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Welcome to the Atlanta Tennis Podcast.

Every episode is titled,

It Starts with Tennis and Goes From There.

We talk with coaches, club managers,

industry business professionals,

technology experts, and anyone else we find interesting.

We wanna have a conversation as long as it starts with tennis.

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Hey, hey, this is Shaun with the GoTennis Podcast,

powered by Signature Tennis.

Check out our calendar of Metro Atlanta Tennis events

at LetsGoTennis.com

and definitely check the site every day

for our Black Friday deals and upcoming holiday specials.

And now let's get into our recent conversation

with John McLamb, who is the founder of Court Harbor.

Court Harbor can provide racket sports court accessories

like scoreboards and signage,

but the claim to fame is their patent pending court dividers.

GoTennis used a couple of these

at our fall festival recently and they are awesome.

Have a listen and let us know what you think.

(upbeat music)

Who is John McLam and why do we care?

- Well, and I'm gonna, I guess I'll answer that question

from a standpoint of tennis and Courthorber

'cause I could go in a lot of different directions

of who's John McLam.

So, John McLam, so native North Carolinian,

grew up in this area and grew up playing Junior Tennis

in North Carolina, back way back.

I used to say a few years now, it's like a few decades ago.

(laughing)

So in the 80s, mainly in North Carolina,

I played college tennis at East Carolina

and came back to Winston-Salem, which is the area

I grew up in and came back to.

So came back and was assistant tennis pro

at Versailles Country Club.

I was my first job.

I had a college actually my internship

but I played college tennis at ECU,

kind of skipped over that, but really good years at ECU,

great relationships there.

I had a career in tennis for good while in the teaching side.

So I was, as I said, a Versailles Country Club

and then a bit tree country club in Dallas

and then got on the cell side and moved away

for 13 years from North Carolina

and then met my wife in Atlanta.

I was in Atlanta for eight years and met Carrie

who was from, she's not from North Carolina,

she's from New England, she's from Massachusetts,

but we met in Atlanta and moved here in 2008

and thought of this idea, court harbor

and court dividers along the way

and make sure we'll get to that.

But that's a little bit about me.

- Nice and that's, there's an Atlanta connection there,

of course, which is always good.

I also see Georgia State with that education

or was that, it looks like development

or were you doing Georgia State?

- Yeah, so I spent a good amount of my career

in athletic administration and the college side.

And my first job on the college athletic side

and that segment in that industry was with ISP sports,

which sold to IMG, became IMG college

and now they're lear field.

So on the multimedia right side.

So I was the job that brought me to Atlanta

and so I was doing corporate sponsorships

for Georgia Tech through ISP sports.

And so I was, at one point in my life,

it was a desire to be a division

on athletic director, that was my career path.

And so that took me a couple of different jobs along the way

'cause I eventually got on the school side

and went to an opportunity, came up at Georgia State.

And so that position was associate athletic director

for development and marketing.

And it was around the time we started football there.

So had a chance to work with Dan Reeves,

former Falcons coach and Broncos coach and Giants coach

and great experience there.

It worked with Mary McRoye and it was the athletic director

there at the time.

A lot of great folks at Georgia State

led to fundraising efforts there

and what eventually led to the football program started.

So yeah, it was, it was for, well,

there was a few of my years there

but eight really good years in Atlanta.

- Nice and I ask you, we always look for

at Atlanta connection which is good,

but also about that same time for him,

you were at Georgia State.

I was T.P. my end of my time at T.P. C.

Shergolo from then on at Berkeley Hills Country Club.

So and Bobby's been in the area as director of tennis

for who knows how long now.

And we're,

John didn't call me for some money.

I'm surprised.

- I'm an alumni.

I have my masters from Georgia State.

So yeah.

- We have.

- I wasn't on that list, but I'm happy.

- Way we missed a gold opportunity, right?

(laughing)

- No, I'm pretty sure Bobby is avoiding that list.

(laughing)

I think Bobby was going.

But the interesting part about it is we're tennis guys.

We get the industry, we get the business.

We've all been teaching pros if not still are.

And you end up leaving teaching,

getting into the business side,

getting into that more running and administering side,

where Bobby's in kind of both.

And I'm interested in court harbor

that inception time frame because tennis coaches

are notorious for having great ideas.

In their own mind, right?

We've all got this genius concept.

I had this idea about 12, 10, 12 years ago,

when it was a watch that was going to have multiple alarms.

Every tennis coach was going to want one

because you need a alarm to finish your serving time

and alarm to pick up balls and get ready for the next thing.

And multiple alarms.

And as soon as I thought about really,

I was like, this is going to be great.

I'm going to change the world.

And then Apple comes out and I'm like,

"Hey, we got a smart watch."

I'm like, "All right, glad I didn't dump my first

million investor dollars there."

So how do you get into court harbor and also make it successful?

I'd like to go from inception to get us to,

that it actually works.

And it isn't just one of those crazy tennis pro ideas

that fizzles out and doesn't become anything.

- Yeah, so I'm sitting here thinking

as I'm going to answer that.

I don't think a man I wish there was a short answer

to that question.

- Right, because there's no secret, right?

- Yeah, but try to give you the best snapshot version

of answering that.

I was a coach to your point,

so when I was coaching at Agnes Scott College

indicator at the time.

And I was coaching there, coaching tennis,

coaching cross country, assistant AD,

with Jolie Naken was the AD there.

And we all wore a lot of hats, you know,

administratively and on the court.

And I was on the court one day at practice.

And there were literally, and I'll always remember this

'cause this was certainly without question

the light bulb moment.

We were on the court with the players

and we're doing drills just like, you know,

any team would be and I looked and I saw about 12,

15 balls on one court,

Gordon, 12 or 15 balls on the next court

and nothing in the middle.

And I just thought to myself, right then,

there's gotta be a better way.

There's gotta be something more than just fence

and nothing at all that keeps it.

And so as my wife would tell you,

I walked around lows and home depot

for probably for the next few years,

thinking how am I gonna build this thing?

Not quite, but it probably seemed like it to her.

But I kept, I just kinda kept that concept in my mind,

but I didn't think a ton of it at the time

'cause I've just, I've kind of always been

a fairly creative person and just kind of,

what just kind of a palm wired,

what keeps me going and excited.

I have plenty of ideas, you know,

like closest friends and my wife and we say,

they're not all great ideas, but I've got 20 of them.

But I had that, I saw the need for that.

It went on that day and I just did kinda carry it in my mind.

But as I went through and I was doing life

and going through, you know, working stuff,

I just said, I think maybe I can do something with this.

And so I just kinda started thinking around,

tinkering around and, you know,

contacting some potential suppliers and designers

and things like that.

And that's how it started, but it took literally some years

to get things in motion and then did it as, you know,

still working.

It wasn't my day job and just kinda worked on it

in the evenings and 4 a.m. in the morning,

those weekends, those kinda things,

just like most if not all entrepreneurs.

And then one thing led to another

and the biggest kind of breaking kind of crossroads

was we had started to have enough success

and we brought on a couple guys, had some equity at the time.

It's no longer the case, but brought on a couple guys initially

to kind of seat this dream as vision with me.

And we started having enough success,

when we started having some success,

we went through the patent process with the divider idea.

We didn't get to patent approved and received the patent

until we were in business for two or three years.

It was patent pending, but we now have had that since 2017.

But I gradually worked my way up,

but I guess like a lot of people,

I did come to that place where, okay,

I've got a good paying job, I'm happy with,

I got a wife and two young boys at home.

And there's lots of reasons to stay in this lane,

but I just thought to myself, I think this can be something.

And I got to a point where I felt like I really need

to make a decision to be fair to everybody.

Am I gonna pursue this and really go for it or am I not?

And I decided that if I didn't, I'd probably have regrets.

And if it failed, at least I tried and rationalized all those

good things and justified it and eventually went for it in 2015,

where we're all in full time and pursued, pursued it.

- I love it, it reminds me of my father who came to me in the,

I'd say it was the late 80s, I was a kid,

we were on a flight going to Germany.

And he's looking at me, he's like, son, one day.

And you know I'm a computer guy, son, one day all we're gonna do,

it's only gonna be about this big, he shows me his thumb, right?

It's only about this big and it's just gonna be a little dry.

We stick it in and we can take it out.

And it's gonna just be really easy and we'll just store data

on this little portable thing.

And I'm like, Dad, I'm trying to sleep, this is awful.

Why are you talking to me about your brilliant ideas

that are never gonna do anything?

I bring that up because he was the type to say,

I've got a wife, kids, good job.

I'm not messing that up.

I'm not gonna take that chance.

That he, there were a couple of different times.

He had an idea that later became a thing,

you know, clearly I didn't invent the Apple watch,

but I did see a need for it.

And it's cool to find the need and the,

be able to provide it.

And I know Bobby's been talking about what you've been doing

a long time because I think Bobby and I usually just stick

out a tube or something, you know, from the edge of the fence

to try to keep a few balls from going side to side.

But Bobby's talked about what you do a lot.

And I want to kind of hand it to him

because I know he's probably got a thousand questions

for you at this point.

Well, no, because it's fun.

And I think, John, tell me,

I'm wrong, you also worked for Billy Oaks, right?

Well, not directly, but we, you know, Bill and I had some,

I guess where we cross paths was the earliest days of Cour Harbor

when I left Wake Forest.

And at the time I was overseeing the fundraising

for the law school at Wake, even though I'd been,

it's been most of my career on the athletic side.

The first couple of years of Cour Harbor,

as far as, you know, it's rolling our products

and taking things to really be on a company, a company.

That's when Bill in the early years right in the thick of,

when he was the tournament director for Winston-Salem Open.

And so yeah, there's some connection there.

And you know, Winston-Salem is my hometown,

grew up in Midway, south of Winston.

And so, yes, so no bill from those times.

I'm just trying to develop that further Atlantic connection.

So, because Billy used to be the tournament director here

at when it was the AT&T Open.

And he headed the Pro-Serve office here in Atlanta back

when I was just moving in.

So I met Billy early on and still in contact

with him over these years later, which is fun.

And that's, it's always good to see the guys that,

you knew and through that obviously, you know, meeting you.

And we got to meet as we were trying to figure out before,

probably between eight to 10, we have a timeline

when you had just started developing Cour Harbor.

And I was a big fan from, I think,

wanted to just letify the idea of all tennis pros

having too many ideas.

I tried to encourage John to become an ad agency

and put ads on them when you sold them to people.

Like just give them the ads for God's sake.

But I understand that's a whole different business model.

But I saw the value and I'm like I said,

I'm excited that it is going.

But it just talked to this because this is the funny part

about all these things.

We have ideas.

The intricacies of developing, like you said,

we're going around looking at the parts.

How did you decide on this was the model

that this was going to be the most functional

that we were going to be able to do the most with?

Yeah, so the very first prototype I had produced

was out of a plastic group in Greenville, South Carolina.

And it was literally like a horseshoe type plant,

like a bend in it.

And it was funny how well you remember,

I remember those earliest days just having that prototype

and just seeing how much it's changed now.

But I started with just literally that.

And the earliest chord dividers for prototypes were PVC pipe

and a nice kind of mesh covering that went over it.

And at the time, in its earliest version,

the divider, and can't go back to the light bulb moment,

it was really just functional.

It was just a partition to stop tennis balls from,

not the curtain that goes the full length of the chord,

but there was annoying tennis balls that roll

on the back fence that would normally go into the adjacent chord.

And so it was just that idea.

And then as we're going through the patent process,

it going through that application.

And as you may know, that's a very involved process.

And but as we're going through that and trying to describe

what the best we could, it was like another,

the guy who was representing us on the legal side

from the patent and guy that was an early partner,

we came to the realization, I was like,

man, not only is this thing functional,

but it's an own court billboard.

And we've seen that play out.

And so we're starting to see it's funny, you say that,

Bobby, because we are starting to get more and more

at agencies contacting us to get the net signs

and different things and it could be court dividers.

We've had quite a few of those and seemed like more

an increasing number getting them four events.

But after I kind of got out of my own head,

which probably maybe took longer than it should,

I said, I need to really get with a designer

that does this for a living.

And we sat down and getting Brad Forest,

ideal logic, and Dernan, North Carolina,

sat down and went through the design.

And he did his took his time and as he needed to

and really came up with the best design,

which is what we have today, our patent

to transport dividers.

And so that's how it kind of evolved from there.

And we made some slight adjustments.

So we all put two covers now, the slip covers

that go over the dividers.

The divider itself is like a picture print

that uprights snap down into the base

and a horizontal snaps across the vertical columns.

And then the slip cover goes down to that over that.

And that's where the clubs or the school of colleges,

high schools put their logo on it.

And we've added a mesh cover that's a second option

if people prefer that look and the functionality of it.

So we've tried to make those adjustments

and just make the product as good as it can be

and continue to do that, whether it's with the dividers

or the signs, scorekeepers as we go.

- So we're in tennis and we know how frustrating that can be.

You have an idea you start taking it to clubs.

Obviously you're in tennis.

I was a big fan right away.

You see the need, there's an obvious need.

How, what was the process, the patience process

of educating, convincing.

And then again, the hard part about tennis,

everybody thinks 'cause of the demographic,

there's lots of money, but tennis is usually

the last one to get to spend.

Golf spend sooner.

So what was the process, what did you find

over the frustrations initially?

How long did it take to start to see the wheels

really starting to go in your favor?

- Yeah, I think it took probably,

keeping in mind, we had a sales rep,

a couple of sales rep before I even came on full time

and was working with a couple of my part owners,

with along with me and trying to do it when we could.

So keep in mind, that was the first maybe two years roughly.

And then after when I came on full time,

let's say another, probably another good couple of years,

before we really started to see some traction,

where we saw we had a good response

from college tennis programs pretty early on,

'cause they could justify recruiting

and just makes the courts look better and feel better,

have that home court advantage,

but then sell it to recruits,

the look of the court dividers and everything else.

But I think a turning point to your question,

as far as gain and traction,

after about a year, year and a half,

after I decided to make it my full time focus,

we were having some success with the dividers

and to kind of go back to what you were saying.

I can remember even from our first sales,

one of our first sales rep in our first K-Rohes,

we did a really great job for us first year

to, she met with Kelly Jones,

who was the men's coach at Ferman at the time

and Tanner Stump, I believe.

There these guys aren't there any longer, obviously,

but they were the first college program

and they ultimately added them and purchased them from us,

but they were doing the shadows,

like where are these things gonna be?

And are we gonna have enough room,

just doing some shadow, go shots,

just to make sure running back

to see if they're gonna be in the way.

So initially we got some of that,

"Hunter, they gonna get in with the way,"

or they gonna, "People get injured by these things."

And it's really interesting to see how far that's come

because we don't hardly ever get asked that anymore.

Just 'cause people are used to, they see 'em on more and more courts

and it just starting to become,

it's not to the point,

and I think it will be, I believe it will,

where it's just courts look different or almost naked

if they don't have them, but you see 'em now

and it's not so much of an unknown.

And so when people get that,

they become more familiar with it, more comfortable.

So there's less and less.

It's more about, do they fit our courts?

Are there enough room between them?

And usually there is, we're often than not,

we're often not, but it's just,

it's been interesting to see how that's evolved over time

to kind of the barrier entry,

that point of entry, there were some barriers there earlier

that just aren't there anymore.

- Well, like go to your website and you look at them,

and as I said earlier,

I don't know if we were live yet,

the facility I work at kind of built with the fence,

what you built, but I look at your website,

and it just looks so much better.

I'm like, I don't care, I want that.

Now I don't have room because I'd have to put it out

even further because of where my fence goes to,

but it does.

It just brings it up to a whole different spot

on a professionalism.

It looks like a real tournament

that is in your, at your facility,

and I was thinking with Leo Field there,

I think they bought a different alumni,

I went to TC and they were go television,

go TV, I think they bought that.

Could we look to a day where we could put the television

in the corn harbor,

and you could have running ads going on?

- Yeah, see here, yeah, absolutely.

I really think there's a lot of those,

it's funny, I laugh when I almost like,

this kind of stuff would laugh because

I've had some more thoughts of that.

You know, with all this stuff that you're seeing

with the live streaming,

there's the court divided here in a great spot.

I know they put them on the fence and those kind of things,

but you know, just as far as lights being put up there,

and so they're not just over top of you

when you're out playing and just the right kind of lights.

- Absolutely.

- Music that's coming from there and speakers,

and I mean, there's all kinds of possibilities.

But I think, you know,

and this is a great thing for everybody,

including corn harbor,

the more presence we have and have seen over

particularly last few years,

and more visibility, people are starting to think,

oh yeah, we could use these at this event,

or we could use them in this way,

where before it was just, okay, what are those?

Oh yeah, okay, they're court dividers.

And you know, it just, I think people are starting to see

how different they can be used.

Our high school model with our dividers,

as we tell, you know, say to the athletic director

of the Booster Club resident, look,

these are a tennis court divider,

that's what they're made for,

that's what they need to be used for,

and they can make your high school tennis facility,

you know, look that much better

and feel like the home court advantage brand your logo

and your program.

But heck, use them at the concession stands on Friday nights

and at the ticket gates and at all the other sports,

and sell the advertising to, you know, the local,

and it's not your typical paddle gates or bike rack,

it's something different, you know, it's,

so we're, it's one of the things that's exciting

is that I think there's so much additional growth

in those ways.

- Yeah, it calls that from the aesthetics, which is great.

You know, it just looks good.

How do we incorporate it into other aspects?

And I think with the economics, the way they are,

anyway, you can create a little bit different revenue stream.

I think everybody gets tired of selling

the card or the Christmas wrapping paper

that if you can go to somebody and say,

hey, we're not asking for donation,

we're asking for a sponsorship.

We're gonna show your, you know,

and the more interactive, the better.

So that's exciting, that's good stuff, that's good stuff.

So, but you've also, you've taken that

and you've also done some pretty high end signs as well

in scorecards, was those your designs

or, you know, a partnership with somebody?

- Yeah, so, you know, after about a year or a year and a half,

we started looking around and, you know,

we had been around long enough to wear, you know,

some fairly recognizable,

locate clubs and college programs

where we're purchasing our, the court divided.

I mean, real early on in the process,

but, you know, Ferman University, Duke University,

West Side Tennis Club Forest Hills.

You know, there was some, right out of the gate,

we were really fortunate to get some of the big guys on board,

you know, and not a real long after the National Tennis Center,

you know, probably your two or three.

So, we were having some success

and building some good credibility,

but after about a year or a year and a half,

I looked around and I'm, you know,

from a business standpoint, I'm like, okay,

we've got a proven product here.

People believe in this product,

but we're not a company, we're a product.

You know, so what else, what do we need to do,

where do we need to pivot, what's next for us?

And I had a conversation with Maid from UNCW,

you know, another kind of milestone moment.

I remember to his credit, he said,

he said, "John, there's no one out there

in the space right now in the college tennis in particular

who's doing what you're doing with the dividers

on the other court products,

court number signs, net signs, scorekeepers,

windscreens, and it was kind of a little bit

of more of another light bulb moment

'cause I thought, you know, there's,

and it's a great point.

And so I took his thought and said,

shared it with a few other college coaches,

hey, this is what I heard, Maid, do you agree?

And I said, yeah, I mean, there could be

a nice little space for you guys there.

And so from there, from that point,

we added court number signs.

And so we started to, and the approach with the approach

was very much like it is with our court dividers

and it remains this way with all of our products.

It's, you know, it's not generic, it's not vanilla,

it's, we're gonna customize it.

It's gonna be your club logo, your school logo.

We're gonna help this, it's not just a sign, you know?

And 'cause there's plenty of places you can go

and get the green number one on a white background

or, you know, black number one on a white background,

white sort of versus so, we really took a customized,

personalized approach and some of the very signs,

the first signs we made and even CW included.

And we offer three different shapes and sizes

with our court number signs, the standard,

just 12 by 14.

And just actually a little bigger than the regular standard

ones you'll see in a lot of courts.

And then our rectangular and then our horizontal.

But so a little bit different size, a little,

little bigger in size and the, you know,

score club logos, colors.

And so then we just took that approach

with each of our products that we've been adding

in recent years, our net signs and our scorekeepers.

Another one that, you know, there was a version,

somewhat similar version of our current scorekeepers

that were at UGA, but it was just the kind of raw metal

and where we customized it black, you know,

but paint them black powder coat on,

put the logos on them, colored logos.

And so that's really what we have

are really hanging our hat on and continuing to focus on

is we want to be that company that if you want to brand

your courts, make your lower courts look better,

you know, look cleaner, look professional,

you know, provide that home court advantage

and I'll help you do that, you know, and it's,

and so with each product we've done,

we've added the court sirens, the scorekeepers

or windscreens, that's the approach, you know,

we really really take.

- Do you work with any court makers, you know,

the guys who actually build their,

'cause obviously, again, but the tennis coach hat

on for a second, we want courts designed

that require court harbor because we want

side by side courts because it makes it easier

to run junior drills, you know,

and always the subdivisions up here usually

are two courts and then we separate another two courts.

So, you know, I'm like, so do you have any partnerships

that are helping push the model that, hey,

now that this exists, we can accomplish the separation

that we need to accomplish and make the facility

more functional.

- Yeah, so, and it's a good timing on that question

because we're at a point in kind of our growth

in our market presence where this is a natural next phase

for us, you know, there's been a lot of individual

Craig Turnbull from our team, he's our vice president

of business development, that's a great job of,

where a lot of our focus previously was more on the clubs,

the private clubs, the college teams,

some of the high school teams, which is still is,

but, you know, Craig's really done a great job,

he's been with us almost two years now,

and expanding our reach and focus on the ad agencies,

the court construction companies, you know,

the designers of the courts, you know, places that, you know,

where there are multiple facilities, you know,

so where there's not just that one.

You know, the one facility will,

I hope will always be part of our focus,

because I think it's needed to customize approach

the relationships, but as we're growing in this market,

growth, the scale, you know, where we,

I can see more of that, and we started to have more

of that recently, those relationships and partnering with folks.

- Well, on the advertising side, I think it's a natural fit.

I mean, you know, as we run up against,

there's a lot of people locally that want to get involved,

but that's a limited budget.

The national people are harder to reach,

but in your kind of stuck in between,

but you're not asking for the vault

that a professional event would ask for,

you get, you're gonna be able to,

and they're gonna get more reps,

because it's always gonna be there.

So, as I said, 10 years ago,

I thought that was a great direction,

and you know, as you get saturated,

like you said, it's nice that they're coming to you.

You know, they have their book, and this is,

hey, this is, I have a tennis, you know,

how many facilities, boom, you can be a part of it,

and especially, obviously college university settings,

everybody wants to be in front of that advertiser,

or that demographic from early on,

so they're with them for their lives.

- Yeah, Bobby, I think, you know, the live streaming too,

this, taking thanks to another level of opportunity,

and just, I think the increased presence for us

and reach the past few years,

which is seeing the more and more,

and we've got, it give you an idea of our geographic scope,

our strongest states, or North Carolina,

which we're happy about, that's our home state,

we hope that'll always be strong,

but after North Carolina, California, Texas,

and Florida, and Georgia, those are our top states,

and so one of the things I really think about is,

how do we continue to grow those markets,

products we're offering, just great customer service,

great quality product being,

things that we're doing and already doing,

but continuing to build on what we're doing,

add and increase that market area,

but also some areas that may be known as in the Midwest,

and some areas, California's strong,

but there's lots of growth and potential in Colorado

and some other areas, so,

there's just kind of where my thoughts go on some of that.

- Well, Arizona is about to blow up as well,

another, just out of curiosity,

and I know we're going, this is more for my own mentor,

I apologize, just in the indoor facilities,

growing up indoors, there was always those silly nets.

You can get, they were ugly, do you ran into them?

You know, don't talk about being in the way,

your product alleviates the need for those nets,

so it's a great thing,

have you had any success with the indoor facilities?

- You know, we really have,

and I get excited talking about that

because I didn't think that was even a play for us.

- Yeah, I love that, hey, they've got the curtains,

those are just been around forever,

and we started to have some,

and we didn't rule it out,

we just didn't put a ton of focus on it, you know?

And so, as some facilities and programs started to add,

ours that also had the indoor and outdoor,

West Autinis clubs are good example,

they use them on their indoor courts

and the outdoor courts,

and more of our facilities, our customers are doing that.

But early on, we just didn't put a lot of focus on it,

and now there is an increasing number of clubs, colleges

that are using them indoors in place of the curtains.

Now, they may still use the curtains,

just from a functional standpoint,

you know, in their cabin drills or ball machine,

things like that,

but a lot of times they'll pull the curtains all the way back,

but our dividers are there,

and you know, so University of Kentucky does that,

University of Tennessee,

Oizy State was one of our earliest customers,

that was the indoor, for their indoor courts,

so we're just seeing, you know,

really an increased number of drinks,

doing Liberty University ad,

among a lot more indoor courts.

And you know, you don't have to worry about win,

but you've got the,

you still got the functionality of the ball being stopped,

just like you do on the outdoor courts,

and the branding aspect.

- And give me those nets.

- But, yeah, exactly.

Bob, forgive me interrupting,

one of the things I love to do, John,

'cause we're gonna get your best ideas,

the King of Tennis question,

but we also every once in a while, Bob will say,

hey, if you talk to someone, so we'll try to connect people

and make sure that hopefully you get

some significant value out of this conversation as well,

but then we also get a chance to throw those tennis coach ideas,

or those tennis pro ideas at you,

because you're the guy doing it.

It's not like we're gonna come out and compete with you,

and I go, oh, I'm gonna go do it better.

I wanna help you, Bob, he wants to help you,

and I'm just sitting here listening to all this,

going, okay, well, where's the one for the traveling coach?

So if you wanna go into Georgia, and you need me as a coach,

and I need two of these, 'cause I got a lot of two court facilities,

I'm just gonna pretend I'm that guy for a second,

'cause I've been that guy,

and I need one that can kind of fold up,

and go in a little bag, and I can carry two of them,

and I can bring it out of the court with me,

and it pops up, and it says,

Sean Boyz, tennis, okay, I should do this better, Bob,

he's sorry, go tennis.

Making Atlanta tennis better than it already is,

and I need to be able to pop that out of my trunk

and stick it on a court, even if it's for a day and hour.

I'm looking at the size of these things and the cost.

When does that potential happen

beyond just me having my big panel van

that I could pull these things out,

and set them up maybe a little less permanently?

What does that look like for you,

or is that just my personal Atlanta tennis coach pipe dream?

Well, let me just say Sean, I love how you think.

That's kind of how I think about those kind of different

possibilities, and what's next for us,

and I would say that I think there's definitely

a need for that.

I believe that, so I heard it here first,

but in the next few weeks,

we're coming out with a Pickleball court divider

that is specifically for a court for Pickleball,

different design, a little bit different look,

same functionality, same brand capabilities,

and that should be out in the next three to four weeks,

and we're excited about that.

Reason I say that, I can see a next for us,

and we actually, you're welcome,

I love you to come to our biweekly staff meetings

with those ideas.

- I'll take over.

- I'll take over.

- Yeah, that's all right.

But it's talk about what makes sense for us next,

and what's in line, what aligns with our current product line,

what's functional, what's brandable,

what's customized, and Craig Turnbull,

given credit, I mentioned earlier from our team,

has mentioned that part of what we're thinking

needs to be is that courtable, that guy is showing up,

and his thoughts were along the lines of Pickleball,

the people that are playing, that just want their own.

Maybe there's a facility that's shared, but they want.

The facility's not gonna be adding anything,

they're their knowledge, but they wanna have it

when they're playing.

So if I've come up from a player standpoint,

or that Pickleball teaching pro or coach,

but I do like the way you're thinking,

and I think that could be a good possibility down the road.

Thanks Bobby, I needed to jump in,

I've sitting around my brains running,

I'm like, well, why haven't they done this thing?

Why haven't you done this yet?

And Bobby and I understand the business side of these things,

there's only so much you can do in a day.

But you've got to decide which, you got to maintain your lane,

like you said, do we just stick with this thing,

and stay here and do this thing?

Well, you've also got Pickleball paddles,

you can do wind screens, you do the court,

you guys do a lot of different stuff.

And I think sometimes that's by virtue of,

I say by virtue of by nature of being in business long

and up and say, well, if we're doing this thing,

it's a natural next step to do the other thing.

But I'm guessing also do you see this John where somebody says,

all right, well, I've got the court dividers

and I'm doing everything, but I also need wind screens.

And you're like, ah crap, we're not really set up for that yet.

But call me and it's like, hey guys, quick, get set up,

we need to do it, like, because you're gonna do things

kind of potentially in a scenario

where people are branding their courts.

So you might wanna come in with a full six court solution

or a 22 rather than just the one thing that you got, right?

Yeah, so a really great point because our goal is to,

like I said, with our continued goal to be that go to,

one stop shot for your branded solution for courts.

We don't want them to go anywhere else.

So I'll give you an example.

So we've recently added, as we started,

I mentioned the other products before the dividers,

court number signs and net signs, score keepers,

wind screen, that's our current product line.

But then, I'll give you another example is single sticks.

They just, they fit.

We may not be selling a ton of them,

but we don't want someone else to go somewhere else to get them.

And for their sake, ad ours.

So I feel like that'll be something we add.

Another one thing is player, benches and chairs.

Anything that can kind of be really on the court.

And some of these things are purchased and needed more often than not,

and more often than some others.

But if it's a product that's on the court,

I'd like for that to be a product of ours.

As you guys know, it takes some time with the supplier side,

and are we making it?

And we really try to make as much of ours.

It's 99% of ours, 95% at least,

is made by Court Harbor, SC logo, our partner company.

Onside or down the road, which is part of what we do with a vendor,

close by.

But we really, yes, that was the thing we really hang our hat on.

Another reason SC logo is a great partner,

has been a great partner for us,

is they're in the logo business.

They do promotional items to caparral and lanyards and wrap signs

and vehicle wraps and things like that.

So synergy there and resources and everything that was already on site has made it,

you know, a really good partnership for us, for Court Harbor.

And I like that one stop shop idea.

Bobby, I want to hit it with King of Tennis.

You got anything else?

I'm sure besides the obvious thousand more questions, man.

I was going to say, don't we believe in that one stop shop idea as well?

Exactly, exactly.

To get the thing, all right, here's what I'm working on.

This is the court branding system, whatever it is.

When you're doing those things, it's nice to have that one vendor that can come in.

We work, we talk directly a lot with Mike Inburnone who says,

"Hey, I can help you with a lot of these things."

It's not necessarily what they do, but they can help you get a court bench.

And John, hopefully at some point, you can figure out how to get us a court bench

that's a little better than the plastic one that still costs $300.

I just like that myself.

But we'll have to talk to Encore to Encore to Encore about their pricing another time.

So Bobby, anything else?

I'm good.

Awesome.

Well, John, we've got, and I'll remind everybody at the end, we've got a deal that you guys

are offering, which I appreciate to our audience, which is 5% off of some specific products.

I think you said, which are your court signage and your Encore custom dividers, which Bobby

have already been shopping.

I think we need these go tennis dividers that we can carry with us and put on court.

So Bobby and I are going to work on that, John, but you're also offering free shipping to

our audience.

And I will put all of that information in the show notes.

We will make sure all of that is shared with everybody, your website, and everything everyone

needs to get in touch with you or probably Craig is from what I'm hearing.

Here's to where a lot of people are going to go with questions and potential, potential

buying of some really cool stuff.

And the windscreen too, I can't, we underestimate that in my opinion of a tennis court of having

those windscreens and having a logo there, even if it's just a neighborhood and we've got

what, 600 neighborhoods at least with a couple of tennis courts that can put a nice neighborhood

logo up there.

Or if they were smart, maybe allow go tennis to sponsor a neighborhood or 599 other ones.

But enough of my running my mouth, John, our last question always ends with if you were

king of tennis and that is of the whole world or just court tennis courts, just North Carolina,

whatever it is.

If you were king of tennis any given timeframe, whatever it takes, is there anything you

would do or change in the tennis world?

Was this for one day or do I get like a multi year contract?

Whatever it takes.

Whatever it takes.

I would do everything in my power to, I've got some ideas, but that might have to be a different

conversation.

To remove the barriers for the youth for kids, different backgrounds, demographics.

And I think a lot of times tennis golf would be another one.

I can't speak, I'm not as close to golf as I'm tennis, but I don't mean so much.

I do think we should remove or at least reduce as much as possible the barriers of any kid

no matter their background, their mom and dad's income, having opportunity.

And so I mean by being at the local courts, being able to get instruction, where financial

situation is not a obstacle, but also the tournaments.

There's other travel tournaments in baseball and basketball.

You see, you hear about kids getting scholarship so they're able to do it because it's not cheap

as we know.

But something, and maybe there's, I'm not maybe quite plus enough, maybe there is something

like that, but where there's a lot more, not only, there's opportunity, but then hopefully

that opportunity turns into interest.

And there's ideas on the pro side, but maybe we have to make that another conversation.

I'll keep going.

But we do too.

I'll be, I'm good with that.

Okay.

You've got an idea.

What you got?

So, and I know there's been some recent discussion on this, but I'm definitely an advocate

on the pro tennis to have a shorter calendar, not starting January with the Australian

Open.

So, I would reduce the overall playing calendar to six, maybe eight months, where each major

split out six to eight weeks and then have it, you know, I'm in NASCAR country.

So maybe that model rubs off on me a little, but have it to where it's more like a point

system where there's more culmination excitement for the end of the season.

So they're building, and I know they do the, what they call that at the end, very end

of the year where the top guys come.

Forget finals, yeah.

But, but you know, just have more of that culmination of pulling for someone through the

season, you know, maybe even form some teams from different major cities in the US or throughout

the world.

Everybody loves a good team, put four or five players on a team, pull for them from week

to week.

And Bobby, it sounds a little bit like UTS that they've got going on right now, but also

I'm thinking world team tennis, you got some experience there, right?

Well, I'm the laughing just, it sounds like a lot of the things that people have already

said to us and it's amazing.

It's calendar, yeah.

It's calendar, certainly a hot button.

The aspect of the team has been very popular as well.

And you know, why aren't the powers of B list?

And to me, it always goes back to you.

So it sounds like there's a leadership void in the top.

Again, that's a different conversation and we don't need to bash.

But it's it's so true.

And I love the set it as well as far as the way we give money to the youth programs, you

know, instead of wasting money trying to give it to a coach and say, okay, this is your

salary.

You're going to bring in kids and let them play tennis and let them learn it this way.

We're spending the money anyway.

Let's allocate the money differently.

And I'm probably shot, I mean, a John's background in college athletics and trying to raise revenue

is very helpful.

But I see this, you know, the revenue model needs to change.

Local level, high school level, college level, it needs to change.

And you know, hopefully it will be a lot longer enough to see it, but it needs to change.

I'd love to also see a system where you've got, let's say you've got, you decide whether

64 or 128 is the right draw size for those players get in, you know, and that they've earned

it kind of similar to a PGA card, you know, they've earned their spot for that year.

But then you've got some of the challenge or below it.

So they're below that 64 or 128.

And man, they're they're they're grinding away trying to get one of those top 64 spots,

you know, and then if you lose first round, maybe you got to play some of those guys, you

know, they've worked their way up to that have some have a little bit more competitiveness

at those levels too.

But that was another thing that just came up.

So John, you're right on and I love the NASCAR analogy.

I always say that tennis needs to go higher than NASCAR marketing guy or the WWE because

if you can sell something where everybody makes a left turn or something that you know

the outcome is predetermined and you're still selling out arenas, you're doing a pretty

good job promoting what you're doing.

And that was one of my first instances experiences in sports was at Talladega when I was in graduate

school and I was so impressed with the fan interaction and we did a survey for Hershey.

And you know, I just said the demographic of the crowd might have been what I expected.

But everybody knew who their driver was and to the point everybody knew every sponsor

of their driver.

And were they more likely to purchase because they were a sponsor of their driver.

Absolutely.

The brand loyalty was incredible.

Tennis I've always said spend as far too much time selling a player.

Not enough time selling the game.

So when we have a great player, we have a Renaissance in tennis.

But if we sold the game like with golf where golf has always been sold, then you get a tiger,

it goes to a whole another level.

And tennis has always waited around it and now we're waiting for the next great American.

And it's a global game.

That's crazy.

We need to, you know, again, change.

I love the team ideas.

I love the PGA card analogies.

All that is all come up.

So again, hopefully somebody's listening to us.

And in between each court, there will be a court order.

So it just seems perfect.

I think right.

We'll be happy to provide the signage and other product court product.

Exactly.

Exactly.

So we got this thing wired.

And John, Bobby got John the hook because I was going to push back.

We often get the King and Tennis question that comes in.

I'd like to make it more accessible for you.

I'd like to make it more affordable.

There's always these ideas.

But then I'm going to push back and I'm going to say, yeah, but John, how are you going

to do that?

Because everybody's, well, if I'm King, I'd snap my fingers and say, this is, it's all

now affordable.

Well, okay, you just put a lot of tennis pros in the poor house.

And that's going to be a dangerous thing.

But Bobby kind of saved you today because I think his idea, which I've always appreciated

is if the USDA actually spent the money well, again, from our point of view, maybe it's

not a leadership problem, Bobby.

Maybe it's, there are things we don't actually understand going on.

Like when you become president of the United States, you learn all the things that you can't

actually do during your campaign that you said you were going to do.

But John, the opportunity side, I like it a lot.

And Bobby throws out the idea and say, okay, how would Bobby do it?

I get it.

Next time, John, I'm going to push and I'm going to say, how are you going to help with those

opportunities?

Because those are the real things I think that can help people, that can get those kids playing.

And that's why I love the King of Tennis question because it's a, here's what I would love

to do.

The question is, then, is it actually possible or am I just doing a pipe dream again?

Yeah, so I'll love this discussion and I think the quick answer that we didn't need to drill

down into next time is of course, it's relationships.

It's getting the, you know, I know this is an overused phrase, but getting the right people

in the room having these hard, frank discussions.

I don't, it doesn't seem to me, and I don't know the, the ins and outs of the governing

bodies revenue and bottom dollar, but it doesn't seem like lack of money as the issue.

So it's more of an allocation issue, you know?

And so where, where are we spending these dollars that's really not growing the game and

really making a difference in getting people, and racking in people's hands?

Well, there you have it.

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