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Economy woes, high price of gas mean smaller crowds at Joel EMPTY SEATS
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Published: April 12, 2008
The United States is well on its way to its sixth straight victory in a Davis Cup tie.
The defending champs picked up their 2007 championship rings during opening ceremonies of their 2008 World Group quarterfinal against France yesterday, then took a commanding 2-0 lead with singles victories by Andy Roddick and James Blake.
But a different streak came to an end.
The sellout streak is over.
Yesterday's opening matches drew an announced crowd of 10,082, with the top 10 rows of the upper deck covered by a tarpaulin.
That's far short of Joel Coliseum's capacity of 14,453, the attendance for each of the three sessions last April for the United States' quarterfinal victory against Spain. Counting three sellouts in Portland for the Davis Cup final against Russia, which sold out in less than 10 minutes, the sellout streak is over at six for the U.S. in home ties and three for Winston-Salem.
It's a shame, because Roddick, Blake and the Bryan brothers do enough to promote the game and have done enough for American tennis with their commitment to Davis Cup that they deserved to be acknowledged by a full house in their first home tie as defending champs.
It's a shame, because the opening ceremonies and the film showing highlights of the team clinching against Russia last year really were well-done and worth experiencing.
And it's a shame because a lot of folks in the community have done everything in their power to sell this weekend out again.
So what happened?
Why didn't tennis fans rush back to salute the American team in what will most likely be its only home tie of the 2008 competition? What does this say about Winston-Salem? What does this say about Davis Cup?
There is not one answer, but many.
And none of them reflect on Winston-Salem that badly.
USTA and Joel Coliseum officials said that their figures confirm that there was actually an increase in ticket sales and sponsorships to those living in Winston-Salem and the Piedmont Triad. The decrease in ticket sales came from dramatically fewer tickets sold nationally, and to a lesser degree, in cities such as Charlotte and Raleigh beyond a 75-mile radius.
That suggests three things.
This tie, even back when France's rising stars Jo-Wilfried Tsonga and Richard Gasquet were expected to play, simply didn't carry the hype that last year's quarterfinal tie against Spain carried before Rafael Nadal chose to skip out. Tsonga is fun to watch and would have brought juice to this tie, but he's still not on Nadal's level in terms of widespread popularity.
Winston-Salem, as much as we love it, simply isn't a spot on the tennis map that die-hards are going to make a part of their annual vacation plans. They might go to New York for the U.S. Open every summer, they might go to Miami or Indian Wells, but in tennis terminology, Winston-Salem means Been There, Done That. Remember the notion that Winston-Salem lost out to Portland for last year's final because an element of the USTA wanted to take a trip to somewhere new? It gains validity with these numbers.
And then, there's one other unquestionable factor.
Gasoline at filling stations near Joel Coliseum was $3.27 9/10 a gallon yesterday.
The stock market was down again yesterday.
The economy is shaky, and in tough economic times a trip to Winston-Salem for a Davis Cup quarterfinal simply isn't as attractive as in good financial times.
That's the biggest factor to Jeff Ryan, the USTA's director of team events.
"I don't know that you can attribute it to one thing, but there's some recession impact going on here," Ryan said. "I know technically we're not in a recession, but personally I know a lot of people that are being affected. I mean, I'm worried about $110 per barrel of oil. I'm worried about the state of the economy. You can see that in the polls that are coming out daily. I don't want to get into politics, but people are not spending money right now."
Bucky Dame, the director of Joel Coliseum, said he is worried about the effect of the economy on all coming events.
"I think part of it is, there was so much buzz about Nadal last year," Dame said. "And I think maybe the timing hurt us more than we expected. Last year we thought being on Easter weekend was going to be a drawback, but looking back at it now it might have been a better date than this year. But I think the big thing is the price of gas. I think when you look at it, people just aren't going to drive up from Atlanta and even Charlotte with gas at $3.30 a gallon. We had a significant drop in people driving up from Charlotte this year."
Ryan is quick to point out that yesterday's 10,082 still ranks far above the average crowd for Davis Cup ties at other American venues. If today's doubles match and Sunday's reverse singles draw similar numbers, this tie will wind up somewhere from sixth to 10th on the USTA's all-time attendance list for a home tie.
"I'll take 30,000 for three days any time," Ryan said. "It's a top 10 event for us in terms of an attendance record. Here we are again in Winston-Salem, the place is full, festive, fun, player-friendly, so what more could you want from all the perspectives we look at? I'm kind of the guy that brings everything together. That's my challenge. And I think everybody I deal with is extremely happy.
"Just looking at the numbers, it's going to be a top 10 event in U.S. Davis Cup history. So that's three solid blips on the Davis Cup radar screen that point to Winston-Salem. That's what Don (Flow) was going for, I'll tell you that. I don't know that he could have put that into words in the beginning of 2000 when we started talking about bringing the Davis Cup here. But that's what he was shooting for, and that's what has happened."
■ John Delong can be reached at 727-7321 or at jdelong@wsjournal.com
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