned.

And so, you know, we've got NASCAR again, which just produces returns for us year over year over year.

So and that was that was a good memory to have during WCT then also.

And then with that, too, you also played in WTT World Team Tennis back in the day.

So so you were kind of all over with with not only the major tournaments, but also WCT plus then the World Team Tennis, which was being played.

Team tennis, yeah, came up and then most of the players, they signed with World Team Tennis and that meant that you played in the summer month for like June, May, May and June and then it was a stop for Wimbledon and They let you play Wimbledon and after Wimbledon you go back to the city you played for and then you played until the US Open.

So I played the first year, I played like four years of World Team Tennis and the first year I played for Buffalo and Toronto.

They had a team together.

Mostly we played some matches in Buffalo and most matches in Toronto.

Yeah.

The New York Sets of World Team Tennis played their first match there in May of 74, and they won the championship in 76.

Then they changed their name to the New York Apples for 77, and then they ended up playing all their games at MSG.

The New York Saints of the NLL from 89 to 03...

Can you not have something that charges?

And now this will be lost on most of our listeners, but there was a thing, and it still exists, but it looks different now as everything else does, the World Team Tennis.

Billie Jean King started this concept.

I'm not gonna bore you or the listeners with, but they had great team names.

And obviously played against, uh, Venus and Serena many times in doubles, including my last major at Wimbledon in 2009.

And then, and then also I played with them in World Team Tennis at the Washington Kastles.

Um, so you know, our relationship has developed through the years.

And I've always been a little bit of a on the side, texting, even seeing her in the hallways or whatever, seeing Serena through her career.

What do I pick today? I'll tell a funny one that I forgot to mention last week.

So I am playing World Team Tennis this year, and we went to do a photo shoot.

And I came from practice, and I just didn't have the right, like, sports bra.

I had one, like, a very, like, non-supportive one, and I had to put on, like, a tighter tank top.