Season 26, Episode 20 - Shaun Boyce, Bobby Schindler

Steve Bellamy on Founding Tennis Channel, Inventing Live Ball, and Building TYPTI to Take On Pickleball

Summary Tennis Channel founder Steve Bellamy joins the GoTennis podcast to explain how he invented Live Ball, built the Palisades Tennis Center into a launchpad for future world number ones, and created TYPTI, a new racket sport designed to fix what he sees as pickleball's biggest flaw, its ball.

Steve walks us through the early days of Tennis Channel, including the hundred rejections he got before anyone believed in the idea, and shares how he and his wife, former Grand Slam champion Beth Herr, raised four kids who all went on to play Division I tennis without ever pressuring them to compete. He also breaks down what TYPTI does differently, why Prince is launching TYPTI rackets at the US Open, and his answer to our signature question, what he would change if he were king of tennis.

Key Topics

• How Steve Bellamy invented Live Ball and started Tennis Channel
• Why the Palisades Tennis Center produced 17 future world number one players
• What TYPTI is and how it is different from pickleball
• Why Steve thinks the pickleball ball design causes more injuries
• Raising Division I tennis players without pressure or pushing
• Prince launching TYPTI rackets at the US Open
• Plans for a new TYPTI center in Los Angeles
• Steve Bellamy's plan for fixing professional tennis with regional tours

Keywords Steve Bellamy, TYPTI, Tennis Channel founder, who invented Live Ball, Palisades Tennis Center, pickleball versus tennis, pickleball injuries, racket sports business, tennis parenting, Beth Herr, Roscoe Bellamy pickleball, Prince TYPTI rackets, US Open, GoTennis podcast, ARA, American Racket Sports Association

Sound Bites

"I have a normal size head, but I have to do a lot more recon than the next guy."

"No sane person would get a hundred rejections and continue. I was just too stupid to know it was time to pack up."

"We raised our kids as tennis players. I never asked one time whether they won or lost."

Full YouTube Video: https://youtu.be/4AlMEfr-xms

King of Tennis Clip: https://youtu.be/_BdGIAuEwt8

Learn more about TYPTI: https://www.typti.com

Contact Our Hosts

• Shaun Boyce, RSPA: [email protected] | https://americanracketsportsassociation.com/
• Bobby Schindler, RSPA: [email protected] | https://letsgotennis.com/windermere
• Geovanna Boyce: [email protected] | https://regeovinate.com/
• GoTennis Website: https://letsgotennis.com/

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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 Steve Bellamy.

Steve talks with us about starting the Tennis Channel from hundreds of rejections to a

national launch, inventing the game Live Ball, and why he built a brand new racket sport

called TYPTI, to fix what he sees as flaws in pickleball.

We also get into how he raised four kids who all played Division I tennis without ever

pushing them, and his take on what he'd change if he were king of tennis.

Have a listen and let us know what you think.

Who are you and why do we care?

Well I don't need to care for sure, but I am an entrepreneur who loves the benefit that

racket sports provide to society, so I've sort of made up my life's mission to promote

and grow and be a catalyst for people playing racket sports.

So that's what you do, but Bobby, I'm sure, is going to want to jump in.

You guys have known each other a long time, so Bobby, you want to pry out of him what we're

looking for and what's coming up and what we want to talk about.

That was a really humble introduction to Steve.

I'm not just Steve, but it's racket sports his whole family is amazing on top of their

participation and their connection.

Great people as well.

So yes, Steve, but let's start with Pacific Palisades Tennis Center in the early to

mid 90 or late 1990s, I think is when we first met right around 96.

What was going on there and you had something brewing even back in that time?

So I'm not I'm going to throw some numbers out here.

I could be off by a year or two, but about 31 years ago, I took over a public park tennis

concession named at the Palisades Tennis Center.

And in the first month while I was trying to say how do we take what is essentially two

tennis courts and make it into something that's more than two tennis courts.

And there's eight tennis courts of the park and my concession was for two and a pro shop.

And I came up with three ideas, two by smarts and one by accident.

And one was called Live Ball.

One was called the Tennis Channel and the other one did not have a name, but ultimately ended

up being called TYPTI.

And so I took over this municipality and I just became sort of a pied piper.

I just preached the gospel of Rackasports to my community.

And I think the tennis center had made like $97,000 the previous year.

And in year two, I don't remember we did in year one, but in year two, we made $1.4 million.

And so we took something and made it extraordinarily more integrated into the community.

And we just had people playing all day long.

And they're mostly playing Live Ball.

This game that I invented that you guys may or may not know.

Normally clubs around America are playing Live Ball today.

And it was really just a way to get more people on the court.

And one of the reasons that I'm in LA and Bobby here is in Atlanta is because one of the

very first managers was his brother.

And so his brother actually ran it with me.

And so we have tens of thousands of people during the course of a year playing tennis at this

little municipal public park.

And then we ended up having I think a grand total of 17 people that reached number one in

the world.

They'd either were born there or trained there.

And we were doing better than all the other academies in Los Angeles.

And it mostly almost in the world.

I mean, this was sort of before Patrick had his thing.

The Bollettieri Academy was the only one that really had kind of a big footprint.

And you go to any national tournament.

And in the semifinals, one of the kids trains at Palisades Tennis Center.

It was cool.

It was really cool.

I was very fortunate.

And I would say we could check it because I'll never forget it was the year the California

band smoking in bars.

And it happened New Year's Eve.

And I started New Year's Eve at Steve's house.

They were kind enough to invite my brother and I over for dinner.

And we went out afterwards and I remember at midnight they told a patron that they had

to stop smoking and he literally got so angry he threw a bar stool through the bar window.

So it left a lasting impression.

Yes.

But from my visit, I was fortunate.

I've not only to play at Palisades for a couple of weeks, but got to help out and watch

and literally brought Live Ball back to Atlanta.

And it changed my career because it just crystallized everything.

Instead of everything was point driven.

It was the secret sauce for any coach that I saw because it just unlocked competitiveness

in adults, which freed up drills and just made it.

There was so much energy in Palisades.

I was like, wow, it was really, really something to behold.

On top of the fact against these being a little humble here, the people who used to walk in

and out at my, I'd get phone calls from my brother.

I just gave, I just met Tom Hanks' son.

I just met Arnold Schwarzenegger's son.

So this was the spot at that time regarding playing.

And all the while Steve, you're getting ready because this is the other part I took out.

I remember I was in contact with Jeff Benton, the senior tour and they had some people that

were doing a quote unquote Tennis Channel, but it was going to be kiosk driven and done

through pro shops.

And I mentioned that to you and you said, well, I don't know if I really should tell you.

It might be some conflict, but we're doing something along the same lines.

I didn't get real specific, but what I admired most and I took out of it was I remember

my brother saying that you guys used to drive around and if you saw a tennis court and somebody's

backyard, you write down the address to use that as part of the presentation to the network

to say, look how many people there actively have tennis courts in their backyard.

I was like, that's research.

That's going above and beyond.

So there were a lot of things that I walked out of that experience with that I still use

today.

That's definitely been my, I would be the guy if I was buying a stock, I go to the company

headquarters and try to meet the CEO and see what the dynamic of the thing is.

So I've always been, I have a voracious appetite for knowledge and I have a normal size head,

but a pea size brain.

So I have to do a lot more recon than the next guy.

But it is fun.

Your family real quick, just the background in market sports that you're connected to as

well on that side between your wife and again, small world apartment, your wife knew who

essentially was my mentor here in Atlanta, one of my mentors Dennis Ward because they were

both from Ohio.

So my wife played tennis under the name Beth Herr.

She won the French Open, the US Open, Wimbledon, Wimbledon or US Open twice.

And then she won the NCAA as a freshman and as a freshman, she beat number two in the world

a two time, two weeks in a row and then turned pro as after her freshman year.

And had a pretty illustrious, she won the Virginia Slims, she won like 11 pro tournaments and

did that.

Then went back to law school, we raised kids there, all became tennis players and Roscoe held

a number one world ranking, Robbie a number one in America ranking, Lucas and Lincoln did very

well as also.

And when it came time to turn pro, they all played D1, college tennis, all the kids did.

All of them decided to just do other things except Roscoe and he switched to pickleball.

And so he is now number six in the world in pickleball and he is the face of The Kitchen podcast

which is the biggest media vehicle in pickleball.

And then my wife also actually had a stint where she was number one in the world in paddle

tennis and then switched to pickleball and she's sort of in the goat of pickleball in the

over 50s so she's one like 111 pro titles and she's meadowed 111 times and she's been number

one in all the categories for a long time.

Well, Bobby, can I jump in?

I've got a question for Steve because I have a genetics versus nurture, you know, a nature

versus nurture question about the kids.

Most people can't say unless your last name is Jensen that all four kids play at a level

of tennis that way.

Do you think it's a genetic thing?

They come out because their mother was a professional player.

You're clearly accomplished in the sport or was there something that drove them from a family

perspective?

Most families aren't going to be able to claim all four kids or much less one of them going

to play division one tennis.

So from a physical perspective, every once in a while I'll notice something on Beth

like, wow, that vein going through your neck when you turn this way is like a fire hose.

Like maybe you're getting more oxygen to your brain than the rest of us are and certain

things like that.

She has really tiny wrist but she's got massive calves and you know, like Lance Armstrong

they said was just legs and lungs and so certainly Pete's knuckles drag on the ground when he

walks.

And certainly physical attributes that will give someone a head start.

But I can tell you when we were at tennis tournaments, every single kid at the back weekend

that's in the semi's the finals, you're sitting next to Tracy Austin because that's the

mom.

You're sitting next to Phil Dent.

You're sitting next to Chuck Brimer.

Somebody that had something to do in the sport.

And so I say, you know, we raised our kids as tennis players.

I had a very specific pathway to do that.

I literally like with with Roscoe who did the, you know, with the furthest.

I would not let him play as a little kid.

I invite, we had a quarter of our house.

We've always had that.

And I would bring all of his friends over, do a clinic with his friends and not let him

play because I wanted him fighting, wanting to play.

And then I would say things like, well, yeah, you can't hit 50 in a row.

Yes, I can.

I can hit 50 in a row.

And well, I don't think you can.

And then we go out there and before you know it, I mean, he'd be one hour just trying to

hit 50 balls in a row as opposed to me going to him and say, you're going to go play tennis,

you're going to love it.

That's the way it is.

And listen to what your tennis pro Sven said.

And so I did it exactly opposite.

I wanted my kids fighting to do it.

And then I tried to get him in turn and tennis as fast as I could do that.

And the reason that I did that was because I wanted them to find a community in tennis and

have that be their community.

I wanted them to go to San Diego for the weekend.

That's where their friends were.

I wanted them to do it at age 9, 10, 11, 12 when they were really young.

So that would be all they know.

I could give a crap whether they would lose ONO first round did not mean a thing to me.

All I cared about was the experience of them going there, being with their buddies.

And then I never asked a child one time whether they won or lost.

I didn't want it to matter.

And lots of times when you're playing at these 32 court facilities that are six banks deep,

I mean, you can't even see your kid.

You have no idea whether they won or lost.

And I just I did not want to make it about winning or losing.

I wanted to make up about friends.

And so what I noticed that my children did better than the mean because every other parent

was just doing horrific things.

Like they would send their kid to a tennis tournament.

And when they inevitably lost in the first round, they're second round or whenever because

that's what you do in tennis.

It's 128 kids started to draw and 127 lose.

And math is very bad.

And so they were screaming at their kid like how could you not listen to what Sven told

you and how come you're doing this for an entire 72 minute car ride home.

No child's going to enjoy that.

I mean, you just lose 7, 6 and the third you pour your heart out on the court.

You have a crushing loss.

And then your mom tells you what a piece of crap you are for 72 minutes.

Like that kid's not going to succeed in tennis.

And so what I noticed was certainly there were some lunatic parents that pushed their kids

and got some results out of their kids.

But mostly I saw Tracy Austin and people like that who were really smart and made it wonderful

for Brandon Holt.

And we made it wonderful for Robbie, Roscoe, Lucas, and Lincoln.

And they all won a national title here somewhere and they all did very well.

And again, I could have given a frogs fat ass whether they were 20 in America or one in America

or 100 in America.

I just wanted them to be in the system early and I knew if they just did it a long time,

all the other people would keep falling out because of these moms telling them what a piece

of crap they are.

And we would tend so I would say nurture, nurture, nurture.

Bobby, what do we, I would say what do we learn from that?

But all we got to do is play that clip.

We're going to clip that out and play that over and over again for the parents out there,

right?

Well, in the great part is I can sit there and tell you that I was the atmosphere at the

club.

First of all, it was fun.

We had a blast and I got to work with some of the kids.

I told somebody that Steve works with here in Atlanta this morning.

I said, "Yeah, I went out and I played, yeah, their kid who was 8th in the California in the

14s and I went out and I played an eight game pro set with him and I beat him because all I did

with slice."

And you know, the kid hadn't seen slice.

He was used to hitting the ball big and I said, "Within two weeks, you'll be kicking my

butt.

Don't worry.

Today, you just saw something you hadn't seen."

But it was fun.

And the kid took it very well.

I got to ask this Steve because he said it twice.

He said his name twice.

And I know you got Indiana Hoosier ties and that's where this jump, you talked about

Sven Salumaa here or what?

No, but I do remember Sven Salumaa.

I always, you know, because over, I've never stopped, even when I was running Kodak and doing

movie business things, parents never stopped coming to me for advice.

And so I've always picked on Swedish tennis pros.

I actually had a Swedish tennis pro for a while that I just thought was a piece of crap

and he's still a tennis player and he's like 90.

So I just generically pick on Swedish tennis pros.

I was just looking for that because he was my biggest junior victory.

He was beating Sven Salumaa who went on to make it to the semi-finals in the US Open and

doubles.

But even a year older than him, even at 12 and 13, he still was a footballer in the US.

It was always fun to see his family, but he had a good career and went to Indiana.

And I know that's where your loyalty's lies.

So I was just curious if it was the same ballpark.

So you got the pile of stage all along you're doing Tennis Channel.

Is there anything about Tennis Channel that you want to say because obviously you gave

the world a gift and for tennis to the forefront as far as 24/7 television where we can access

it all the time.

What do you walk out of that with and say, you know, I know you want to code out, but try

to keep it in the racket sports.

What would you say the highlight of your Tennis Channel career was?

So there was probably two and the moment that we got it on air and we were watching it and

it, wow, we really did it.

It's really on and it took a long time.

But that moment was amazing.

And then the moment that we got direct TV, that meant that everybody in America could get

it.

And so those two things were powerful to me.

And it was just a tremendous ride.

And one thing I would say the world which I've given inspect and speeches a fair amount

is that I was young and dumb when I was doing it.

And nothing that I'm about to say was by my tenacity or anything great.

But I had a ledger that I would write down the meetings.

So I go meet with somebody, pitch him the Tennis Channel and I had a hundred rejections before

I got a, hey, I think that's a good idea.

So I was zero for one hundred until I met with Charlie Pasarell at Indian Wells and he was

like, I think you're onto something.

You ought to call this guy, no blah, blah, blah.

And then it started trickling.

But no sane person would get a hundred rejections and continue.

You wouldn't get 30 rejections.

And I was just too stupid to know that, oh, it's probably time to pack up.

And I just never packed up.

I just kept going and going and going.

And I would go to the Palisades Tennis Center and see all this joy and fervor and people fighting

to get in clinics.

And we, I remember one time on two tennis courts on a Saturday morning, we had a mommy

and me where we had 51 people on two courts.

And I mean, you don't see that everywhere.

And our highest retention rate was mommy and me.

If we put a kid in mommy and me tennis, they always went through the final and played.

The percentages were off the charts.

If we got a kid who was 14 interested in tennis, the chances that they were still going to

be playing tennis at 18 were next to nothing.

That in itself is newsworthy, right?

And you'd make sense.

They're starting off with a connection.

And it's because we always laugh here in Atlanta, it is a mommy driven sport.

But because they played a little bit out, they introduced the child and think they're going

to do something they're going to do together right away.

And it doesn't happen.

And they get frustrated and it turns out to be what was started as a good experience doesn't

end that well.

So it's interesting starting them young giving the journey and the paths together.

And look, you had the highest retention rate.

The good part would be if somebody was listening and the people that actually do this, right?

That we start bringing those programs to light.

Yeah, I think I told you, Bobby.

But we will be opening, we're going to make a big announcement here shortly.

We're going to be opening a TYPTI center very soon.

And it's the most amazing thing.

It's just really cool.

Mommy and me is going to be the single number one programmatic thing that we do.

And I love the idea.

And we let's go to tiktok because I know we got time constraints and we can go on forever.

I love the as you introduce yourself as an entrepreneur.

And that's something that we also correlate with a lot of tennis people that we spoke

into.

There's a big entrepreneurial spirit within our industry.

So that's a whole different conversation.

It started all along and I know TYPTI was around in the late 90s when you started to cultivate

it.

You decided when to bring it to the forefront.

And what are you doing now in the space and how can we help?

I'll give you a little background.

So 31 years ago, I am in the same month.

I came up with TYPTI, the Tennis Channel and Live Ball.

And it was right at the beginning of the Palisades tennis center.

I also started getting hit up with tennis pros who would come to me and go, I'm freaking

out.

I've been teaching at the racket center for 10 years.

I've got 50 hours of lessons a week.

They're shutting it down.

It's going to become a Whole Foods or whatever.

Is there any way I can use a court?

And eventually I realized that 7200 square feet, 22 degrees north is just too much land

to have at scale and image your metropolitan area.

Like you can't have 25 courts together in downtown LA.

And that's why Sixth Street and all those other great clubs that were here aren't there anymore.

The land is too expensive.

And so TYPTI was actually born on accident.

I had a camp with 135 kids.

I had four courts then because we were able to get a few more.

And I just put PB nets and phone balls and I would never use crappy aluminum rackets.

I would always take high performance rackets that I could get the best deal on.

I would cut off five inches, re-grip them and give kids good quality, high quality rackets.

And I've just been at war with the manufacturers forever about just stop making shitty rackets

because it's so hard to get a kid to try tennis.

When you get that chance, you want them to have the best experience ever.

If they have a great racket, they get a great result.

If they have a shitty racket, they have a terrible result.

If they have a great result, they play and you get a customer for life, 80 years.

And if they have a shitty one, they never do it again.

So like stop making these horrible things and they just never listen to me.

But so I would just make my own.

So the PB things are really fun. One day I forgot to strike them and my tournament kids came in the afternoon.

And it was a day where I had 45, like this kid had three kids staying at his house and we had 45 kids.

And so just for giggles, I threw some of the kids out on those PB courts and just to have space.

And then about a half hour later I look out there and like, "Oh my God, that's better than the tennis."

"What is going on?" And so I started researching and I mean it just made the kids light up.

And it was fun as can be, but also they were playing really well.

And so we did it. And probably when your brother was there, we did that.

TYPTI 31 years ago for about three years.

And we probably had a couple, three thousand people playing it over the course of that time.

Then Tennis Channel law. Oh and the reason I said that was because two things.

I actually went to the ITF, the ATP, the USTA and made a pitch.

And the pitch was, "We need to shrink the tennis court, which we're not going to do."

Or we need to build a companion sport that is short.

If we don't, you're going to in 10-20 years when you can't fit these 7,200 feet things.

Some other little racket sport like pickleball is going to come and murder tennis courts.

So if you do it now proactively, you control it.

And if you let the marketplace control it, it's going to be a very bad couple of years.

And unfortunately I was very right and they were very wrong.

Because I got laughed out of every room I was, I pitched it to.

And the last slide in the deck said, "Don't make me say told you so, the irony."

But so what I wanted to do was build a short court sport, TYPTI.

And the second week of the Grand Slam's in Indian Wells and Miami at the time,

you put this court, these in there.

And now your Tommy Haas who lost in the third round, you could keep him, let him play in that,

a second bite at the Tommy Haas apple.

And if you think of scale, you have 120, a man, 120, a women, all of the remnant talent

that is just sitting on their hands in that marketplace, they don't have to get another airline ticket,

nothing they could just play this second sport.

And so that was my pitch and it just, it couldn't have gone over worse.

Unfortunately I was very right.

Along the same time when I was starting the Tennis Channel, I didn't think we'd get tennis rights.

And I flew to Bainbridge Island, met this family called the Pritchard family that had made this

sport called pickleball, went to their church and played pickleball on a gym floor with these

wooden crappy paddles and we had gauze tape for handles and a whiffle ball, which is a baseball.

And their dog, aptly named Mr. Pickles, was there and I played pickleball.

And I said, I love this sport, I think your ball is problematic, it's a baseball, it doesn't bounce,

you should have a bouncing ball. And they just, they weren't students of any racket sports, it was

just kind of like a novelty that was sort of taking off in the upper northwest because there's a lot of

rain. And so they would bring kids in when it was raining from recess and just play this game called

pickleball. And you know, lo and behold, 60 years later, it takes off. But the reason that three years

basic ago I started this was I was watching the just grotesque overbuilding of pickleball

courts and just going, I mean, these people do not know what they're doing. And so much capital is

just blindly flowing in. And there was an article in Sports Illustrated written by Sally Jenkins a

long time ago called is tennis dying. And I don't know if you guys remember that, but it was brutal to

the tennis industry. The next year ball sales were like cut in half and racket sales were way off.

And it basically said to the world, there's doubt that this is going to work. And everybody who

is sort of casually like, I really care about tennis, I go play, it's a little bit social, whatever.

The second that they thought, maybe it's not going to be around as much they bailed. And it murdered

tennis. And so I was like, well, that's going to happen for sure here because there wasn't really

overbuilding in tennis. It was a very gradual, you know, it was hot in the 70s and there were some

dynamic shifts, but pickleball, it just went from nothing to a hundred billion dollars of infrastructure

at the snap of a finger. And I was like, that game I had is really good. And you can do so many things

with the ball. You can control depth and trajectory, which you cannot do with a pickleball very well

with a TYPTI ball. I mean, you guys, you'll be amazed at like the sharp angle roll passing shot you

can do. The artisanism that you can apply. And if you just look at the rackets, I named them

the Renoir, the Da Vinci, the Van Gogh, the Monet, they are, there you go, there's a Renoir right there

and there's a Da Vinci. I got one more. And that is also a Da Vinci. And we will have that Da Vinci coming

out shortly here, heard it here first in a headlight version that will have zebra graphics. And that's

going to be called the Monet. But I wanted it to be really, really artisan, which it is with a foam ball.

It's just amazing. Like top spin lobs find the line. And you just can do so many cool things with it.

It's just a really great sport. And it plays on top of the infrastructure that has just already been

built. And so I love pickleball. I love the fact that it's gotten 30 million people off the couch

and doing a sport. I don't love the ball. I don't love the fact that it comes in at 25 degrees. It

leaves at 13 degrees. That is, it just doesn't come up. It means you have to bend over all the time

to hit every ball. And you know, that is, you're going to spend more time with an orthopedic surgeon

than you probably want to in life. And so it's trust me. Pickleball has bought a lot of second

homes and third boats for orthopedic surgeons. So, yeah. So TYPTI is, it's chest high ball strikes. It's

artisanism. The points are super fun. The, I don't know if you overlay footage on top of this. But

when you see net rebounds, it is the greatest rule in racket sports. And if you guys know that,

but the net is, it's Switzerland. It's neutral. So if you net a ball, it's not dead. You can't hit it

again with your string bed, but you can kick it. Hit it with your hand, hit it with a butt cap.

And sounds dumb right now when you see it in actual play mode, it is fantastic. And it makes for

the best points in the game. And so there's lots of just smart interesting things that happen in

TYPTI that don't happen in other racket sports. And then the scoring is by far the best of any

racket sport. Nothing's even close. And you know, it's just a, it's a very good game. And the fact

that there's a hundred billion dollars worth of infrastructure, you know, sitting there,

needing more, I call it hardware and I'm software. And this hardware is definitely in need of more software.

Are we good? I like that. And one thing, I was, I was fortunate enough to hear you speak to the RSPA

when you did your presentation there. And again, it just speaks to the volume of your knowledge

of the sport. I walked away laughing when you mentioned, you know, the pickleball, all these

brands competing to become the six brands like tennis, the dominant tennis. And you said, you,

I'm going to take all that nonsense away. I'm going to control it. I'm going to build the racket.

I'm going to build the ball. And it's going to be a much smoother process to get people. And again,

it just makes sense. I mean, I think if you're involved in the industry, you're sitting there looking

at all, it's great. I guess for the money that's come again to the industry because you have so

many people, but we know out of all those brands that are now in pickleball, the vast majority

are going to fail or merge, become one. And that just leads to the confusion with the industry,

which we don't need. I love the fact that you walked in with a plan and said, this is what we're

using, let's go play. And again, it goes back to why don't more people look like that? Look at

things like that. So one thing that's very unique to pickleball, and not unique to other

racket sports. Outside of this spaghetti-strung racket, the Mike Fishback racket of yesterday,

there really hasn't been a technology that was truly unfair. If Bobby and I are the same skill level,

and I've got a nuclear racket or paddle, I win every time. That has never been the case with a

tennis racket. If Bobby and I are the same skill level, we could trade Rackas all day long, and the

wins would be, I beat him with the Yonex, and he beats me with a Wilson, I beat him with the Head,

he beats me with something else. And in pickleball, that is not the case. I mean, you,

like Roscoe could go play a name and name, but number one, two, or three in the world in pickleball,

use a paddle that is not very good, lose 10 games in a row, they switch paddles, and he wins 10 games

in a row. Like it is that black and white, and so it's caused all of this testing and rules and things

like that, but I mean, matches are decided on paddle all the time. And so if some brand somehow

sneaks their paddle, like it's right on the edge of the line of whether it's legal or not, and they

somehow find a way to sneak it through the mechanism and let the player play with it, even though it's a

little bit out of the spec, they win every time. And so I didn't want that, even though it was foreign to

me in other racket sports. So by us starting and controlling the chain, everybody is playing with

racket's made out of the same factory, there's no competitive advantage. I don't want that to be forever,

and I want technology to push and become better and better and better and make the game rise and

level, but I wanted to control it to begin with, if I made any mistakes, I wanted to, to me, on my dime

and not someone else's dime, and now we are just starting to accredit other brands, but we are only going

to do eight. So we're just not going to accredit more. The other thing, financially, I want a brand to come

in and be successful and spend money on marketing because they can, you know, they're not going to go bankrupt

any year. And in the pickleball world, I mean, it is Armageddon right now. I mean, it is very hard

to make those brands work, and especially there are thousands of brands, and it's very expensive to

become a pro brand where you have to pay a fee, just to even be on the tours. So it's very expensive,

players are expensive, there's very few celebrities in pickleball, and so every brand is trying to

compete for them, so they're paying up for it. And so there's going to be a lot of carnage, and I just,

I don't want carnage in TYPTI, I want everyone to be happy and healthy and prosperous, and so we're

just legislating it from the start. Well, again, I think it's cool, and it was just real quick, just

what you talked about, and we always talk about it with pickleball, the only people making a lot of

money at the orthopedics, just that you're just, again, using the word size, the trajectory of the ball

tells you that you know, pickleball is going to lend itself to more of these injuries, and

we act as a surprise when we see the emergency room filled up with people injured from pickleball

injuries. You know, if they were going to rethink anything, I would rethink the ball, it just, but

I mean, yeah, they don't, they don't want to be tennis, and if you've seen the changes to pickleball

just made, I mean, it really hurts tennis players. So the, if you're ranking us now combined, it's 50%

gender doubles, 35% mixed doubles, and 15% singles, and that's the way prize money is allocated as well.

And it has been easy for tennis players to come in and play singles, it has been much harder for

them to play doubles. So that's what they're doing. They're trying to not be tennis, and so I understand

that that's definitely not a tennis ball, but I mean, you get, there's a whole industry of I wear

just because so many people get hit in the eye with a ball. And, yeah, I've carted away someone to the

hospital, not because of getting hit in the eye with a ball, but because they followed through,

hit themselves in the forehead, and went unconscious. So it's, it's oddly, there's a lot of injury

in pickleball, but it's still the greatest phenomenon in the history of racket sport in that in a

period of three years, you have a hundred billion dollars of infrastructure that wasn't there before,

like how in the world did that happen? Yet 30 million people that weren't playing a racket sport

before that now are playing a racket sport. So I love pickleball. It has its flaws, just like tennis

has its flaws, and TYPTI has its flaws. I'm trying to ask Steve, we do appreciate it. There's anything

coming up that you'd like to just let us know about? If not, I guess so. You got a question for them.

If there's Steve, you have anything, let us please. Yeah. Well, the great brand Prince is going to be

launching their TYPTI rackets at the US Open on August 27th at one o'clock in time square, and there's

a big to-do, Stevie Johnson, Sam Querrey are going to be involved. And so anybody in the New York area

should come, and there'll be great exhibition. You can hit with the new rackets. They're fantastic.

We have that, and then in L.A., we're going to be opening a TYPTI center that is just spectacular

and super cool, and it will also have most likely pickleball and badminton, youth tennis lessons,

and there's going to be three table tennis arenas. I love that concept. We almost got it

exclusive. It's just not built yet. We almost got an exclusive there, but I love that concept in

taking it to the people that is, and that's where the fun technology comes in. I can't wait to

for that to happen. That's exciting. I think that's going to be really good. And I'm already looking

for my spot in Avalon in Milton, where it's going to fit into that high end mall. So,

waiting for your proof of concept on that one's to be. Very cool. And you've got New York,

in L.A., I think the other option is going to be Atlanta, unless you got somebody in Florida that's

looking to do something. We'll see if we can bring something here. So, I've got a kind of my A-list

A-list markets, B-list markets, and C-list markets. And definitely Atlanta is at the tippy top of the A's.

I really hope that we can TYPTIfy Atlanta here and it's going to be, oh, that's fantastic. It's going

to be a verb. I'm going to use it now. Yes, it's a verb like Google and Yahoo, right? I like that.

And by the way, Steve, I did have to look up because I was convinced it was an acronym.

Yeah. And so I did have to go look it up and realize, nope, that TYPTI is just the name. It didn't

mean anything before, but now it has great meaning. And yes, let's see if we can figure out how to bring

you to Atlanta. I do have one question before our King of Tennis question that we love to ask.

You said, "Princess coming in as one of the brands, but you're only going to allow eight. Is that a

slow dripped? Is that your brand is one? Prince is two, and there's only six more available for those

thinking about it?" So basically, I'm doing deals where I say there's only going to be eight. And if we

get to seven, and I've got another brand that just makes unbelievable sense, I would have no problem

killing our own brand and letting other people do it. And I would have no problem with our

Olo brand making other rackets for other sports, either. Again, I'm very pro all rackets sports. I'm not

saying TYPTI is the greatest thing and everything else sucks, which is very prevalent in our industry on all things.

And probably more in pickleball than it is when you're in the meetings with the pickleball industry.

I mean, they love when tennis courts get converted to pickleball courts. And there's nobody in the

tennis industry saying, "How do we convert pickleball courts to tennis courts?" So that is what it is.

What was your question yet? I'm sorry. I guess just about how many brands? Because that seems like

a thing someone would want to get into now. And the bigger brands obviously have the finances to do it.

You'd think of Prince or a Wilson or a Babolat, somebody with the larger accounts that can

bring in a new concept because it's a fancy 22-inch racket that shouldn't be that hard to make if

you're already in the rackets making business. Yeah, not hard to make at all. And we own TYPTI,

which is different than pickleball. Pickleball is owned by the public domain. So it's tennis,

so it's squash. We are more like the UFC where we own TYPTI and we can regulate things. Part of tennis

is problem and part of pickleball, pickleball's problems is that there's 80 governing bodies. And

there's an alphabet soup of people that aren't singing off the same sheet music. We will never have

that problem. So we're legislated in. The eight is something that we're signing away the rights to do

a number nine. And we are only looking for brands that bring some kind of value ad. So like when I get

done with this call, I'm on another call with a humongous, super famous king of the category brand

that doesn't make tennis rackets, but they make other rackets, sport rackets, and they're ginormous. And

the biggest rackets sports in the world, badminton is by far in a way the biggest sport in the world.

Not tennis isn't even close to being as big as badminton. Table tennis is way bigger than tennis.

So, you know, in the tennis industry, we get, we look at our own thing and we think we're the king of

the world. We're not even ballpark. And so I want to find brands that can bring in value above and

beyond just making a racket. They bring marketing and they bring other things to help grow.

It sounds like that typical American perspective saying we've got 25 million people playing tennis.

We don't even bother with there's 10 times that in China. Yeah. People playing badminton. We forget

those things that we get focused on ourselves. And I think, I think headed that direction. I don't

know if you've got a global perspective on this or if you've put much thought into it, but we do

want to end with one last question. It's kind of our signature question here. Will we ask, if you were

king of tennis, what would you do? And in this case, you've, you've had a lot of experience in

not just being a tennis player, but being a parent, being in the industry, getting out of the industry,

getting back in. And we're curious to know whether from any perspective, whether it's professional tennis,

you could stick with TYPTI if you want to. It's not typically a TYPTI question because I think

technically you are king of TYPTI right now. But if we stick with king of tennis, and we say if you

were king of tennis, Steve, is there anything you would do or change? Yeah. And my answer always gets

tons of hate. And I don't give the crap because I'm right. And the haters are wrong. Probably the best

thing and the worst thing about tennis is the fact that it is so international. And the reason I say

that, take a successful sporting franchise, the Dallas Cowboys. One of the reasons they're successful,

they're great at what they do. The other reason is they play in Dallas. They are the Dallas Cowboys.

And if you live in Dallas, you get to go see them regularly. If I'm a tennis fan and I'm lucky enough,

if I live in Cincinnati, Ohio, and I've got a tournament, which are a few and far between,

I'm completely at the mercy of a global talent pool. The likelihood of somebody who's actually from

Cincinnati playing in that draw is slim to none. And I can give you a for instance, when Memphis had

a tournament, there was one year where there was no people, not only from Memphis, not from Tennessee,

there was no one from America in the tournament that is in America. When I was the tournament director

in Las Vegas, I really wanted Taylor Dent to play and he was unfortunately playing in the same week

in the tournament in Germany. And I was willing to build because I wanted to do a big plan of having

athletes come for five years. I wanted to build a giant Taylor Dent thing that was 50 feet tall.

Every year we'd bring it out and make him famous there and build the following. The tournament

Germany wanted Philipp Kohlschreiber and he was playing in my draw. And so Philipp Kohlschreiber didn't

sell one single ticket to my Las Vegas tournament and Taylor Dent didn't sell one single ticket to

his German event, but it had they switched. It would have been great. And so what I think tennis should

be is six regions and the Americas, Europe, Australasia, Latin America, maybe

North America, call it American, Canada, Latin America, everything down, maybe Mexico comes with us.

And then African the Middle East and you have regional stuff that plays lots of tournaments that

are very localized. And then four times a year maybe add in Indian Wells, maybe add in one more

big tournament. Everyone comes together internationally and we have these big things to have those

wonderful. I'm not saying the matches are not wonderful. When you have Nadal playing a serve and volleyer

from another part of the world, it's absolutely spectacular entertainment. But the only way to do

it from a player perspective is you've got to have hundreds of thousands of dollars on the downbeat

to do this. It's very expensive if your office is the whole planet. And so it's just stupid. It

accidentally grew up that way and we just allowed it to be that way. And I understand all these

tournaments are entrenched in their own thing, but it doesn't make it right. It's moronic. And so

that's what I would do. I would start over and I would have six regional tours where big draws

co-gender, but if there's a tournament in Indianapolis, Indiana, there are six or seven people who

are playing who are from Indianapolis, Indiana. And that's what I do. So Bobby, it makes me think of

other sports. When we talk about baseball, you've got the US baseball system. If you talk about soccer,

you've got leagues in Europe, you got leagues in the US, and then you got your big tournaments where

you might travel. One of those King of Tennis that is probably in that never going to happen

range because you'd have to switch it out completely. It's not an adjustment. This is just a complete

restructure, which is unlikely. But maybe one of the more unique King of Tennis answers we've ever

heard. Well, and here's the thing. It just makes so much sense. And we've proven it here in Atlanta.

I mean, we've done a local pro league for years. And when we had the most success is when we went

to the club where one of the players was a member or a coach and the people come out to see that

coach play. So do you have that entire club comes out to see that one player? They get

familiar with it. And then they're likely to travel to the next one. So you're growing your

fan base, but the fan base is based on the individual that's playing out of that particular club.

So we already have proof for concept that it works on top of the fact. As you said, especially with

the environment as there was a good conversation, open up a thousand other conversations. What we have

going on at the collegiate level with the international's in NIL and that cluster that is all about

to hit in the pan because promises are being made that can't be delivered on. It just makes so

much sense. And it's unfortunate, but it's so true. You want to be able to we have intense year in

Atlanta, a professional lead that they don't know that they haven't been able to tell the story.

There's no reason for you to sit there and say, Oh, I like this particular team more than I like

this particular team. And people want to root for somebody they know. And obviously hometown is

a good place to start. So if you just think about it, if if I had a tournament in Indianapolis,

Indiana, that was like a mini Wimbledon, a mini Indian Wells. And I had 128 men, 128 women. And I'm

pulling from Canada, all of America and maybe Mexico. I am going to get a talent pool that is very

high. I can also make some sort of a guarantee of there are going to be 24 players from Indianapolis.

So that local club pro who has got a whole tennis club who loves him and wants to go root for them.

Now you have local vested patrons who are going to go buy tickets. You have the one guy he teaches

just happens to be the CEO of a national company that's in that town. Well, low and behold,

they come in with a $250,000 sponsorship because the CEO is so wed to his tennis bro and can't believe

he's going to have a chance to be in this draw. There's so many things you can do. Right now with

it internationally, yes, the level is the highest. And I would argue professional tennis is the single

best professionally played sport there is, period, no ifs, ands, or buts. It's better than NBA basketball,

NFL football. It's better than anything. It is the best. It doesn't matter if I take two players

from Sweden and the Ukraine playing against each other in North Florida or something. Nobody cares

whether the level is in 98 as opposed to a 95. I could take two college players, put them on the court

and the general public isn't going to know that much difference in level of play.

And so it's just it's stupid. And I'm going to if you I guarantee you, there'll be 1000 foreign

players who played on college tennis teams who say that's a stupid thing I've ever heard of blah, blah,

blah. And the level would be absolute shite if we didn't have all these people in here. It doesn't

matter. I call bullshit on all of you. The difference between number 80 in America playing number 85

and number 10 playing 15 is it's it's immense. It's not immense to the viewing populace. It's it's a

relevant. Yeah, I agree with that completely. And I think we can go watch in Atlanta. We can go watch

the Braves play 80 something times a year, get to know the people, doesn't matter where they're from,

but we get to know that team and we enjoy it. But if we want to watch Ben Shelton,

we don't even get to see him at all here locally. We have to travel the world to go watch more than once.

So I think I think where you are with that makes a lot of sense. But again, unfortunately probably

in the never going to happen category, right? It probably I mean, who knows I've I've stopped saying maybe

yeah, but that's true. In life is so weird these days, but if the Dayton Dragons and the Toledo Mud Hens

they are minor league baseball teams. And I believe the last time I checked those years ago,

the Dayton Dragons had sold out like 1400 games in a row. And I mean, it's a stadium that is packed.

And so I had a in law who owned a big company in Dayton, Ohio. And so I was talking to him one day

and as it turns out, he was buying like 70 tickets. And I'm like, what? Like why in the world should

do that? And he's like, well, first of all, they're super cheap. And I've got 350 employees. I don't

remember the number in in Dayton, Ohio. And when I give these people tickets, it is like I sent them

on a cruise around the world. It is the least expensive way that I can make my employees so happy.

It's ridiculous. And this is the Dayton Dragons. I couldn't, I bet you two didn't even know the name

the Dayton Dragons, but in Dayton, Ohio, they had like 7200 people show up every single night for 1400

nights in a row. So I mean, it was such a testament to how powerful local is and people that are never

going to make on the national stage. Sorry about that. Never going to make on the national stage are local

celebrities. Yeah, we can't can't argue with the logic. That's for sure. But Steve, very much

appreciate you taking the time to come and talk to us and tell us about TYPTI,

and getting us some of that background. Obviously you and Bobby have known each other for a while. So

it's been fun to have you guys talk. But we're at a time. So let me say again, thank you so much. I

really appreciate it. We will put links to everything you've got going on in the show notes. So we will

make sure that when we publish everything, everyone has the ability to click on TYPTI dot com, T Y P T I

dot com. And we will make sure everybody has that. But Bobby is always thank you so much. Great job.

Steve, a pleasure. Thank you for being here. Thank you.

So much. Yeah.

Well, there you have it. We want to thank reGeovinate.com for use of the studio and signature tennis for

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