This is Bloomberg Business Week with Carol Messer and Tim Stenebek on Bloomberg Radio. On the ball.
Or you're hearing we're already getting fron Oh, we're having fun. We are having fun. We're at the US Open. And I have to say, last year I got to watch the amazing devil's matchup between Serena and Venus, and then watching Serena's last match, and I just think about the role that those two individuals have had on the game of tennis and really at the world at large.
I got to see Venus play on Tuesday night.
You did get to see Venus playing.
I mean, what's amazing about Venus is she's literally playing against people who grew up seeing her win Grand Slams. It's remarkable.
It is pretty remarkable. Who's also in market playing for a long time is the woman who's sitting next to us again, Katrina Adams, former President, chairman and CEO of the US Tennis Association, chair of the US Open as well as the chair of the International Tennis Federation Cup and Gender Equality and Tennis Committee, former Pro tennis pro double specialist. And I could go on and on and on. You're amazing thank you, Thank you for coming back and finding time.
You're busy, always excited to be here with you guys.
Well, tell us about what you're excited about this year at the Open.
Oh my goodness, it's the US Open.
It's spectacular, right, I mean everything that's happening here.
I mean, you know, obviously you just mentioned Venus Williams.
Just to see her back on the court again, you know, since nineteen ninety four. I was sitting in her box in nineteen ninety seven when she played her first final and lost to or Tina Hingis. I was here when she played the final against Serena Serena, her sister. Yeah, when Serena won in ninety nine. But you know, when you look at the emergence of Coco goa Off and Francis Tifo and Jess Pagoula, and and you know, Michael Mole look what he did today taking out John Isner and so many young players.
Ben Shelton.
It's exciting for the American players, Tommy Paul, There's so many.
I can't even name them all right now.
And you know there was a time I I can name them all on one hand.
Does it feel like we're sort of in a you know, Andrea agascy Pete Sampress, Jim Curry or Michael Chang sort of era where we have these Americans.
Let's not get ahead of ourselves. Let's let's let's yeah.
I think that we have the ability to get there, because when you talk about Taylor Fritz and tfone in the top ten, and Paul Tommy Paul and knocking on the door and Ben Shelton, those guys are are knocking on the door. Yes, we'll get there, but until they start winning majors like Pete Samprass and Andrea Agassi and Jim Curry and Michael Chang, then it's it's a different it's a different story.
But it's a long time That's good.
But it's a long time coming to be able to talk about these guys being in these majors, get into the second weaves consistently, and then having some new names to join that on the men's side.
We've always been.
There on women's side, but to be able to talk about these these men is really exciting.
Katrina. What is it that kind of keeps the younger generation coming back to tennis?
I think being a to see players like we just mentioned on the court week in and week out, you know, and at these majors going deep to motivate the young kids to want to get into the sport. So when you talk about Fritz and TFO and Paul, you know who were they watching when they were young kids who motivated them to get into the sport. And for them, I think when they came up through the USC Player Development program, they really got to travel together, train together,
motivate one another, push one another. They're still doing that, and they were looking up to the John Isners of the world, the Jack Socks of the world, both.
Who are retiring. Here.
John isn't played this last singles match here and he and Jack are playing doubles later today. It's just Jack's last tournament where he'll be retiring. So I think it's generational. You know, Mike and Bob they retired last year, two years ago now, Mike and Bob Ryan and so I think, you know, each generation inspires the next generation. And it's fun to watch these brotherhoods and sisterhood its form and development.
I still have this question about access. You know, Tennis, for a lot of people looked at as like a country club sport still it's very expensive to get courts and cities, especially during the winter if you live somewhere where it snows, I mean Tiapo for example. Let's look at his story. Would he be a pro tennis player if his dad didn't work at a tennis center. I don't know if he answered that he.
Could because he grew up in an NJTL program.
So the program itself was accessible, The program itself was free. The program itself, you know, provided opportunity. I run a program like that here in Harlan, the Harlem Junior and Tennis an education program which provides access and opportunity for inner city youth. There are over two hundred those types of chapters in JTAIL chapters around the country, in addition to after school program, so access is available. It's not
about having access. It's not about learning the sport. It's about once you develop to be a player and you become competitive, that's where the cost comes.
Okay, here's my concern. Every tennis court I see is being turned into a pickleball court.
Not every tennis court. Let's not. Let's not put that out there now.
Is driving me crazy? Thank you. I know. This is when you when you speak to a serious tennis player and you ask them about pickleball, that's the answer.
So I puts the challenge.
So I think the challenge where you're looking at those courts are probably at clubs because clubs are about making money. So our club is looking at take in a court, one tennis court and turn into four pickleball courts where they can try. Now they've they've got sixteen players on a court versus four, right, So they're looking at the opportunity to be able to make more money. To you know, it's about monetization. But I also think, listen, I have
nothing against pickleball. I think it's a great opportunity for people to get out and and get exercise, to have fun, to be social. I think it's fantastic. There's a great buzz out there, but it's about longevity. Where where where will it go? I think it's growing to think about it. But I also well, I don't want to say it's a fad because you want it. You want all the racket sports to succeed. It's a racket sport. We are
a racket sport in tennis. But what I do want is that it's done right in that people are staying healthy. It's also a sport where the highest injuries are coming because everybody thinks they can go out and play pickleball and they're you know, they're running their knees and ankles and they're falling and this and that, and so I think there just has to be.
A little more structured to it.
You know, tennis is a skilled sport, and it's a mechanical sport, so is pickleball. But people aren't realizing that they're able to go out and learn and make you know, hand eye coordination quickly without really understanding the mechanics of it or the footwork of it, and that's where they're starting to get injured.
What do you love that people talk about when it comes to tennis generally? What do you hate that they talk about?
What I love is that it's a it's an individual sport where you can just go out and build your own self esteem, your self confidence.
Right you're figuring it, Oh my gosh. Yes, I mean I love to compete.
I'm a natural, boring competitor. So for me, it was about competing not just against you, but against myself and getting better, pushing myself to hit one extra ball pushing myself to go one more rally, pushing myself to do one more drill, and pushing myself to get better. Every single day I went on the court, learning a new shot, learning a new spend. And I think that's the thrill
that I had that hopefully everybody else is having. You know, even I speak to a lot of older women that may not be started until they're forty, and they're going out and they're learning at forty fifty and they're becoming these three point zero level players and having so much fun, and just a thrill that excites me, the fact that you could start so late and have so much fun.
It's not going out there being you know, playing here at the US Open for everybody, but just to go out and have fun and build a camaraderie with people and still have a competitive drive and natural competitive drive in yourself. So there's nothing that I hate about the sport.
Okay, So then what I want to ask you is, I'm thinking about Michelle Obama, who at the beginning of the week was talking about just equality and pay, and here we are, and you know, Tim knows we talk about this all the time, that we continue to have these conversations, and it's the same thing with women in you know, the CEO role. How do you feel about it? Why does it take so long for their baby parody with pay?
I think it's it's life, right, it's parody. There's no parody in plant pay anything that we have. So fifty years of equal pay here at the US Open, I mean that says a lot. Yeah, we finally have parody in pay at all of the Grand Slam events at the Open. Well, definitely have it at the US Open. Yeah, it was the first one. Yeah, fifty years here, we have it at all of the Grand Slams in Australian Roland girls and Wimbledon. Wimbledon was the last one two
thousand and two, but or twelve. But when we look at the tours and we have our joint events and mint, the ATP event is still getting paid more than the women at the same event.
The same week, significant location.
That's where it's challenging.
It's getting better, but it's about sponsorship, you know, why are we not getting the same level of sponsorship for the WTA or for the women events that the men are And so you know, thank God for villaging Kings. Fifty years ago to go out and find a sponsor to throw in the pot to make the prize money equal here at the US Open. That's because of her and Bristol Myers, who added fifty five thousand dollars to the women's prize money to make it equal to the men.
And then they never look back.
They realized how much of a great thing it was, and we were fortunate enough to be able to do that going forward.
What's wild to me is that it's fifty years of equal pay here at the US Open. But there are so many other sports today where there's there's not even close to parody.
Oh no, I mean when you look at the women's soccer U.
S W.
Women's national team, women's women's.
National soccer team, it's it's it's crazy that that just happened, you know, and they fought for years when they were the better team with their better results at World Cup right exactly, And now you know, now we have a professional women's hockey team, it's we're constantly fighting. And you look at the women's NBA, the w n b A not yet do they have parody, even though it's a shorter season. But just look at when you look at the amenities. They don't even have their own private jets.
Yet it's crazy to travel from from game to game.
And it says something about whether people say, oh, we still think you're valuable. No, it says something about your value and your worth.
It says a lot.
And so we still have a long way to go, and it's something that we as professional athletes have been fighting for for a very long time, longer than fifty years, and.
Hopefully we can get there.
Hey, Katrina, one thing I wanted to ask you. You talked a little bit about earlier about what it took to be a professional tennis player, all the practice you wanted, having the desire to keep going. Tennis is a sport that drives individuals completely insane. I mean, you watch some of these players on the court and they're screaming at it,
at themselves. And if you were watching one of those, so was I. If you're walking down the street and you were to see this person in the context of like the middle of the street, you would say that person actually needs help. But you see them on a tennis court and it's like totally normalized.
And you're like, I get that.
I get that. I'm wondering though, how you take that after you retire and you use that energy in your professional career, Like, does that keep going, that mental toughness that you built up?
It does?
And I think you know we are. We build ourselves to be perfect in everything that we do, and so there is no room for failure quote unquote failure, but only for improvement. So whatever we're doing and whatever profession that is, we want to be the best. And I know for a fact there are people that hire former professional tennis players or athletes because they understand winning. They know that they want to win, but they understand what
losing feels like. So they want to hire them because they know that they're going to give it their all because they don't like.
The feeling of losing.
So they know that they're going to make sure that they're successful. And so I think that those our qualities and the life skills that we have that make us great in business, no matter what the business is. And you learn how to work as a team. Even though tennis is an individual sport, I still have a team. I gotta work with my coach, I gotta work with my physio, I got to work with whomever it is I got to work with whoever my practice partner is on the other side of the net, to make sure
that our drills are going properly right. So, yeah, it's an individual sport when you're out there competing, but when you're training, it is teamwork. And so when you go into business, into the professional world outside of sport, or it could be business in sport, it's still working with a team and you're still driven to do and prepare. It's all about preparation. So for me to be the best on the court for my match, how well did
I prepare? For me to do a presentation for you know, some job, or to get some deal, how well did I prepare? And I think that's what people are hiring or looking for in the qualities of individuals.
You only have about thirty seconds left here. Any predictions here?
Yeah, an American.
Let's go on the men's side and the women's side.
Let's go American. All right, go you think, so let's go.
So we're back. We are back to the nineties.
I go, do you still play? I do very little, but I do double singles. I just hit. I don't compete just well, I compete on the golf course.
Oh that's right.
Are you screaming yourself on the golf course.
You know what we really want to know is do you throw clubs? But you're definitely hit though here.
Thank you so much, good luck with everything.
Thank you, Katrina Adams, former President, Chairman CEO of the US Tennis Association, former pro so much more so inspiring and so much fun. Thank you so much. You're listening and watching Blueberg Business Week Carol Masser along with Tim Stenovik live at the US Open here in Flushing Meadow. Of course, we're just outside the Arthur Ashe Stadium. A lot going on, a lot of people, a lot of tournaments going on.
It is like a perfect day attendance record yesterday.
I wonder what today. I bet it'll be pretty good to you.
We'll find out the toward the end of the day. Maybe it'll be another record, all right. Well.
One of the things, yeah, speaking of kind of getting to miles Stones and a lot of it has to do with equality when it comes to something like the game of sports. If you think about racial integration in professional sports overall, you'd often think about Jackie Robinson in tennis. Althia Gibson really stands out She grew up in Harlem, not far from where we are now. In nineteen fifty six, she won what's now the French Open, becoming the first
African American to win a Grand Slam. She went on to win Wimbledon and what's now the US Open.
She broke many barriers, and even though she was one of the most famous women in the world, her success on the court didn't translate to financial stability, especially later in life. Ashley Brown is an assistant professor at the University of Wisconsin, Madison. She's written about the trials and triumphs of tennis champion Althia Gibson and her key role when it comes to the integration of American sports and for a time one of the most famous women in the world.
Yeah, Ashley Brown book. Her book, Brown's Book, Excuse Me is only Arena, getting ahead, making a difference and succeeding as the only one out. In twenty twenty one, she Ashley Brown that is joins us on Zoom from Madison.
Wisconsin, serving herself.
Oh did I say, Oh, that's okay.
We're talking about you know what? We got Katrina's book. Oh, I'm sorry that Katrina we got Serving herself.
The Life and Times of Outthia Gibson. I'm so sorry, Ashley. It's funny because we wanted Katrina to stay it kind of talk with you. And she said as she was leaving, great book. And the reason that there's a statue about THEA Gibson here is because of her when she was head of the USTA. Anyway, welcome, welcome, welcome, and thank you so much for joining us. Tell us about your book.
Thanks so much for having me. So the book is serving herself, The Life and Times of Althia Gibson. It's a comprehensive, full scale biography of Gibson. The first African American to compete at what is now the US Open, the first African American to win at the US Open, the first African American to compete and also win titles at Wimbledon. And Gibson was also the first African American
woman to play on the LPGA tour. So she definitely broke through many barriers for many people and certainly for herself.
Actually, what was the moment that you realized you wanted to write a book about this, this person, this person who broke so many barriers.
Well, I grew up in South Carolina, so I was well aware of Althia Gibson's success in tennis, but it was many years later, actually in my early years as an adult. I'm a golfer. In fact, I played eighteen holes today, if you must know. And I remember deciding at.
That point I wanted to learn more for a Thursday.
Yeah, I decided that I wanted to learn more about the history of golf, and I wanted to learn more about the history of African Americans in the game of golf. And I learned that Gibson was again the first African American woman to play on the LPGA Tour. And I thought, this woman broke barriers in tennis, and then she did so in golf. I really must learn more about Althea Gibson. And thus began a ten year journey.
Wow, tell us about that journey and some of the milestones in terms of learning more about her and the significance of her because it wasn't all always a lot of it wasn't easy to be fair.
No, to use a phrase, her life was certainly not all moonlight and magnolia. She had a hard time from the very beginning. She was the daughter of sharecroppers. The family joined the Great Migration. By the early nineteen thirties, they were living in Harlem, which of course was a mecca for a number of people of African descent from around the world. The family was very poor. She was the oldest of five kids, and a great deal was
expected of her. Gibson had a knack for coming to the attention of the right people at the right time, and in Harlem people began to notice what an exceptional athlete she was. Pretty soon she came to the attention of middle and upper class African Americans who loved the game of tennis. She excelled there, but of course she also had to learn the ropes. She also had a
number of difficulties when it came to class. So this is someone who broke barriers and who challenged the status quo when it came to gender, race, and class, and we certainly see that in terms of her success in tennis and golf. I'm fond of thinking of Gibson as certainly a renaissance woman and someone who really refused to be held down. You know, there were a lot of people who said, no, you can't play tennis for this reason.
You can't play golf for this reason, but she ignored those voices, and now she has such a rich legacy, and of course the statue there on the grounds where you are in New York.
She has a rich legacy. But to be fair, she's not a household name. I think for many people, Ashley, why do you think that is given all the barriers she broke and all the first that she achieved.
It's a terrific point, tim, and it's one of the reasons why I wrote this book. I certainly would name Jackie Robinson as one of my I would say personal heroes, but Gibson is up there too, and I want more people to be aware of her. I think there are a number of reasons. I think, first of all, it's
because she played tennis. For the longest time, has had an image as a niche sport, a sport that's associated with the well to do, the well off, even though there are a number of tennis champions, of course, who come from very humble backgrounds and beginnings, just like Gibson. And I also think the fact that she was a
woman played into this. It's changing, but for most of its history in America, sport has really been seen as a male domain, a male preserve, and so when people think about champions or what people have thought about champions, they've mostly looked to male athletes. And so I think gender was definitely in the way in terms of shrouding
Gibson from the awareness of a number of people. But fortunately, thanks to the exploits of Gibson and a number of successful sportswomen and they're out, more attention is being focused on women in the history of sport, and it's really a terrific time. Now.
There was something that struck me because I feel like in the aftermath of Georgia Floyd, you know, we've had a lot of heart to heart conversations, certainly with black colleagues that we work with, and just you know, this idea of being often a token in an event or a conference room or a meeting or something, and the burden that has put on their shoulders to kind of be that one individual you know that's maybe speaking or people are looking at them as speaking for their race overall.
And in your book, you say Athia was frustrated by the ways in which race saddled her with labor unknown
to her white colleagues. On the tennis circuit, having to contend with crowds hostile to me because of my color, with newspapermen demanding twice as much of me as they did of anybody else, simply because my color made me more newsworthy, And even with powerful government thinking to use me as an instrument of national policy because of my color, seemed to me to be more than anybody should have to bear. That's pretty powerful.
Those are aptletely chosen words, Carol. Those words actually come from ALTHEA. Gibson's first memoir, and she often found herself in the very difficult position of being expected to be a role model, of being expected to be a spokesperson for African Americans. This is a great opportunity to remind viewers and listeners of the times when Gibson lived and
when she carried out her career. She was born in nineteen twenty seven, and she made her and for that matter, African American's debut at what is now the US Open in nineteen fifty. She won the French Open in nineteen fifty six, Wimbledon and the US Open in fifty seven, and repeated in fifty eight. Anyone who has any awareness of history is aware that those were key moments in the build up toward and launching into the civil rights movement.
Nineteen sixty three, when she turns to professional golf, that of course is the moment when we have the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, and so many people expected Althia Gibson to speak up and to stand up
for all African Americans. That's quite a bit of pressure, and it's also quite a bit of pressure when at the same time she was trying to make sure that she had things for herself and that she could support and help her own family at the same time that she's dealing with discrimination because of her race and because
of her gender. So this history tells us so much more about just the challenges African Americans across the country had, but also more specifically the challenges that this particular African American woman had in the games of golf and tennis, but also when it came to getting endorsements and really getting a flithold into commercial and the business aspects of America.
We're still talking with Ashley Brown. She's the sister professor at the University of Wisconsin Madison. Her new book published earlier this year, serving herself. The life and Times about the Gibson So with us On Zuper from Madison, Wisconsin. Hey, Ashley, one thing I'm curious about. We wanted to dig a little bit more into the book. But after doing all the research and work, did you like Auttha? Did you have like a takeaway on her?
I did like her, and I would say that my first among many takeaways was really the importance of perseverance. Althia Gibson never gave up and she gave all of herself to everything that she did, every endeavor, even when it seemed that the world was against her. She refused to be denied, she refused to go away, and she just kept pushing and going. And I think that's that's the ultimate takeaway that I want readers to have when they pick up and when they finish the book.
Ashley, Why did she not find commercial success, especially toward the end of her life. I mean, this is a woman who you write was at one point one of the most famous people in the world. She was on the cover of magazines. Look, you know, information didn't travel as quickly as it does now in the nineteen fifties, but she was winning Grand slams. What happened, He.
Won Grand Slams, and as you point out, she was on the covers of magazines all around the world, but she also often seemed to be a step too late, a step behind. So Gibson turned professional, turned to professional tennis in nineteen fifty nine. It's only in nineteen sixty eight that we get the Open Era in tennis, meaning that amateurs and professionals could compete in the same tournaments, including the Grand Slams, and this also meant that at last people could be players could be paid and paid
well openly for what they did. This eluded Gibson in her time, and though she did play in a few professional events in the late nineteen sixties and early nineteen seventies, by this time she's in her early forties. She's not at the peak of her game anymore, and so in terms of her athleticism and being able to cash in,
that just never happened. And then also when we think about her professional golf career, certainly there was a tremendous imbalance in terms of the purses in the men's tournaments and the women's tournaments. The women always made less than the men. In professional golf, Gibson was also hampered by the fact that she came to golf much later than most of the people who played on the LPGA Tour. Many of those women had played since they were in
their early teens or even younger. Gibson had dabbled in golf before the Late nighttien ten fifties when she became serious about it, but she was really behind the eight ball, we might say, compared to the other women who were on the circuit, So she was never able to really make the money in either tennis or golf that she would have hoped. And then finally, because she was behind, she was also behind athletically in those sports in terms
of the pro ranks. But this also meant that corporate America was not really open to her because really at this time, segregation and discrimination were rampant on the American business sing in the nineteen fifties in the nineteen sixties, and so a number of companies she felt, were reluctant to hire her to endorse their products, and so she wasn't able to make the kind of money of let's say, Arthur Ash as you point out, or Reggie Jackson in
the nineteen seventies, and certainly nothing compared to the amounts of money that athletes today are able to make, not only on their teams and in their individual sports, but also commercially.
Well, you talk about in the book this was I think in the nineteen seventy or at nineteen seventy taking Gibson taking a long, hard look at her finances and face a sobering reality long in the making. She recounted the realization years later, quote, you got to eat, you got to pay the rent, you got to pay bills, car insurance and things like that. I wasn't making enough money to do that. There's several sections in your book where you talk about financial concerns. Tim and I we've
just got about a couple of minutes left. We're curious about your process of putting this together. And you know, before I cracked open the book, Tim was like, you got to go to also the pictures that are in there, because it really, in a strong way, tells so much of her story as so, but talk to us a little bit about the process.
Long process, ten years in the making, also a very personal process. Certainly I enjoy Manis and I'll be paying attention to the open and what Coco Goff and Caroline Wisniyaki are doing, but also writing the sections about her golf career, I wanted to make sure that that received the attention that it deserved, because I felt that that was a part of her life and her legacy that
really had not received adequate attention. But this was also about searching through archives, looking at all kinds of correspondents, federal records, and government records at the state and other levels.
Her fame was really useful because this meant that Gibson was someone who from a very early age traveled across the country and around the world, So going through hundreds of newspapers and magazines and reading through thousands of articles to get a sense of where she went and what she did, what she said, and also what people thought of her. And so this is why the book is as long as it is, and it's also why the story and the narrative why they are as deep and as engaging as they are.
Just in the last twenty seconds we have do you students get to take a class on her from you?
They don't get to take a class that is specifically about ALTHEA Gibson, But I certainly talk about her in my large lecture course History one point thirty six Sport Recreation in Society, and also in another lectured course that I teach that is also very very popular called African Americans and Sports. And we'll certainly talk about Gibson this fall in my seminar, which is about women in United States sports history.
Well, we said to you, Trina, Anam's former president of the USTA. She said, great book, incredible book. Ashley, thank you, say thank you so much. Assistant professor at the University of Wisconsin Madison, her new book, Serving Herself, The Life and Times of ALTHEA. Gibson. It is out. She called it long. I call it comprehensive, and it mean to learn something. This is Bloomberg