Hey, hey, this is Shaun with the award-winning GoTennis! Podcast, powered by Signature Tennis.
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And now let's get into our recent conversation with Bruce Hartrich, a seasoned tennis coach
and founder of TennisEdge CRM, who shares his insights on modernizing tennis club management
with innovative software, the importance of technology in increasing court utilization,
and his King of Tennis answer focuses on making tennis more accessible for kids.
The discussion covers software, features like churn detection, AI-driven court management,
and strategies to grow the sport.
Have a listen and let us know what you think.
Who are you and why do we care?
First of all, thanks for having me.
I'm a 30-plus year veteran of the tennis industry.
I started coaching pretty much right out of college.
I started then multiple.
I did actually spend a few, for quite a few years at top part time as I did financial services
when I was younger and married.
But I've been doing it full-time in the Indian apps for about 17 years now.
I've been running my own program here for the last 17 years.
I've got a passion for sport, love doing it, but recently I've guided a little more
to that, to be more than that, to start developing software as well.
Okay, so let's stick with your day-to-day and what you do teaching tennis.
What a lot of us came from or where we came from.
You say you run your own programming there.
Are you part of a club?
Do you work at a facility?
Do you have a basket of balls in the back of your car and you drive around wherever you're
needed?
What does your tennis life look like?
So I have a couple different public facilities.
They're in the outdoor season.
In a winter time, I rent courts actually from a apartment complex.
I usually sit there with two courts.
I rent two courts for the winter.
It's my spot.
I do lessons there.
I rent one of the courts.
I have a couple other guys.
I've been on them as well.
I do actually believe it's not more adults.
I do kids these days.
I love teaching.
I actually enjoy teaching adults.
I want to do kids.
They always want to be there.
I had a dog with a very competitive player.
She would grow mad.
At least in the adults, it's always about fun.
Kids, you get these tournaments and you watch.
You see, you see, you're mad at the scene it goes on nowadays.
It's made it to socialize much better than it used to be.
There's cheers when you're kids, but I mean, there's the only level in the last 10 years
I feel like.
Maybe the next generation version of learning had to cheat well.
I don't think we were any good at it back in the day.
Yeah, well, I know I'm back in the day.
I mean, I feel like we were kids.
If you do a guy, you're a sun guy, I'd be like, hey, I'll smack you.
I mean, thanks to my right.
Yeah.
I remember what you're seeing almost some fights at the kid tournament.
I mean, it's, you know, now the kid is kind of, now I'm getting
to cheat, what am I going to do about it?
But anyway, yes, you know, I teach a lot of adult classes.
I do do some juniors as well.
I do a lot of groups, cardio, drill, and you probably less than as well.
Well, that's just day to day.
I usually teach something about six days a week.
You just try to take one day a week off with teaching, but I don't teach as much I used
to.
You know, my focus is I want to be able to teach something like really old.
I actually, it's fun.
Last year, some of my ass and I was going to retire.
I said, probably never.
Is that intentional?
You just love teaching body to the last?
Like Bobby and I are looking to get out.
No good may wrongs.
Yeah.
You know, what's fun is that like I see a lot of people retire and then like, you know, unless
you come back, you know, you can like travel like do every one all the time.
I mean, you get bored and you actually, I can make you die younger.
I don't know.
Bobby, are you going to get bored doing whatever you want all the time?
I'm not sure.
Well, I think as you said, the caveat is if you can afford it, could I keep myself busy
not working?
Absolutely.
But that would require some financing.
That's why I'm going to work the rest of my life because I don't have the financing.
You know, you can always like work part time.
I mean, you know, if you, you're teaching 10 to 15 hours a week, you get plenty of time
to do what you want, but at the same time, you're still bringing in comments.
You know, where you're, you're never going to get burned out.
That's true.
Maybe we got to do it.
I got a different target.
I got to tell my wife, my we're going to retire.
I'm not, not going to do this full time.
I don't want to work all the time.
I don't love working that much.
Don't you want to.
I love what I do.
The podcast is fantastic.
It's great.
But we just did some content recently trying to help people figure out how to retire better.
And in that case, maybe if you want to work as opposed to having to work is maybe a different
scenario.
You love it a little bit better.
You get it because I can't.
And I enjoy it not because I have.
Which, yeah, well, if you did why you get it also folks in your house a lot, could you get
it to it?
I think you get older you get to stay healthy.
Absolutely.
Very true.
Bobby and I talk about that a lot.
He's always drinking some concoction, trying to stay healthy.
So get away from Margarita and drinking concoction instead of.
Exactly.
Avoid Margarita's more seaweed out here.
So let's then talk about software.
So I think that's where we are.
This is where kind of our question of why are you unique because we can all teach you tennis
lesson.
We can many of us can run a club.
I like the idea and Bobby and I are going to have to have an offline conversation about the
idea of subletting a court that you're renting.
I think that's fantastic.
I've got the contract, but I'm going to rent it out to other people.
Teaching lessons.
That's a great way to do it.
But talk to us about your software.
You've got tennis edge CRM.
What's that?
So a while back, I had people start to hit me up about, you know, we're going to solve for
for me and for my program.
And so one day I thought, you know what?
I'm going to forget the side of my own.
I built my own software to run my program, which it can work for independent guy like me,
working work for a full-on club.
You know, with 15 courts and 10 tick wall courts and we can even build in a program.
If you've got FME, if you've got, you know, dining your club.
So it's set up so basically I can customize it for you and your club, whatever you do.
There's different models I can put in or take out.
Very customizable.
Utilizes some of that.
One of the things I think you need about it compared to other software right now is oftentimes,
you know, I found it's my own business.
People will drift away if I catch it, if I catch it, then use that I can save it.
But if I don't catch it, after water is gone.
And you know, people when they're leaving a show assign like it, you know, yes, my place
twice a week for anything to do for two years and all suddenly show once a month and it
stays like that.
That prime means maybe they're disinterested or something's coming up.
If you catch it right away, you can figure out what's going on.
You know, if you don't catch it, they're going to be gone.
So one of the things I've built into the software is it's called a shurn detection.
Basically, this looks for members that are drifting away.
They might not be engaging in much.
It basically assigned everyone to score.
And once it gets the score to flow a little more, it looks like they might be thinking about
leaving them alert to hey, you can contact, you know, John, or whatever.
Make sure that file is going on.
Maybe you get them an offer, maybe you offer them a half price, a price less than something.
You do something to get them more engaged because I found my own business.
If I got to contact the people who had poured out of gauge left nine times at a tent, they
started coming back more often.
I say, but I didn't.
You know, they were going.
Yeah, I think shurn detection might be my favorite feature.
And there are lots of features, but that one I was most excited about when I heard about
it.
And Bobby's been talking about this one for a while, but where's the difference?
Because we have an interesting time in the racquet sports world right now is Bobby's out
there finding all the different court management systems and club management and all the softwares.
It seems like everybody's got one right now.
Yours seems unique in a few ways.
Can you tell us about that?
What's different is it's got AI attached to it that looks for places to basically add revenue.
For example, if you have a club, you got a court that's open.
It's say you're three hours not being tied to the court.
And so time, they should be booked.
It'll look for the right people to send a quick text out to or email out to your both
to say, "Hey, this court's open."
And maybe if you want to put in a, it's going to give it a three-hour way, 20% just out.
No.
The thing about courts, they're just sitting there open, they're making no money.
Then they would do, if you, you know, for your lessons, if you have a fine spot that's open,
the AI can look for the right person or people to text off or spot it.
That way, you know, I know Bobby won't be teaching.
It's kind of hard sometimes to be taxed people, right?
As much as you have a system available for you, they can make life a little easier for you.
I of course, if I'm teaching safe on a Saturday for nine to three, I don't want more than 30
minutes off tops.
First time in Australia, I was teaching six hours straight.
I mean, not taking any time off.
So if I have no, I would love to have something that can fill up for me versus, you know,
okay, an hour off.
I don't want to go eat for an hour.
I feel like I'm wasting my time.
Bobby, that's interesting because I compare it back to 20 years ago.
And when it was pencil and paper and we had that idea where the ProShop Manager would come
out to us on court and tell me if he experiences, maybe I just tell you mine.
ProShop Manager would come out and say, "Hey, Sean, you had an opening from 11 to 12 and
I want to let you know somebody called in and booked that lesson time."
You didn't really get a say.
You didn't say, "Well, I was hoping to not have that because I didn't block it off.
It's my own fault."
But now Bruce is telling us there is magic in his system that will find someone to either
use an open court or fill my lesson book.
Bobby, why aren't we using this already?
Because it's not a business in Atlanta, unfortunately.
That's the, you know, the big problem.
It's in HOA.
So I do like to eat for an hour.
I don't have a boss telling me to make $80 more for profit or just for gross revenue.
And it's just, it's a different bird down here.
I mean, that's why it's so great to talk to these guys to see what you have to do to run
a business.
And you know, because there's still ideas that we certainly need and we can use.
I mean, I think the churn is great.
You know, that was the type of things.
I love the aspect of the waiting list, whether it be for a drill or a court to be able
to know it for.
It says, I get notified when I'm in the court.
I don't bring my phone on the court.
You know, I think that's if you're booking me, you're getting my attention.
I don't want to be looking to see what the club, you know, the club needs or the HOA needs.
So those messages go on to answer.
So I think, you know, these are things that I'm excited about with technology.
They're just going to make our lives easier down here.
So I do need this because we are on the court and we have no support.
Bruce, you've had recent conversations with HOAs in the Atlanta area.
How does that go?
How can you convince a group of people?
We have plenty of listeners in the Atlanta metro area that understand how rarely I'm going
to be as nice as I can.
How rarely HOAs make good decisions when it comes to rackets boards.
I'm just going to be nice about it.
And to be able to say, guys, this is, this can be more than an amenity.
There is revenue you're leaving on the table.
If you treated it more like a business or allowed your director of tennis, such as Bobby
Schindler to treat it more as a business, you could do more.
You could actually make money from these facilities.
Are you able to make any headway with the types that just aren't listening?
I mean, if you get me in front of the directors, I mean, I said director of the board members,
I guess.
I think I can make headway.
It's a matter of, they have to see it.
Most people, though, like you say, they're all these boards.
They're kind of one sided.
It's just a matter of getting in front of them to see what's available and then let them
make hopefully a good decision because honestly, I mean, for example, if you've got a good
pro, one of the best ways of keeping is to give them just a little bit better software.
You know, because the thing is that what I've always found is if you don't give someone what
they need and someone else does, that's how you lose sometimes a good person.
And the thing is, yes, it's an amenity for your members, but the thing is don't you want
to keep your members acting?
The other thing is it's not just good to pro, but if you can make the weightless, for example,
is good for the members as well because they now can do a class.
They want to do that.
They didn't think they could do because there's an automation.
I let them know it's available versus, oh, shoot, I wish I was available.
I'd have been there.
Yeah, exactly.
And I think back to 2017, when I had a similar idea and I said, the weightless is really important
to what we do because it can also create its own group.
It can create its own lesson to be able to say, you know what, if six people want to do
a thing at the same time and they all choose the right timeframe, just book it, put it
in there, bill them and I'll show up.
And with the court usage scenario, it's not as important in the metro area here because
court time is free more often than not.
You either remember or you're living in a neighborhood where you just walk onto the court.
So court utilization is not as important from a revenue standpoint, but from an activity
standpoint.
That means you've got more people coming to your events, which is revenue, to your lessons,
which is revenue.
And in that case, there's a lot more you can do.
And that's where, in this case, this kind of magic, I call it, is just amazing because
it's less than 10 years later.
And I said, hey, somebody should build this.
And I looked into building it and saw how difficult it was and how expensive it is to put
all this together, which then makes me wonder, you've also got a different pricing structure
that you have to convince people as to how you like to do things.
Or do you have the options of typical monthly pricing and your separate options?
I have different pricing structure.
And the look you're looking for, like for HOA, $1,000 a year, which I think for what I provide,
is pretty reasonable.
That's pretty reasonable.
And that's if I've got two courts or 17 courts.
Yeah, no, no, I mean, yeah, yeah, there's no limit on the course.
Okay.
So $1,000 a year and I'm renting your system.
Now, you have another option as well, but I can actually purchase a license.
How does that work?
So basically, you pay a flat fee up front, and then that would even include all your hosting,
updates the first two years.
Then starting year three, you can take it on your own, which honestly, I can actually
show you how to make updates for you.
You can pay a small hosting fee and update fee and I'll take it up for you.
Okay.
So it's back to the old idea that I bought Windows 98 and I had the DVD and I put it in and
it was mine and I could put it in and I didn't have to keep paying monthly for whatever
it is.
Now, in those movies description.
What's happened is several years ago, these companies realized, you know what, we can
start making it by its life just for one big subscription and make a lot more money out
of it.
I mean, if you look, I mean, and honestly, that's what they're trying to do everywhere and
that's how they monetize us.
You know, I didn't get into this just to make a lot of money.
You know, I want to help other coaches and other businesses, but, you know, anyway, and
you see these companies, they, you know, they, they're big companies now.
They, they're getting money from venture capital.
If you're getting money from venture capital, you are going to be raising prices.
I got managed money for five, few years, but in early 2000s and I've got a bunch of guys,
I mean, I, I need several head shred managers.
If you get venture capital money, the, the, they want to keep raising prices.
That's how they make their money.
Otherwise, they're not going to give you that much.
Then, then it didn't work that way.
I mean, it's, it's about, you know, most businesses work that way.
I don't think I am for anything that I used to.
That's not an uncommon problem.
Bobby, you're right.
It's about 10% of a year.
No.
I'm saying businesses, not Bobby.
We need to try to keep Vince Bobby to do that for a long time because yes, his cell phone
goes up with everything goes up.
Everything we have to pay goes up.
Businesses go up.
Now, Bobby wants to leave his prices not going up.
All right.
I want to, I want to be a member of Bobby's club because it sounds like I'm getting a great
coach at a deal.
But yeah, I mean, most businesses are raising prices incrementally.
So I don't think that's too far out of range.
Now, 10% a year, maybe that's high.
That's it.
Yeah.
Price increases.
I mean, I just, but that's what happens though.
I mean, when, when, I mean, a SaaS company is not going to get bought out or given
a measure of tackle, they're not expecting to extract money out of you.
There's no, I mean, there's just no reason for you to do it otherwise.
I mean, that's what they do.
And oftentimes they can't leave them.
I mean, well, who was it about club, club essential a couple of years ago?
I can't remember now.
I know they have like $1.3 billion in debt.
And so if you're, if you're borrowing money like that, what's that tell you?
I mean, they've got a raised price to keep up.
Yeah, I can see that unless you can, you know, they say make it up in volume, right?
So if you can scale it, then your price doesn't have to go up as much.
But if you're trying to monetize your current customer base, that makes a lot of sense.
I know most people I talk to that club automation, for example, always tell me how, when they
first got it, they didn't realize how much of it didn't cost them.
Sure.
And then when they start adding on all the value ads, they'll be like, oh, you want texting.
That's going to be another of this.
Oh, you want this.
You can have for that.
And all of a sudden, you $100 a month becomes $200 a month.
I know a guy in Fort Wayne, he's close paying that spending about $1100 a month of club automation.
And we don't have the offices.
It's a tennis pick up all club with the restaurant bar, lunch bar.
And that is something, that is something your software could handle and replace at $1,000
a year.
Well, for a club like him, it'd be a little more than that.
That's right.
You gave me the 808 number.
I'd be draft me less of a moth finger.
Definitely.
Oh, yeah, maybe not 10%.
But yeah, that makes a lot of sense.
Okay.
Bobby, you've looked into this more normally on the one Bruce that does the two diligence
and Bobby likes to be color.
But Bobby, you've actually done some research on this.
Well, again, like I said, the little things that I'm looking at.
I'm looking for just to help my life easier.
You know, too often when you're a director, you become associated with what you're using
and they call you for customer service.
I'm like, I don't work for the company.
I am renting, you know, leasing a company for you.
Called their customer service.
So just to facilitate that, knowing that this customer service, knowing it's going to be
reliable, prompt customer service.
And then looking at the little extra things that immediately are going to make my life easier.
So that is always going to get interest.
Right now, of course, anything to do with AI, I'm very interested in because, you know,
I see this being something that AI eventually can get into.
And you made a comment earlier, Sean, and we laughed, you know, 20 years ago, shoot.
We started with courts eight years ago.
You know, eight, nine years ago, we started interesting go courts, KOR UTS.
And back then it was 90 or 95% of facilities were still on paper in pencil.
So just we've come so far in such a short period of time and obviously COVID was a big stimulus
behind that.
And we laughed because though he didn't use a name, Bruce is speaking about a company that
I feel has six, you know, a lot of success because of the work that courts did laying the
foundation and being out on the streets, educating people.
And then when courts decided it wasn't going to be as wealthy and they probably grew that
decision now, they got out.
But at that point, they had educated everybody.
Everybody was ready to pull because they wanted to limit contact with people because of
the COVID scare.
And there's somebody in the space right now doing very, very well.
And again, you'll hope that they don't nobody rests on their laurels because the technology
is exciting.
And you know, you want to, I think there's some point you always got to give back.
You know, yeah, raise your prices, but you got to be cognizant of the market you're working
with, especially here because we're not a business.
So you know, it's going to be a hard sell if you walk into an H.O.
Like because the funny part is, you know, what we were talking about, everybody wants to
say their H.O.A. is this, that, the other thing.
But when it gets right down to it, in their mind, the courts are theirs.
So it might sound like a great idea we want more activity.
It might set, but if it means you're not going to get three courts for an out of notch, wait
time out.
I want my three.
I know I'm only need two.
I am supposed to get two, but that third one makes my day.
I don't have to be here through three o'clock anymore.
So wait a minute.
Let's think about all those things.
So, you know, it's tough.
It's everybody wants everything.
That's right.
You know, we're in a survey driven world.
I'm like, gosh.
You can, whoever said, no, I want more.
You know, or I, let me give you more.
Oh, no, I'm good.
Thank you.
I'm so content with what I got now.
So, you know, always looking.
And this is at a price point for Atlanta giving features that are, you know, very usable for
all of it.
And of course, in our situation as well, I love the fact that an independent coach could
use this and make their life better.
And give that feeling of professionalism, even though they're not associated with the facility
or one facility, we still have a lot of very good independent coaches in Atlanta.
So anything we can do to up their game a little bit and present themselves in a little bit
of, you know, better light, I love these companies out there because it helps them as well.
Oh, yeah.
Real quick.
For an independent coach, he's actually buying us on his own without an HOA.
But then it's actually, it's a thousand dollars the first year than five hundred dollars
a year after that.
So even cheaper, yeah, Bobby, we're still only looking not that expensive.
And that's, and that's doubt at least looking.
He's dropping his prices and you're giving me a hard time for not really.
I don't drop my prices.
I've given you, you would if you could.
I've been giving you, giving you hell for this for five, six years now.
In this capacity, Sean is right.
I started this, like you said, Bruce, right?
We started right around the same time about 30 years ago.
The basic, where I've worked, they based a core time for a drill per person, twelve dollars
an hour.
30 years later, we base it on not quite $18 an hour.
So you sit there and go, okay, you know, the old WMoney every seven years, well, we certainly
haven't done that.
So yeah, we might be a little slow to the game to raise over 30 years that we've only
got up 70%.
So it is a little, you know, not even 70%.
We might be a little bit behind in that.
But again, I think that that's the problem with tennis up until what's going on recently.
We haven't really taken the next step with technology.
Therefore, we couldn't give the little add-ons that all these new technology providing access
to information, the ability to enhance communication, push notifications, all these things.
Now, this is why it's an exciting time in the industry where technology is catching
up and getting into it.
And, you know, I think that will allow us to raise our prices.
And to, like you said, listen, if I didn't have to get off the court at the end of the day
and spend another hour going through emails and making phone calls, I would take that, you
know, would meet my lunch hour and a half break.
You know, I might book a next to a half hour lesson over the span of a year every day.
That ends up, you know, a half hour every day over the span of a year.
That substantially changes my bottom line.
So, you know, and if I got my other three guys next to me doing the same thing, yeah, that
moves the needle.
So, anything we can do to, you know, make ourselves more productive and more energetic.
But let's go.
Well, and this is a good scenario because you talk about the pro-looking more professional
club being more efficient.
We also talk about just the ease of use.
And we want to talk about how Bruce's system, how this tennis edge CRM, it's also got
CRM in the name.
It is also a CRM, which is more than many of these softwares really are.
Yeah, they'll have a list, which is one thing, but actually function as this CRM is extremely
valuable.
But also just the efficiency of time.
And Bobby, when you and I talked years ago, I talked about only taking credit cards.
So, when I ran a business at the end, by the time I was done, there was no cash, no
checks.
You had to pay me ahead of time.
There was no even pay me afterwards for a lesson.
That's just, we had everything on file and that's how it worked.
And we really didn't get much pushback.
And I think that's a direction that many coaches will go.
I've been talking about that for the last few years, which is still collecting cash on
a tennis court is bad psychology.
You don't want to be the provider and the debtor.
You don't want to be both things.
You certainly don't want to be both things in the moment where you teach the lesson.
You got seven people you're chasing around for their $18.
It's just a bad look.
And I think these systems, Bruce, do you have people that are excited about just that concept,
meaning I run into through my new system now.
No more cash, sorry.
Yeah.
People can just pay to advance.
You know, someone got to cry less than the more or they had three o'clock, they'd write
a bit more credit card, right?
They'd be like, they're having the group.
You can have it charted for the count.
I think they had a son up, which it is a lot more efficient.
I always hear about, you know, coach, they're chasing money.
I'm like, I hate you do and don't want to ever produce chase money.
It's not.
I've been to pay a three percent fee to chase money.
Exactly.
We talked about that too.
I was like, Bobby, what's your accounts receivable look like?
And let's talk to the other guys.
What is everybody?
What do you think how it's receivable look like?
Because mine is literally zero.
I don't, we don't do anything until it's already paid for it, which is a good feeling.
And yes, the cost is three percent.
And we get it.
And then each year we bump up the rates.
So that's not always possible everywhere.
And I get it.
And Bobby's right.
There's a, there's a down, a down push.
How do we say that?
There's a pressure downward for tennis less than rates in Metro Atlanta, in places where
tennis is more free than it would be somewhere else.
The country clubs here, they're between $120 and $150 an hour for tennis lessons.
But you can go down the street to a public park and get a lesson from a guy for 40 bucks.
Now, I'm saying sometimes quality at it, I'm not comparing the two coaches.
I'm just saying there are options.
And in this case, Bruce, you're bringing in something that not just the fancy country
club can use or the large public facility, but also the individual.
And I guess important because there's really not a lot of sense of that.
You could just, you know, and then you could coach you look at it.
Yeah, I could use that and be great.
And I can afford it.
Yeah.
And I can afford it.
That's huge.
And honestly, I think for most coaches, they would probably double at least an extra
rebbe of what it cost them at the more.
And then the time saved is a mean way more pay for itself.
Yeah, love the time save.
I love the accounts receivable being zero.
And you pass on the 3% to the customer typically anyway.
But yeah, I love it.
So Bobby, I'm going to ask you first.
You got anything else for Bruce before I hit him with King of Tennis?
No, I'm sure we'll get something out of King of Tennis.
So because I'm sure he's been thinking long and hard about this.
Looking at that one as well.
So Bruce, anything else you want to mention?
Anything coming up for you specifically you want to talk about before we go to our final
question?
No, you can go and ask him that.
Well, as we mentioned, you know it's coming and hopefully you've had a moment at least
to think about it.
But we love this question.
It's a lot of fun where if you were King of Tennis, whether it's the world, just Indian
apolis, the United States, the universe, whatever your scale.
And then social, professional, any version, whatever it is, zoom out to rackets, sports,
however you like to view it.
If you were King of Tennis, is there anything you would do or change?
Well, if I were King of Tennis, first thing I would do it would make tennis weight work
successful for kids.
And I would probably go around all over the country and every single school have a tennis
day where I could look for talent.
I think there's so many kids in this country especially.
You never did a chance for a tennis.
You could be great tennis players and maybe do the next number one.
I mean, there's probably, I mean there's probably 20,000 kids in this country that are great
athletes.
You could be top tennis players that have never touched a rack and will never touch a
racket.
And if every single school if I could get them that put a kit rack in every kid's hands,
you know, great.
You know, I think I would give us a chance to find those kids that are been a fault between
the cracks every single year now.
It's a lot of reason why I mean, we haven't had a number one for how long it will catch
me.
20,000 is now.
Yeah, I mean, we're schooled people in the greatest country.
Some people say we're the greatest country, well, I'm not sure.
But you know, and we haven't had a number one in 25 years.
That's a long time.
I mean, but I would want to put a rack in every kid's hands at some point in time and have
people that are, you know, coaches see them all play.
You know, because you see a kid hit once, you get an idea to have the talent.
I usually can figure out pretty quickly if the kid's got a talent for the game within about
30 minutes.
But I mean, how many kids never get a chance?
Most I mean.
Yeah, I mean, that's great.
And Bobby's going to want to see their parents too.
Like, are you going to be five feet four inches tall?
Are you going to be six, two, that's.
I want to walk out.
And I look up and I see two parents six foot three are bigger.
I don't see a lot of them on any kids.
You're five foot two.
We're not going to be one or professional tennis.
So let's just not get ourselves.
Now, what he would have.
What a, what a, yeah, Mookie Boog is about in time back from he was like, what, five, five,
he, three, he was small.
Let me.
Yeah.
And we got Diego Schorzman, the guy claims he's five, seven.
I don't believe it for a second.
But there's always, there's always that one.
But yes, I would make a living saying we're going to put a lot of five foot six guys on the
men's tour.
You know, a five foot six is small for the ladies for pizza.
You know, you're going to be working hard.
And I think that's, you know, again, I have not, I'm not big.
So I'm speaking from experience here.
It's not so much the physicality aspect, which certainly there is a great deal of that.
It's the mental part that you know that you just have to work that much harder for every
point.
And look at you.
It's, you know, you would, you had his run to number one.
And I think it was just abbreviated because like, shoot, I made it.
You know, I just don't want to put that commitment.
What I need, even just to compete, you know, at that level is an enormous investment.
You know, so it's where the big guys can go up and yeah, blow up a couple of serves here,
you know, the old man, my man, my rat saffon, my favorite rose row model of, wow, all the
talent in the world never didn't get a lot with it.
But on any given day, there could be some, you know, some pretty electric stuff coming
off of his rocket.
No kidding.
Yeah.
Well, I like Bruce's target.
I think that's the more rackets in kids hands.
That's a volume play.
I think that we've, as a, I heard a ESPN guy one time watching him on television, he decided
that we put our seven best athletes into tennis as a country.
So football, baseball, basketball, get the best ones and then something else.
And I actually, I take it back.
I think he was saying soccer gets the seventh best at the time.
And that was, I don't know, 10 years ago, I heard some guy talking about it.
And the idea is that it's, it isn't that we're not South America.
Everybody at least tries soccer, you know, parts of Europe and the same thing.
Everybody's going to try it.
And so actually soccer players have gotten larger over the years.
And in our case, tennis is just a low priority in the US.
And if we can show kids sooner, if we can get those programs, hopefully the USDA listens
to us Bruce says, hey, let's do a day a month or whatever it is.
Best case, let's get it into the curriculum, which they've been working on as well, which
is even if it's a PE teacher with some 23 inch net generation rackets.
Let's do it.
Let's get it in there.
Let's expose them to it.
See some talent.
Get the pipeline then.
How do we get that teacher to then send that player?
So this kid hit the ball over the fence.
Let's get him into baseball or tennis, you know, whatever it is that we can actually separate
out and say these kids are excited about it.
I think it's a great idea Bruce.
Well, let me also get more parents playing too because I mean, parents, more likely.
Right after kids play.
Yeah, they got to go out and play with the kids.
Well, here's the funny part about Atlanta and Charlie, I think you could back me up on
this one where we get a lot because it's as I like to say, a mommy driven sport here in
Atlanta where they try to get their kids involved and the kid you, it doesn't work out as
well as you think because the, you know, the moms want to do it for the best of reasons.
I want to spend time with their children, but this is their thing.
Whether they go out and they try to play against the child and the child just picked up the
racket and everyone walks off the court very frustrated.
So we lose a lot of kids because of the parents getting involved.
It's funny.
We just had a conversation yesterday with somebody involved and excited that they're working
hard to make league play because this is one of my big pet peeves that we've started
about a thousand times.
The tennis is the only league that you have to go in with the team.
The other facility, you know, sport, you going as an individual, so I'd like to join your
league.
They put you on a team.
They put you on a coach.
They put, you know, you play it for certain facility.
You know what you're walking into.
Tennis, the entry is very difficult just to get started.
And so that's some place right away and then long-term and again, timely.
And I know we don't date these things so we don't, but you know, Patrick Nackiner just
came out with his little tie rate against college tennis and how just what 3% are, it's
some ridiculously low number of division 1 on the male side are Americans.
You know, and it's, let's give him a pathway.
Let's do something that we use sit there and say, okay, holistically, I think pro at
anything is an anomaly.
You know, tennis to sit there and say, I'm going to be physically ready.
I'm going to be Rafa at 17 years old where I can go compete with men.
That's tough.
So at least if you could play college tennis, you're not getting better not playing.
So at least playing for four years, give yourself time.
I mean, use the old David Robinson.
He entered the Naval Academy at 6 foot 6.
He walked out of the Naval Academy at 7 foot 1.
Again, an anomaly, but it does happen and he went from a, you know, a small forward to
one of the greatest centers in NBA history.
Give the kids some time.
And we don't intend to see.
You're not there physically, mentally ready to go at 21, 22 years old.
You're done.
You know, in this country, especially with no pathway.
And you have it.
Colleges could help that.
So.
He and tennis, I would actually try to do make the prize money and men to limit tennis a
little more evened out.
So people who are like 200 to world are actually making a liquefable income versus just trying
to just great mind survive.
That's two in a row, Bobby.
Two in a row that I've mentioned leveling out the prize money where the winner doesn't
make six million.
The guys at the top 20, they're getting playing my endorsements anyway.
The guys that bought them, I might give them shoes that I can pay for.
It's sick.
And so, you know, if you're the 250 best football player in the world, you're making probably
what?
At least $15 million a year before endorsements and tennis are basically make, we make more
money teaching tennis.
They're traveling around the country world.
They got paid for all that.
That was very expensive.
And they're probably also teaching tennis at that point.
But inside it get through the survival.
I appreciate the addition of a King of tennis you can have as much as you want.
So if you think of more, call us back.
We'll do it again.
But Bruce, I appreciate you taking time and welcome to the GoTennis World and the American
Racketsports Association as well.
We are excited about your software.
We will make sure everybody hears about it and gets a chance to check it out.
And we will put all those links in the show notes for anybody interested.
Of course, Bobby, thank you so much.
As always, I appreciate it and Bruce.
We'll talk again soon.
Thank you, sir.
Thank you, Bruce.
Well, there you have it.
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