Episode#:30 Bobby Schindler and Shaun J Boyce

In this episode, Allie tells us the origin story of her Women's Tennis League called "Wine-Down Wednesdays," we talk about what's next for her as well as the league, and as always, we ask The Question: What would you do if you were Queen of Tennis?!

About Allie Svabik

"Playing sports led me to a world-class education where I could compete and learn. After playing volleyball, I discovered the tech startup scene in Atlanta. That entrepreneurial environment helped me acquire various skills that I could eventually apply to my big idea - which came when I started playing tennis.

Now I’m blessed to work in an industry with partners all striving towards the same goal of growing the game. My mission is to create programs and products that encourage recreational play and fandom with the vision that tennis continues to thrive into the next generation.

If you love tennis and want to see the sport succeed in your community like I do, let’s connect. Cheers!"

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Shaun Boyce USPTA: shaun@tennisforchildren.com

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Bobby Schindler USPTA: schindlerb@comcast.nethttps://windermerecommunity.net/ 🎾

Geovanna Boyce: geovy@regeovinate.comhttps://regeovinate.com/ 💪🏼🏋️

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[MUSIC]

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 want to have a conversation as long as it starts with tennis.

[MUSIC]

Hey, hey, this is Shaun with the Atlanta Tennis Podcast powered by Go Tennis!

Check out our calendar of Metro Atlanta tennis events at Let'sGoTennis.com,

where you can also find deals on equipment, apparel, and more.

In this episode, we talk to Allie Svabik, who has started a new women's tennis

league called Wine Down Wednesdays.

They play on Wednesday afternoons.

It only takes six ladies to field a team each week,

so get your girls together and get registered before July 1st.

And even get a discount as a GoTennis! member.

Have a listen and let us know what you think.

[MUSIC]

Wine Down Wednesdays is a tennis league for women and do me a favor,

do everybody a favor, tell us who you are and what the heck is this women's tennis

league that you're doing.

Yes, my name's Allie.

I started and run the Wine Down Wednesday Women's Tennis League, which is under our tennis

lady umbrella.

So you can find us at paytennislady.com or at paytennislady on Facebook and Instagram,

H-E-Y, because just tennislady.com was too expensive to start.

[LAUGH]

But yes, so it's a women's tennis league in Atlanta.

Three lines of doubles on Wednesday nights for a five week season.

We do two seasons a year and we're just about to start our next season on July 26th.

So it's in between other women's tennis leagues in the area in between all the seasons,

USDA seasons.

But yeah, I started in 2019 and I've been growing season after season ever since.

And in that case, Wednesday nights, I was just going to look that up, but I sent my computer

haywire.

Wednesday nights is what for Alton, USDA?

Bobby, you run a club.

You got to know what's going on Wednesday night.

What are the leagues are going on there?

Give it a season in Alton, USDA will come up with something.

I think we're at Wednesday might be, I don't know if there's anything right now on Wednesday.

I mean, we have men's senior, it's a senior at night, but I think it's ladies on Tuesday.

And I think that guys might even play Friday or Thursday.

I think Wednesday is an open night right now.

So that might have been why she chose Wednesday, which would be good on her point.

Yeah.

And yeah, so Thursday night is women's seniors in the summertime.

And again, we don't overlap at that season either.

But yeah, definitely wanted to do a weeknight concept.

And that seemed to be open and the wine down Wednesday phrase was getting thrown around

a lot just, you know, that's women's night out to drink some wine and hang with their friends.

So why not do it at the tennis court?

That's fantastic.

And I know Bobby's got a thousand questions.

He called me before I didn't say, what do we know?

What do we not know?

Is this an actual league?

I said, Bobby, I think it's an actual league.

And that's why I've been using that phrase of women's tennis league.

It's not just introductory clinics.

You don't, you actually have a season.

You have teams.

You have travel.

You have a schedule.

Did you do all of that?

Yes, I do.

Yeah, so very similar to a USDA team or an ALTA team where you would get enough girls to

play together.

In this case, you only need six each week to feel the full lineup.

Then you would set your home court location.

You only need two courts.

And then you're placing a division with teams of the same level nearby.

So I don't think that I confused when you started it, did you start it tied in with a clinic?

We're going to do so many weeks of getting you prepared and then jump, you know, create

the league.

No, I mean, that's a great question because I do think that is the next product to launch

because, you know, similar to, you know, a lot of the conversations that you guys have

already had on the podcast, but there's definitely this need of individuals who are curious

about tennis.

Maybe they played before, haven't played for a while and just don't have anyone to play

with or they see all their friends playing, but their friends are, you know, at a higher

level and they need their own core group to get, get playing with.

So some sort of program that brings them together each week, not just individual lessons and

then, okay, good luck, find them a community to join, but takes them from zero to 60 and then

once they learn the game or they feel comfortable playing matches again, you know, they can form

a wine down Wednesday team smaller than some other leagues teams requirements now.

And then they're kind of in the system at that point.

So no, I would love to figure out who would be a good partner to do those types of clinics

with, but that is not one of the products now.

I think it needs to be though because we get a lot of people signing up as free agents and

sometimes we're able to play some on teams or form teams with them together, but, you know,

right now, don't have a solid product for them.

If there's no one in their area looking for players, so yeah, that's important.

And that's how you go the game.

And when we spoke back in, you know, God, it's probably been about a month and a half ago already,

but we've started conversating.

One thing that I found very interesting in just the perspective of small geographic area,

where I'm on the north side, take it for granted that every neighborhood has courts, you said

you guys had court availability issues.

Inside the perimeter for sure.

You know, I have this great group of young ladies and brokhaven that were interested in picking

up the sport and it's just hard to get access to courts.

You know, the Sandy Springs Tennis Center has been very gracious with courts, but it's,

you know, it's kind of a non-conversation with the other public courts inside the perimeter

and that's tough because you see the demand and I understand, you know, everyone's running

their own business and, you know, need to protect that customer base, but eventually you've got

to have new blood coming in into those tennis centers to keep the game growing.

Well, I agree with you.

What would be the, I don't know why would a Sandy Springs not want you other than their

capacity?

Yeah, they got enough people taking privates with their coaches and, you know, that's

a lot of people.

I mean, not looking at their numbers.

I don't know if that's, you know, a greater margin for them or, but it's just a set program

and process and then anything new, you know, just like the pros and their tennis calendar

is like you got to carve out your window and your time and, you know, try to make your, your

stake on the court before someone else takes it or it turns into a pickleball court.

Well, that's a good point.

And their defense having started in the city public, you know, tennis center, I started at

Chastain.

The city also takes a decent chunk.

And so yes, there are ways to increase your margin in a lesson more than just a rental

court.

So I get it because it is tough to make any kind of profit in tennis is unfortunately labor

intensive.

You could sit there and say, we're giving this many lessons, but you're paying that money

out and it had a great majority of it.

So it is tough on those guys.

So I get it to a point, but like you said, I'm always looking for new blood.

And again, we have a group of seniors at the subdivision, I work out.

It's a 10 court facility and not very many of them are actual residents, but, you know,

they're playing at a time of day with they're not bothering anybody.

We love the blood.

You know, and we pick them up in our teams.

We charge a non-resident fee.

So it's a way for the neighborhood to make a little bit of money.

So I'm a little puzzled that have you spoken to and this was I'm going to date myself

again, but the go to was always the post apartments that a lot of the post and I don't know

if you know the apartments.

I mean, like I said, I'm dating myself, but they were always, you know, they built with two

tennis courts and lighted.

Yeah.

They were interested in being able to provide that kind of thing for their, you know, their

residents.

I haven't.

I mean, it's a great idea.

I've done a flex league season out of courts at a post apartment before.

And it's certainly interesting, you know, the teams inside the perimeter that sign up, you

know, kind of just by default go to all the tennis centers and it's, you know, I always

try to ask them, are you sure that no one has a residential court that you can set as your

home court location?

Because I bet you they're free.

And that was really as I was creating the league and coming up with the format.

I mean, that's what I was seeing, right?

In the three zero zero two two zip code, whereas it's the most all to teams of, you know,

allegedly.

But if you drive around a lot of these swimming tennis neighborhoods, their courts are,

are still kind of empty because the neighborhoods that flipped over, they're not new anymore,

as opposed to the neighborhoods now of North.

So people that have fallen off or moved out of the neighborhood and the tennis scene,

you know, there's not, it really takes someone to, you know, say, okay, well, we're going to

try this again and we're going to try to get all the new neighbors together to play tennis

again on our courts.

So, you know, the league was very much, how do we kind of spark the demand for these courts

again?

Because they're open.

Right.

So, you know, the two court format as opposed to needing five courts to get five lines

in on a Sunday afternoon.

Is it a two out of three sets match play or do you do something to shorten it a little

bit or is it going to be all right?

Yes.

So, and then we do no ad scoring.

Okay.

So I do just receive a choice next point wins the game.

And then if it does go to a third third set, it's replaced by a ten point tie break.

So it's been fun.

It really keeps the matches moving, you know, each match is probably about an hour and a half,

which is a good time.

So you're there from six to nine, you know, hopefully your neighborhood courts are courts

nearby and, you know, you had a nice girls night out and then you can go home at a reasonable

hour.

You weren't waiting around all day for courts.

Yeah.

And if you had any head wind from USDA out again, we have spoken, you know, we've got

taken out to we know one of the big, their things that they would love for somebody to take

over is introducing new people into their system, you know, helping people, as you said,

get introduced to the court, then how do you take it enough of another level, find a team

and it would seem like, you know, you're a great starting place and you're not trying to

compete with them.

So it would seem like that would be a good fit for out to, you know, work with you guys.

Sure.

I'm certainly open to the conversation.

I haven't reached out to them and they haven't reached out to me.

You know, I know they're not for profit and, you know, very much trying to make them full

time gig.

So it is for profit.

So I don't know if that would be a conflict there, but, yeah, I think, I think what's great

working on other industries, what I love most about tennis and working in tennis and

you guys, your podcast and everything you're doing is kind of the epitome of this is there's

so many opportunities to partner and work together because everyone's end goal is the

same.

If people get more people playing tennis and playing more often.

I thought you were going to the right.

But you know, other industries like I was selling advertising on the internet is like, you're

all fighting for the same traffic in the same position on the page.

So like you can't really partner with each other versus tennis.

It's like, there's enough to go around and we all should work together and figure out how

to, you know, enhance and grow the sport that we all love.

But that's a great point.

It's still, Bobby.

I think we're both central people.

We're bringing in the right people.

Yes.

Either that or they're doing a little bit of research and they're actually paying, listening

to some pretty good.

They say, hey, is it a good thing to say?

They're coming in like, hey, let's make tennis cool again.

What do you think of that?

Or, hey, we should all partner.

Why aren't we getting along?

And I think maybe, I don't know if we're changing the culture or in a way that people like

or maybe the culture doesn't have to go as far as we thought.

Maybe there are more people out there that want to get along with everybody and realize it's

not a zero sum game and that we all can do what we do well and partner to get and do

it all for the benefit of the sport.

It's true.

It's unfortunate that we come out of the culture, but as you said, just not knowing even the

drawbacks of the guys who run the Sandy Springs, what they have, everybody has something they

have to overcome.

And that's the hard part because at the end of the day, everybody's bringing Shia to the

table and it's hard to overlook what is yours worse than mine.

These are all, or can we find a way where we can all help each other out and understand

that this guy's going to be limited.

I found that fascinating that you guys, we take it for granted, that there's so many

courts up here that we can go to another one.

There's a subdivision of cro-- literally on my street, Windomir Parkway, I have a big

Chattanoche River Club, Windomir, James Creek, three chimneys all within maybe three miles

of each other that there's 40 tennis courts within.

I forgot Brandon Hall, which is another one, the 45-50 tennis courts within three miles

of each other.

And tons of teams, right?

Yeah, oh yeah.

Because they're newer, they're newer developments, so everyone moved in new together and that was

how they socializes playing tennis.

And you know, folks like yourself running programs out of there that keep everyone engaged

in sort of like a can't miss.

But the original boom of the suburbs in North Atlanta, that Alfredo-Raz, well, what I've

experienced at least just personally is like, our neighborhood doesn't have all the teams

anymore because people have aged shadow of the game, people are no longer in the neighborhood.

There's no one that's like, we're going to form another sea team because there's all

these new neighbors and that's how we'll get to know each other.

So people start playing elsewhere but they still have the amenities.

And yeah, I mean, I was getting nervous that people would, you know, just the pickleballers

would take over because it's easier.

And I think, you know, you kind of need people to still use those tennis courts to make sure

that they stick around because, you know, any new developments in town or anything with

right sides living, they're like smaller.

So they might throw in a pickleball, but they never throw in tennis courts.

Well, two tennis courts in a bathroom, I'll talk about it.

So what is the demographic of your league?

How, you know, the age range?

Ladies, I would say late 20s, early 30s and then all the way up to, you know, mid 60s.

Okay.

Yeah.

I mean, we got some of the 70s that still ball.

But they are my heroes.

Because I was going to throw you a generational question as well as with the pickleball threat,

which I don't look at as a threat.

I think if tennis was smart, you could use pickleball to your advantage.

How is it, you know, the instant gratification?

So because tennis is, as you said, more difficult and easier to jump on a pickleball court

and to get that going.

I mean, I get that in my club all the time now.

Why don't we start pickleball teams?

And I'm like, you know, nobody's relics, I want to see how the first season goes before we

jump in because I think that, you know, there's going to be some hiccups, obviously.

So I'd rather wait till next year.

But you know, do you see any of that that this is easier guys?

I'm going to go play pickleball.

From our ladies, no, they mainly, they're either not playing in other leagues and they're

only playing wine down Wednesday.

So they're at the beginner sea level.

And the other lead formats just don't work with their schedule or they're playing everything.

It's not, I don't see a lot of people jumping over to pickleball with our players.

I think some, you know, probably dabble and do it socially, which is what's great about

that.

But yeah, I mean, definitely jealous of pickleballs, barrier to entry compared to tennis is

out love to be able to, my friends and people that are just curious about tennis have a proper

way for them to try it and enjoy it versus needing like this huge ramp up of lessons and

coordination.

Which is hard to acquire in 30, you know?

Yeah, yeah.

Hopefully that's happening already.

Yeah, I mean, tennis is just the backdrop.

What people are looking for is a community and a group of girls to get together every week

to let their husbands take care of their kids and just go out and have some girl time and

not worried about how are they going to fit in this new hobby with all their other kids'

activities or things like that.

Common quality, absolutely.

That's one of our big themes.

We tend to see the commonality that we share, but there's a lot of other things that go

on, even from the social aspects.

So you said, I'm much older, but it doesn't mean I don't want to go out at night or see

something new.

And yeah, what is, what else?

And I think that's a huge opportunity for the tennis community that's really never been

addressed.

You know, how do we take 60,000 tennis players that we all know they're tennis players?

So they have one thing in common and do something else.

And even if you get 1% of those 60,000, it's a big number.

That's still a pretty decent party.

Why isn't more of that happen?

So I agree with what you're saying.

Correct.

And it was important for me to keep a team aspect as opposed to the flex leagues out there

or just going out and playing singles.

Because that's part of my story is how I picked up the game, joining my mom's tennis team

and really loved the multi-generations and hearing from other women, just their wisdom versus

kind of just being thrown out there on a singles court just to play tennis.

There's not really that camaraderie.

So it was really important for me to keep the team aspect together for women, but figure

out a faster, more realistic way for people to get a group together.

I mean, I always say, I don't even know if I have 10 friends, let alone that 10 friends

that play tennis and at my level to go out there and form a team and hope everyone's

available each week.

And I was seeing a lot of people fall off because there's so many challenges with making

that form at work.

And I think it's been, you know, Alta's numbers reflect that.

I mean, you throw in an aging population, as you said, demographic changing as far as the

building and the way you're being introduced, then you throw a pandemic into the loop and

you lost a lot of folks.

And so now how are we going to--

I helped them, actually.

That's the big argument with tennis.

Did it help tennis participation?

Yes.

Did it bring new people to the sport?

Probably not.

I always laughed at, we used to do summer camps in my white comms when I was at white comms.

And I never saw any of those kids after summer camps were over because it was a babysitting

service.

Half a day.

So they were there to accomplish one thing.

Yes, the pandemic.

You wanted to do something.

Tennis was obviously a very safe place.

Once the pandemic is over and the league start doesn't change the entry barriers.

And now that Walmart $90 bracket isn't really appropriate if you're going to try to improve.

So it introduced, I don't know if we capitalized on the opportunity because of the entry barriers,

as you said.

Sure.

And that kind of goes back to that new product that needs to be launched.

It's like, definitely saw more people taking drills.

But was that like a one in done because they showed up with a drill, hit the ball around.

There was nothing to foster that community.

They weren't like, OK, you same people are coming back next week.

And by the end of this four or eight week, whatever session that they paid for, you'll know

how to play and you'll have a group of people to play with.

It was more like Joe for drills and see you later.

And they were the attendance was great, right?

Which is awesome.

But, you know, it's like any hobby.

If you don't have people to deal with or people to talk to about it, it's easy to forget.

If we only had a network of coaches, maybe a network of coaches and a calendar all in one

place where the drills are and we could all get, we only had that somewhere.

One where.

Well, yeah, I mean, I think what you guys are doing is great.

And the coaches, you know, they don't, I mean, it's supplying the van, right?

So they already have their schedule full of privates and existing teams.

And so how are they going to, you know, allocate more bandwidth to, well, maybe this group will

work out and, you know, be a long term investment, but it's just too tough, you know, especially

during COVID when people, you know, were coming to the courts more often.

So again, that goes, but as you said, all the little intricacies of the industry itself that

you look at say, well, because most of our coaches are independent contractors.

They don't have a club.

They don't have a salary.

The only time they're making money is when they're on the court.

So yes, in a short term, everybody's looking at when I interview somebody, how many hours

do you get for me?

And that's like you're, you're not getting the job if that's one of your first three questions

because you're not looking long term.

You're looking, you know, how do you get passed tomorrow?

And yes, there has to be a degree of that, but you, if you're going to do this as a career,

you have to think a little bit more long term and you have to think about how do we

build a program?

How do we create that community?

And I completely agree with you.

I mean, I came in, I was fortunate to be like the person who started White Collins.

So for better or worse, they were stuck with what my ideas were in the culture to coming

in following somebody at Windomir.

And it took a few years to change the culture.

And I always love that when we started, I would always play music on the court.

You know, when you come in, you're here in 70s and 80s music.

You know what you're getting yourself into.

And in the beginning, oh, it's loud.

I can't concentrate.

And I was, as I said yesterday in the podcast, you know, hey, if you want to play with you,

it's open.

You got to use the planes over your head.

A little bit of noise is going to bother you.

Now, so many years later, everybody brings their own little speaker for their court.

So you have 10 courts with 10 different types of music.

So the culture is much more energetic.

You know what you're getting into.

And it's funny when we get people who come in from other places, you know, they used to

complain, now they, oh, no, we love it.

We love it.

So, but it takes time.

And like you said, if you're looking at the threat of losing money, you know, coaches pull

the plug quick if they feel threatened because there is another one right next door who's

willing to undercut the price and, you know, the other thing that we're trying to do is promote

the idea of the certified coach that there is a difference.

You know, the guy who's got a ball hopper who says, you know, everybody back in the day we

used to laugh was the number one player in Georgia.

Well, how did Georgia have so many number one players if everybody was number one?

So somebody was, excuse me, lying, but you know, what are the differentiators for the pros?

And it's taken a while for the USPTN, the USPTR, the certification branches to up their

game.

But now they do require background checks.

They do make you take the class, you know, the Olympic harassment classes to make sure

that you have an understanding.

You know, they do make you take continuing education.

So you're not teaching the continental grip for hand because you grew up in the 70s and

that's what you know.

So you know, that's the other part too is how we're going to change the game is show people

that there is a difference.

This is why you want to get involved.

And hopefully you'll make it more easier to learn and enhance everyone's experience.

Yeah.

And from, you know, a lady's perspective, yes, I don't want to learn inaccurate forehand,

but you're paying for entertainment, you know, you're not really there to, you know, be

on the fast track to go pros.

Yeah, you're going to win.

Yes.

And again, like you can only buy something that's a product and available.

And I think that's what's great about your guys and calendar is you're giving, you know,

coaches the opportunity to products, productize what they do.

And this is how someone can find out about me and know its legit and go in and, you know,

book and plan for sessions that I'm free versus like, you know, oh, I know so and so.

And here's his number.

It's, you know, a little bit less professional.

So yeah, yeah, no, I mean, I think the USDA holds a lot of power there.

And I know they have tried several programs and you know, that tennis apprentice program,

I think is kind of the closest thing I've seen to it.

And it's just a matter of, well, how do we, if it's a public court, how is that mandatory?

Because that's, that's important that everyone kind of picks that on and start having standard

programs no matter where you are.

So as a tennis player, when someone asks you, how do I get into it?

It's like, boom, that's how you get into it.

Well, hopefully at some point everybody says, go to, go to let's go tennis.com find something.

Right?

Because at some point, yeah, you look, you look at USDA and they're going to have certain

programs and certain places.

Some of it's going to work.

Some of it's not.

A. Well, so none of the coaches are jumping in, raising their hands and, ooh, meek.

Will you under pay me to teach tennis?

Mm-hm.

So we've got some limitations there.

And from what I'm hearing, Bobby again, it seems to be the theme.

And I don't know why I'm a little bit surprised today because this is why we got in, why

we started having these conversations in the first place is that people are struggling

to find teams.

There are lots of courts in the suburbs that are unused and people are struggling to find

drills and lessons and really somebody they can connect with or somebody that can coach

them that is certified, that doesn't show up, that they're comfortable with, that maybe

has already been bedded and that they can not just a simple referral.

In this case, it's a well-fed certified pro.

So the question being, does an Alta have all these, they've had all these problems and

Alta's had thousands of years to figure it out and they haven't.

USDA has millions of dollars and thousands of years to figure it out and they have it.

Bobby, what makes us think that we've got this figured out?

Well, I don't think that we know we haven't figured out.

It's the implementation part is the challenge.

I don't fall to Alta because Alta is frustrating as it is, tells you point blank, we are a leak.

That's what we do.

And we hear you, but that's now what we do.

Now the governing body of the sport in the country, they might have some culpability, but

again, they have to come concise with a business model and I think they've been not really

good at doing that.

That's about the best way I can put it.

You've got to decide who you want to be when you grow up.

And they have never been able to reconcile, are we raising champions, which at our best we

had, let's go to the San Chris Chang, we had four guys in the top 10.

Okay, four, how many millions of people live in this country?

Do we want the hundreds of millions playing tennis or do we want to watch four?

Well, watching four really didn't do a lot for the sport, so you would think we should

change our focus a little bit.

And use the Elon, I'm sorry, the Jordan Peterson theory of if we have enough people born, we will

solve the global energy problem because one of those kids is bound to be a genius and he'll

figure it out.

That was, that's a great idea.

Okay, that's not the big deal.

Nobody ever considered this.

We have enough kids.

One of them is bound to be bright.

So we could, we could hope for that in Atlanta with so much exposure to tennis for so long,

maybe somebody will figure it out again, it goes back even in this city, you think about

it, all the pros paranoid, we don't want you walking on our court, traffic is a bear in

this city.

Yeah, I might want to go to, I mean, we had passes to go yesterday to the Atlanta open and

meet Ryan O'Palka.

And I'm not going to, in Lanark station at three o'clock in the afternoon, I live 35 miles

away.

I know as much as that was entertaining and a fun idea, I have a daughter, I got to pick

up, I can't do it.

So I think that, for the people who are going to do it, they're going to do it.

And that's great, that's, because they're going to talk to their base and if they draw one

or two and again, and I think that's where tennis pros need to, in the industry, used

to wake up.

You're not going to lose that much business.

Hopefully you're going to create more business because there's more people playing, more

energy, the idea of making tennis cool again, that I can go out and talk about it.

And you know, just find other, I don't want to play an out to league, it takes too long.

Oh, well, they go play Wine Wednesday.

You're done, you're getting the same camaraderie.

I mean, as I said, I was laugh about, you know, this is a bowling league in New York.

Well, we've bowled every day.

There was a different league every night of the week in New York at your local bowling

alley.

You know, we just blessed with good weather down here, so it's tennis.

Why are we so paranoid?

And I, you know, I don't know, again, I'd love for somebody to do the psychological

aspects.

It's an individual sport.

Does that affect because the people that are in it have been in a cocoon for so long

that it's hard to see big picture?

I don't know.

Obviously, that's where I plead the fifth and have no idea.

Yes.

So I mean, I didn't come from tennis.

I played volleyball through college when I knew you were going to college.

Well, New York, I went to Maris College and I saw that the red fox is.

I've been waiting for that in.

Did I have pictures in the Duncan Dutchman all over the point?

I didn't make Smith.

Rick Smith.

I didn't believe anything I was saying.

Duncan Dutchman, Center for the Indiana Pacers.

Right.

Was it red fox?

That's right.

We're very proud.

But yeah, so when I moved back to Atlanta, you know, my mom would just invite me to go

watch her tennis matches.

And I was like, it seems like the least I can do since you've watched every match in

mind throughout my whole life.

And then I realized it was, you know, a neighborhood black party.

So I would go to their beer, hang out, you know, have a lot of fun.

And eventually that's how I got into it.

They invited me to join the team, started playing, caught the bug.

But you know, I think that experience playing all other sports and even now playing, you know,

college, San volleyball league, softball leagues, like seeing how those captains, I love my

captains.

I love the way they play for those leagues, but they really just tell us what time to be there.

They show up, flip the coin and now we're underway.

Seeing what effort it takes to do tennis as a team in a league is wild.

So yeah, I mean, had I grown up playing tennis, I'd probably have, you know, quite a different

perspective, but not playing tennis and finding it later and kind of comparing it to my other

experiences in adult sports.

That's, that's a lot of the inspiration behind Wine Down Wednesday.

Well, what we've learned to fortify what you're saying is a lot of play, first of all, we

were, I think we had Luke Jensen, we spoke to Luke and he told us that 70% of division

one tennis players never play tennis again after they leave college.

So that number one is a really horrifying statistic in my mind that they're so burned

out that that's the last time they touch the rackets is 22, 23 years old.

So that's horrifying.

The other reassuring when we asked the question, we'll ask you in a little bit about the

king of Queen of tennis, a lot of the replies have been doing things in a team format either

on the professional recreationals that people, again, we want that camaraderie.

As adults, we, you know, what do you lose when you go to school?

Commonality.

We're all, we all stinkin' algebra.

So we have that, we're in the bunker mentality.

I don't want to go to algebra, I hate history, whatever it is.

So we have a commonality and as you get older, the commonalities become, unfortunately,

just for adults is just your children.

Oh, you know, what, what were you driving today?

Oh, they got practice at this.

They got practice.

Well, you kind of have a life, you know, it's not, it's not fair for the kids and it's certainly

not fair for the parents that you got to continue to function and find something for yourself.

Yeah, absolutely.

And...

Well, you're on the right track.

So how many folks do you have playing and how do people find out, you know, what has been

your most effective way of getting new people to find out about you?

It's a great question.

So we just closed our early registration where you get $5 off reviews.

We already have 40 teams signed up for the next season.

So it's going to be our biggest yet.

And hopefully they continue to keep coming the rest of June.

Our cutoff date is July 1st.

And like I said, the season will start July 26.

But it's like anything, you know, no one really takes action unless their friend told them

about it or told you and it's a trusted source.

So I feel like I can scream on social media, blast out a lot of emails.

But really, you know, how do you find out about it?

Oh, you know, my friend told me is the most common.

So yeah, we do all that.

We're, you know, on social, do a lot of conversions and email, hop into the Atlanta tennis players,

Facebook group and other groups around town just to get the brand out there.

But yeah, it's usually someone will tell them or, you know, we're so blessed to have such

great captains.

You know, I try to get away from using the term captain because it's got such a negative connotation

in all their leagues and calling my fearless leaders.

But really, that's what it takes.

It takes someone to say, we're going to do this.

Come on, ladies.

You know, I got the courts and we're ready.

And they do such a great job and they make it fun.

They bring the speakers to play music.

They take pride in their playlists.

They want to share it with the opponents.

You know, they come up with fun things like theme nights to do, you know, amongst their teammates,

just to keep it light.

And so we try to reward them as much as possible and give them gifts and encourage them to,

you know, keep coming back season after season.

And yeah, I mean, because we don't have teams without them and certainly don't have a league

without teams.

But yeah, it's definitely the referrals that keep us going.

We offer a free season each time someone refers a new team.

So that's an incentive.

And what we'll notice is a lot of the new teams, they'll have a lot of people in their roster,

you know, first season.

Just kind of, that's the mentality again.

Like we need this many people because even though people are signing up to do something,

they're not going to be committed to it.

And then once they realize they don't need that many people, they'll break off with the

two teams or they'll recommend the league to their neighbors that play at a different

level.

So we see a lot of a lot of bad each season getting new teams.

How is the drive time?

Where are you, you know, where do geographically is the heart of your program?

How far do you go south?

How far do you go north?

How far east and west?

So, you know, very much up 400 are for this team's north are incoming.

Yeah.

She's got your surrounded, Bobby.

I think my ladies would love this.

And again, they're playing it at a time.

I mean, our ladies are at a point where they're doing flex league amongst themselves.

I mean, I know there's a flex league across the street.

I know that a guy at Atlanta, what Atlanta, you know, one of the Atlanta's, I don't know,

developed his own software for it.

So there is a need.

I mean, it's not impeding on Alta.

It's just a little smaller, a little more quaint, a little more fun.

Yeah.

Because it's a little more, you know, it's smaller, more intimate.

You can do crazy things.

I mean, my daughter just told me, I'm thinking about it, you know, Taylor Swift's concert tour

is called "Ears."

And all the girls are literally dressing as Taylor Swift at the various point for the different

albums they were representing.

And my daughter said, oh, well, somebody came up with something.

Nobody knew.

They dressed up like her character in the Lorax.

That, you know, she was one of the main characters.

Oh, that's a great idea.

But I mean, you could literally have somebody dressed up as Martina, Hinges, Huna, Pratillo,

Vakras, Vakras, Vakon, Bore, Giammi, it would be a blast.

Yeah.

They'll be like 80s, night, or, you know, for a night.

I mean, let's face it.

Like, that's also why I got any attendance with the clothes.

And that's what girls wanted to do for a girls night out.

Just having an excuse to get dressed up and go do something.

But, you think of somebody drove, do you think of somebody drove a truck to your facility

where you were playing with clothes in it, with the girls would be excited about that?

Would that make them feel like, well, this is something different?

For sure.

Yeah.

For sure.

Yeah, like we'll bring wine, like, surprise people with wine, send up pizzas, you know, just

things to keep everyone engaged.

We do a cocktail contest every season.

So we get sponsors for that.

And basically, it's just a way for people to take a team photo and show off their team

on social media.

You know, so we do that.

And it's been a blast.

I mean, I'm amazed at how creative people can be, whether it's their team name or their

cocktail or anything.

And it's just great to have a backdrop for them to funnel that too.

Fantastic.

But yeah, as far as South, as, I guess, the Buckhead area, so that's North and South, East

and West, we go over to like, Smurna vines, Woodstock, just had a team sign up for Buford.

So, you know, got to grow in that area as well.

Need to get over into the Decatur area.

The cab can get some courts, but yeah.

That's a tough spot.

Yeah.

I mean, like you guys, we're saying, drive time, as we survey each season is the number one thing

people want to be close.

You know, it's drive time, then close matches in terms of competitiveness and then new opponents.

You know, it's not, it's not the other way around, which I feel like sometimes we get focused

on.

So, that's the challenges is getting enough people in their pockets at their level to give

them, you know, a proper division where they're not driving super far, but that's any

leagues challenge.

So, have you ever thought, because this is, this was again, very aged idea, but when we

were thinking about dipping our toe in years and years ago, having just designating, going

to four facilities, and this way, say, look, I need Wednesdays, I'm going to bring you

six courts.

And this, you know, when you sign up that you can pick from these facilities, and this

is your home site.

Yeah, I would love, love that option.

I mean, I guess this is the USDA's poll when Red Hair and now Stillfire Brewing League launched.

They like, overtook all the public kind of facilities, which is awesome, because I know

I could fill them if I was given the courts.

So yeah, it, that would be great.

But right now, it's, it's definitely trying to revitalize some of the existing Swim tennis

courts that are around, because the public courts just are tough right now.

And I think, you know, COVID, the boom with COVID and just people booking in and playing in

different flex leagues and things like that.

Obviously, they didn't have as much available anymore, but also just trying to figure out,

like who's running the show at each beyond the city and convincing them to have your back.

So I'm very, you know, grateful to Sandy Springs and the folks I know over there for, for helping

me out.

But yeah, they want to give us more courts will, will fill them.

Very good, very good.

All right, Shawn, you, you got the big question.

I bet you she's got an answer for us too.

I'm curious of this one.

We, we get a chance to ask everybody if you were King or Queen of tennis.

And we've had more Queens recently, I think, Bobby, but if you were Queen of tennis, is there

anything you would do, whether it's a day, a year, however long it would take, you get to

answer however you'd like.

If it's just an Atlanta or for the whole world, professional amateur, however you want to

look at it.

But if you were Queen of tennis, is there anything you would do or change?

Yes.

I think we touched on it early, but offering that product for someone who's curious about

tennis or wants to get back into it after taking time off where they can go to a public facility,

sign up for a session with other people and go from zero to 60.

Now they know how to play.

They can play on their own.

And there's a community of people that they can play with.

And if that was required at just in Atlanta, at Bitsy, Chastain, DeKab, St.Vee Springs,

all these different Blackburn, all these different public tennis centers where it's not just

beginner drills and no sort of community building.

I think that would be awesome.

And then from there, you would form doubles parings that could then play a flex league,

groups of women's that could then go play Wine Down Wednesday, a bunch of mixed teams,

like that that would just continue to perpetuate what we have in Atlanta.

And I think it would be applicable around the country as well.

I mean, I think that's what you get when you join a country club, right?

You get that kind of programming or when someone's running the tennis facilities in your

neighborhood.

And that's kind of what needs to be available at the public courts.

So that would be number one for me.

And obviously, I'm selfish because I want more teams coming out of that.

But then I also am very jealous of other sports that can have that low barrier to entry,

like we were talking about, that just gets people thinking about the sport, even if they're

not ready to commit and try to play it yet.

So like the bowling alleys, the top golf, the pickle and chicken, we're going to go out

to a bar and like, oh, I didn't notice that there was a beach volleyball court at this

bar.

And I'm thinking about beach volleyball tennis needs that.

And it's hard because it requires a lot more coordination.

And I don't know what the model would be, but it would be awesome if someone could figure

it out.

I guess the closest thing that got was like we tennis when people were playing that all

the time in their own homes.

But there's so much now, like, you know, with simulators and things of that nature that,

you know, again, people just knight out whether they throw in axes or something while they're

drinking beer and having a good time and that sport kind of gets mentioned during those

times.

So yeah, that would be cool.

Well, there you have it.

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