You'll probably find everyone covers everyone else's back. Responsibility will be diffused to the point of meaning nothing.

By contrast, a sharp, lean, well-functioning organisation - of medium size like the LTA - is directed day-to-day by no more than three senior people who take charge of the only three essentials that matter in an organisation - production, marketing and finance: what you make; how you sell it and how you account for everything financially. The board would never have more than seven members in total and no management meeting would ever take place with more than seven present. Anything more is a lecture interspersed with politics.

Madadman wrote:

---

Has the LTA made any announcement on 2018 pro tournaments? Am I right in thinking the Aegon sponsorship finished for the tournaments? I see that the Challengers ones are mentioned on the LTA website was just wondering if they put any Futures calendar together that's if the LTA bother with any!

---

I think the first three men's futures can be found on the ITF website.  Glasgow starting at the end of Jan and is followed by Loughborough and Shrewsbury.  I haven't seen anything beyond that.

Is it still the plan internationally to have a major revamp of the lower tiers of pro tennis and if so is there any particular timescale regarding this ?

I should possibly add that in my "chat" with Leon last week in La Manga, he repeated what he told me last year saying that it was very difficult to get clubs to host the futures events. Even with the LTA stumping up 100% of costs, there were very few takers.

I would think you are correct Indi in that presumption. The thing is that as they stand, the Futures events probably arent very attractive. We had some posts that discussed the fact that Futures in some countries are more attractively packaged as events in their own right with a history and a narrative around them. The West of England Indoor Championships or the East Scotland Grass Courts or whatever. Without that packaging and narrative, the event is British F3 and means nothing to anyone - the spectators or the media - and thus it is very hard to sell it. If no one turns up, if there is no media coverage locally , regionally or nationally then the sponsors wont be interested and the event needs to be funded by the club or centre hosting the event. And why should they close down their courts for a week and not be able to take money from customers for an event that doesnt give them anything.

The way to break it and get more events and more funding seems to me to be package them better and create a commercial opportunity around the event; A bit like building the Hoover Dam and the general US construction boom of the 30's which created supply chains and jobs and took them out of recession, sometimes it needs investment to make things move along and create a circular good for everyone, and that has to start with the LTA.

What's the minimum amount of courts required to host a futures event? Or are there any other type of restrictions/demands from the ITF that determine which venues are eligible to host one? I wonder what the futures circuit in GB would look like if it was in the hands of private business, i.e. to make a profit. Rather than hugely subsidised by the LTA. If they all made a profit it would be a no-brainer for the LTA to host more. One way to do that would be to run a large number of lower level events at the same time as the futures to bring in more entry fees. I have considered hiring the 25 courts at Queenswood for a massive recreational level tournament, but at up-to £1000/day for hire, it's a big risk.

I looked up the venues in 2013 and also added in the other venues from the 2017 British Tour to give an idea of which venues might be not playing ball with the LTA.

EddietheEagle wrote:

---

 I expect the incoming LTA chief exec will have this down as a priority. 

---

 

I like that for everything you post, you still retain optimism regarding the LTA.

 

I have zero postive expectations regarding the incoming guy. And that's fine, because from that position, I will feel no disappointmenrt and can only be impressed.