Pretty live tennis, all right, everybody. I got to say, when we think about the US Open, there are players that you know, There are players legends that are not here this year. There are also players that are up and coming, maybe not household names, but will be someone who knows them all has written about them, continues to as John Wertheim. He's executive editor senior writer at Sports Illustrated correspondent for the Tennis Channel, so this is a
big time working event for him. He is covering the US Open for the Tennis Channel. He's also contributing correspondent for sixty Minutes. He's a busy dude, and he found some time once again to join us here on site at the US Open.
How are you good? Pleasure to be here. Nice to see you guys. How are you doing good? Good week at tennis?
Right, It's great, got a little cooler. We're kind of loving that coverage. What are you loving about it this year? What's interesting for you?
Oh man? You know kind of s's this weird point where Roger Fetter is retired Titan player, everyone loved him. Not here, Serida Williams, Titan not here, rough on the doll, I'm not here. And I think everybody worried, oh man, after these legends retire, what does tennis look like? Is anyone going to care about the sport? And we've kind of made an uncharacteristically great, you know, graceful pivot for tennis. And the grounds are more filful than ever. The attendance
is through the roof. It's going to set a record, and it's kind of strange because we have this deficit of stars compared to what we used to have. So that's that's a story I'm looking at.
So do we have the deficit of stars or are is Cocoa Goff going to be there? Is Shelton going to be there? Is Alcaraz there?
I mean Alcarez could have been there the last yeah, last he's not in the tournament. Yeah, I mean, I think they're bright prospects. I think they're fans that they're players that fans are starting to build relationships with. But you know, we're not talking about guys, you know, twenty majors. Yeah,
Coco Goths wonderful, but just one. And I kind of feel like fans kind of like the unpredictability of it all, and they don't mind that any of twenty players could win, and they don't mind that Carlos Alcarez wins two tournaments and then loses in the second round here.
So when its sense is that better for the sport?
It's funny because I think the conventional wisdom is you sort of need excellence to the top. But the NFL, which is the most successful sports league certainly in the US, how's this any given Sunday theory and parody is great and we want all fans to think their team could get to the super Bowl. It's kind of worked out for them. And I think tennis is sort of pleasantly surprised how well things are going in the absence of stars.
Why do you think it is that way? You know, We've been talking with various folks from the USTA and they talk about the Zendaya movie Challengers and how much money it made, and you're rolling your eyes.
I didn't see it. Actually, I need to.
Das Sindaya's rate is quite high, so I don't know, you know how much it I made, But no, I think you're I think tennis is having a bit of a moment, and I think instead of tethering itself to these stars, to Reena, Williams, Rogers, thattter Rofando. I mean it's kind of it's about the culture, it's about the fashion, it's about the international aspects. I mean I think some of it too is just you and I could be playing and it would still be fun to come to
the US Open and watch a tennis match. Yeah, I mean, this is such a big event. It's almost sort of, actually, John.
And if I was playing, No, it wouldn't be if.
They would have Honny deuces and they would have music, and it's I mean, it's almost sort of that they're not player dependent here the way they used to be. No, I think there's a lot to recommend about tennis. I
mean I have pet theories about I think. I think pickleball maybe a bit of a help that all millions of millions of people are now sort of understanding what it means to hit a slice, or they have a more appreciation for tennis because they've been bopping around a whiffle ball in their in their yards.
Our producer Sebastian and I were watching a match on the side courts here yesterday and we were sitting next to somebody and he was talking about his pickleball, playing pickleball.
It's a thing. But I think that translates to tennis. Yeah, No, it's it's just straight. I mean tennis is sort of having this moment and whether it's exactly Zendaan movies or it's the I mean, I just and I don't think anyone saw this coming. I think there was a lot of handwringing about what would the sport look like. It's sort of a happy surprise.
Yeah, it's been. It's been really awesome to watch and least be able to cover it over the last few years, and even in those that little bit of times see the growth. Any big stories so far this year at the US Open that are.
Sticking out to you, well, I mean I think sometimes they're big stories in Week one and that's you know, you've got either controversy or you have big upsets, and then it kind of leads to a little bit of a fizzle in week two. I mean, this year we've had some upsets. I mean, Carlos Alcarez losing is obviously a big story, and I think a lot of people are sort of perplexed. This is supposed to be the
new star. He won the Front Open, he won, wibledon and everyone thought, oh, could he pull the summer triple. I mean, not even Roger Feeder or not even know about Djokovich ever did that. And then he comes out here and he loses in the second round to a guy outside fifty. That's been a strange story. I think, you know, we've had sort of the usual, the celebrities and Aaron Judge was here and Karen Washington. I mean, there hasn't been sort of that huge controversy, which I
suspect the US Tennis of mine. We had the longest match in US Open history a few days ago, which was which was good fun. But I think, you know, sometimes week one and excitement and upsets sort of doesn't pay off in week two. So I think we're in a nice place right now on on first Friday as we make this turn.
How many opens have you covered?
Oh, I'm not trying, You're doing so well, and that you kind of us really depressing a lot. I mean, like since the nineties. Remember the nineties, I remember it was, but.
That was a really important era for American men's tennis.
Yeah, I mean I sort of caught the very very tail end of Sampress Agasy and that I sort of came up, you know, I came up with like I think mack and Roe.
And Connors before, and they all looked at me like I was eve I know, nineties, Yeah exactly, Oh sorry, go ahead.
No, it's just funny because the game sort of takes on different identities and and it was it was Tampras Agassy and then you had the Williams sisters and you sort of had this international. I mean, I was here when Andy Ronick won and you said, oh, this is fresh American champion. And then here comes Roger feder Rofnadal and Novak Djokovic that basically ate everyone else judge for twenty years, and now we're at this sort of I mean,
obviously Djokovic is still here, he's a defending champion. He's somehow he's thirty seven years old. I would say, do you guys remember just sidebar, remember when Jimmy Connors had that crazy run in nineteen ninety one. He's thirty nine years old, and it was sort of, well, it's everybody drinking, they're jaratol, and there were a lot of jokes and he's gonna have to go to bed early and someone's gonna have to chop up his steak into bite sized pieces.
Djokovic is only like eighteen months younger, and we haven't mentioned his age once. He's just a contender to win the title. Like, look how far we've come. So look how far we've but you knew it exactly.
Think about that, just coming off the Olympics. I was a gymnast as a young kid, and I mean to look at Simone Biles, right, and normally you have a good season, maybe you're really young, but look at like, I just think there's is there something happening in sports where yeah, people can go the distance and why not?
I have two theories you want him real quick. One of them is just it's that emolution. It's sports science, so they get appropriate for a Bloomberg audience. Tom Brady, it's commerce, it's money, it's I mean, these players have I mean, you know, Billy jan King used to come in the back of a station wagon. Now you've got players, they've got their own messuses, they've got their own teams. They're not standing in line waiting for the Hurts rental car counter.
To Oh, they're getting private jets.
I think exactly, and I think that has the extension it's a career.
Partly because they have deals with private jet companies.
Well that too. It doesn't doesn't hurt when you have that endorsement.
But if they didn't play well, I mean they're playing well though.
Yeah, science, they can avail themselves to all the cold plunges and the trainers and the physios and I mean all is Tom Brady similar? And I think Lebron James is still going strong and yeah, twenty years into this career, and I think it's because they can afford career extensis.
This one's done a cold plunge by the way.
Yeah, very popular, They're very popular. I I mean, who knows its scientists, But this might be a good time to talk doping might be all right, what's the deal? I don't in the sport. I mean, I.
You want my honest Yeah. I believe that incentives explained an awful lot of human behavior. And I get why some athletes will dope. I get why some athletes who might be trying to, you know, have this career resurgence laid in their career with dope. I can see how
young athletes. I just I don't think I mean obviously we're talking about Jon Ecenter and number one everyone given the tournament, and we have this sort of strange story where he had failed too doping tests from about five months ago, but was essentially exonerated and found no negligence, no fault because the trainer essentially was careless and used to us the substance that was legal in Italy but it is not is on the bad list. And I
just I get the skepticism. I understand sort of whether there are a lot of players who are very suspicious about this. I just I'm I always look at incentives. Why would a guy with a one hundred and fifty million dollars Nike deal starting his career in March when they're no major tournaments for months and months. The amount was so minuscule it wouldn't enhance its performance. It just doesn't make sense that he would intentionally dope. That may
sound naive. I think they're probably means naive to say there's no doping in tennis, But I also think it's such a sport that depends on hand eye coordination and focus and mental toughness. It's not as though putting on five pounds of muscle is really where the action is. I think the doping probably might help with recovery and with some of the cardio. Again, I don't think it's one hundred percent clean. I don't think any sport is. But in this case, I just the facts of the
case that the process is disturbing. It's very strange the usually you hear about this right away. Usually there's a strict liability standard where hey, we don't care what happened. It's in your system. You're the CEO of your system, right, You're guilty. That wasn't the case. I mean, I think there are a lot of process questions.
Does that give you pause? The lack of process questions?
Yeah, I mean, I think the way this handled, people are gonna have to go back and really pick this apart and figure out why it was that this guy played for five and a half months, which which is very rare in tennis. You mentioned why wasn't there the publicity that usually accompanies some of these announcements. There are a lot of players saying, boy, I wish you know. I tested positive too, and I also was eventually exonerated, but I had to take the reputational hit, yeah, or
I couldn't play or I couldn't play. So I think the way this was handled raises a lot of questions. But I just, I mean, I guess everyone's speculating. I just don't think you don't.
Your point about incentives is really interesting because I didn't think you were going to go exactly thought the other way. And I come from a world of cycling where you know doping is and has been rampant for years, and you know a tenth of a second or that much more power is what ends up mattering in the end of a race. And the idea when you said incentives, I thought, oh, incentives to win. But no, you're saying that there's too much to lose for these players.
Yeah, exactly. I mean you think about how much of these players income and networks had nothing to do with prize money. It's image, it's reputation, it's what they represent, that's how they care themselves. You are jeopardizing all of that to win a couple of tennis matches in Indian Wells, California in March. I don't, I mean, I get. I
don't want to be naive here. Everyone's one thing that's interesting about this to me is that some very credible, very knowledgeable, very reasonable former players agree with me and sort of say it doesn't make sense. The amount was so minuscule. Very credible, very reasonable, very educated former players say, something's really fishy here. The amount might just be that he was cycling off of it. Don't be seduced by sort of the fractional the sort of infinitesimally small amount.
Don't be naive. And the guy got caught twice, what more do you need? So so, even within tennis, even in the sort of inner sanctum there, they're very divergent opinions. I just think, like, you get to a point with your reputation and your net worth and how much sponsorship you have. I mean, these players can make four or five million dollars for being a worldwide brand ambassador. That's more than the US Open champion will make. Right, why
would you jeopardize that? In March over this infant I again is a vanishingly small amount of banned substance.
Well, but we see in our world very wealthy people, financiers who have tons of money and yet do something that breaks the law just to get a little bit more money, right, And you think, really, like, why did you do that. But but I hear what you said.
Yeah, no, it's a fair point. I mean, the risk reward calculus is not always uh you know, so.
You know, like could have been the like do you blame the coach?
Yes, I mean that's sort of where this falls. Is essentially that the trainer and again the substances. It's legal in Italy, but on the box it says doping, so I'm not sure where And I mean someone else is Listen, your job as a trainer, what are your big jobs that you.
Put it down, move it, actually get it away from me? You know what?
You know, aspred works pretty well too. There are alternatives, but Bassett tracing will cover that that cut as well. It was a really strange set of circumstances and it's almost a look, if you're a trainer, your number one job basically is to get anything even potentially illegal or on the band list away from the athlete. And here's a guy putting it on his hand and then giving the athlete an ungloved massage. The flip side is, don't people do dumb things? I don't. I mean, I don't know.
It's it's definitely it's been I mean inside these doors where we are now. It's still a weekend of this tournament, very much being discussed.
You talk about that a little bit because what we're at the Bud Collins Media Center and you go inside here, this is where all the journalists are, right, what's the what's the vibe been like covering this with the other journalists?
Is the story in particular?
Yeah?
Well is that? I mean this story is still dominating.
Yeah, I mean the players his initial press release and I you know, whatever we all have, we're all familiar with press releases. I look forward to putting this issue behind me. And you want to say, oh, that's oh do you Yeah, that's not really.
How It's one way to keep the issue front and center.
Yeah, exactly right.
We know this is what you would like.
I just want to move on.
But that's you.
But the other players have been really supportive of him.
It sounds like some of them, some of them. Yeah, I'd say it's been very guarded. Actually, yeah, I mean I think given the range, I mean sometimes sort of my guilty pleasure is UFC is fixed martial arts. There anytime someone there's a doping violation, everybody piles on and sort of says, listen this, I knew this guy was cheating. This is much more guarded. But these are sort of
these very sort of meticulously worded sense. Nobody is falling on the grenade, and no one's a couple of former players. Nick Curios is here, and he's made a number of sort of incendiary statements. It's been very I've sort of been surprised at how little support he's gone. There does
seem to be real questions about the process. And everyone's got a friend, everyone's got a colleague who had a similar circumstance and didn't have the luxury of six or seven figures worth of legal representation, and sort of this this cakewalk just sort of get this thing buried five and a half months later.
The money that continues to come into sports, good, bad and different, Like how do you feel about it? How do you think about it? Gambling?
We'll talk about that. I mean, I think that, but I think that's it. I think it depends on the sort. Look any any industry, we like money coming in and we like we like more investment and not less. I mean, I think sports are a pretty robust sector. I think it depends what I mean, we can there's a sportswa washing component to this. Do we like money when it comes from the golf region, Well, that comes with some strings attached. Do we like money when it comes through
sports gambling? And that's been a huge infusion of cash for teams and leagues and media, not so much for athletes. We can talk about that. That's been a big topic among the players and the players lounge is a sports gambling we can we can talk about that. I think media money, you know, great if if ESPN wants to re up here. I mean, very few properties are actually
going to come up for renewal anytime soon. But look, if the NBA can make billion dollars a season from its media rights deal, like that's great, especially when they're fifty to fifty split with the players. So right, Yeah, I think it depends. I think in the rule of thumb, you know, commerce good h But I think it depends on the source.
Tell us about the conversations that players are that's being talked in terms of gambling, because they don't necessarily get a piece of it, do they?
No? I mean, in this sport, it's really problematic and team sports. Look, it says fifty to fifty revenue split. Right, So if the NFL does a billion dollars with DraftKings, that's half of that and theory goes to the players. Tennis does not have revenue sharing like that. They also forbid the athletes from using the product, which is standard for most sports. And what happens to tennis is that the play a big gambling sport. I mean, tennis is
like the third most gambled on sport. There are millions of matches they're eli inventory all over the world. I mean, it's crazy using there are two guys playing in a parking lot and there are three fans. Wi We're not talking about the US Open here. I mean there are all these low level events and they're you know, three fans watching, but they're tens of thousands of dollars being wagered on this match. It is ripe for corruption. But the what's really problematic to the players is that they
get a lot of abuse from losing. Gambo. You cow, I just lost one hundred dollars because you can't hold your serve. And the players are saying, wait a second, we don't get the revenue, we can't even use the product. That's a little problematic. I mean, you guys are getting all this endorsement money in the problem, you know, the product itself we are forbidden from using. You guys can sell the signage and you can get the data rights deal,
which basically just means selling data to bookies. And not only do we not get any revenue, we open up our phone and we have a stream of messages that are just the most vile thing you've ever heard from, you know, from aggrieved gamblers.
Right, this seems very problematic.
It's really problematic.
You've tweeted on this.
Yeah, I mean it's it's really I mean, tennis needs a lot more player representation. It's probably I mean, I think it's problematic across the board for any of a hundred reasons, but at least football players and basketball players are seeing some of that money. These players get all the downside, you know, they open their phone and they
get death threats because they missed a forehand. And the tournaments are the ones that can put the signage on the back wall saying you know, DraftKings and fanduels.
And it's such a solitary sport too, so it's not like a team is getting the hatred it's this individual and everything is riding on this this one individual. So what's the solution there.
I mean, I think it's it's naive to say. I mean, in a perfect world, maybe tennis says listen, not for us. We're not going to give you our data. I mean, there are ways to turn off the spigott. I don't think that's realistic. A bit more revenue to the players would at least give them some skin in the game. At least they're essentially getting paid for the abuse they're taken. I also think you have to monitor this. I mean, when I can't wrap my brain around with you, guys
can help me with this. I can't order an uber and say my name is you know, Moscow Mule eleven seventeen. I can't. I mean, the anonymity I think would end a lot of this. Why is it that I can send a player a death threat and bear no consequence when they lose a tennis match, but I can't. I can't go on Amazon and use a pseudonym. I mean, there might be.
Somebody who launches rockets. You might want to talk to you about this. Oh yeah, you exactly. Yeah, that's what I'm saying.
No, it's like there's a whole world right now and try to figure out the responsibility or they.
Verified accounts that are just pay ten bucks a month or whatever eight a month. Sweets get surfaced. It doesn't matter who you are.
Yeah, it's probably just gonna make it all worse in terms of you.
Know, an AI, what AI and sports gambling inner Second, my issue with sports gamling right now, we are at the uh remember when you know, did you have Joe Cammell kids magazines? You had vending machines in high school selling cigarettes. This is a smoking set, really the smoking section plan as if the smoke knew when to stop it? Did? I bet we're I think we're at that phase with sports gambling. We're gonna look back and we're gonna say, what you were allowed to do this? The player's got banned?
The cat out of the bag now, I mean there's no Yeah, I think there's regulation, and I think there's some. I mean, I think whatever the cliche, you know, two toothpas isn't going back into two. But I think we're gonna look back at this period and say, was there no regulation whatsoever?
I mean, would you expect at some point there's going to be some big blow up of something.
Whether that's a great point because I think I think the way the leagues and again this is one of the great about faces and sports. I mean ten years ago, the leagues would say that this is the most sinister thing. They all, you know, every everybody went into Capitol Hill to say, why passed BA the you know, the legislation should be overturned and why And then they ever in the league essentially did it about face and said, yeah, you know what, you know, this is a lot of
revenue we're passing up and we need sunlight. We need legal legal gambling is better than illegal gambling. And the one thing the league said was that the threat of corruption is going to be lessened when it's public, right, We're gonna have all this data, we have all this access. It's like marijuana. It's sort of gonna decriminalize. And I think in a very short amount of time this started out.
There were a couple of college scandals, and there was a baseball coach you tip someone off, and then now all of a sudden, we have the sho Heo Tani, you know, the MVP of reigning MVP. Well he wasn't. Yeah, I mean, I think it looks pretty clear he wasn't corrupt, but someone very close to him was siphoning money out of his account to pay his detce. We have them.
Someone on the Toronto Raptors is now banned from basketball globally because I think the water level is getting very high, and I feel like we're we are one Black Sox type scandal away from this thing really imploding. I think right now there are a lot of people who are bringing their hands and it's it's great. We love this infusion of revenue. And some stadiums have sports books, you know, I'm you know, Sports Illustrated, Tennis Channel, CBS, ESPN.
I mean ESPN in Vegas does it?
I mean every sports media exactly.
I'm sure Mickey is not into this.
You don't think no.
I mean again, like on ESPN, you couldn't mention points.
Spreads a few years ago. That my favorite, my favorite story of all these is that the Vegas Chamber of Commerce wanted to buy a Super Bowl ad about twenty years ago, and the NFL said no because it's too adjacent to gambling. And it was just Las Vegas and the Super Bowl. Yeah, it was in the Chamber of Commerce exactly. And now the Super Bowl is in Las Vegas.
The announcers are telling you what the points spread is, and pretty soon we're just gonna go to NFL dot com and bet on football games on the NFL's website. I mean, the the about face on this is, uh, it's everybody in the.
Pool, like it's totally I feel like we've been remiss because I you earlier this year, you did something on CBS Sunday Morning and it was about defending Sports Illustrated its relevance. And you know, our producer Paul Brennan, faithful reader for forty five years, starting when he was a kid, loved the magazine version, you know, and we were confused. If there is a print version there still is, right, what does the world lose by not having print versions?
First of all, I've said that they're surprisingly and against all odds, there seems to be a very happy resolution here. I did that piece for I don't know when that was, maybe February. I did that piece for CBS Sunday Morning, and it was really a problematic time for Sports Illustrating. We sort of had this white night, this company Minute Media stepped up and you know, we're knocking on plywood, and so far, so good. It's sort of a miraculous happy media story. I mean to me, it's not so
much that the print versus digital. I mean, you know, candidly, print is a lot. You know, it's a smaller part of our life than it was just a few years ago. To me, it's just sort of that the independence of it all and the fact that you don't have to you know, it's it's fear and favor, and it's writing about things without a partnership with the league, and there's no conflict of interest. I mean to me, that's what's
lost with this changing media landscape. And my attitude is like, I don't care if it's TV or digital or the phone or print or whatever it is, as long as it's getting to consumer. To me, it's just the independence, and I think that's that's that's sort of what my great fear was at the time, that this is just
another media entity that's going to be swallowed up. And now everything's sort of mediated through a league, a team, an athlete themselves, which is great, but you also need some sort of objectivity and agreed happily Sports Illustrated UH, kind of sort of a comeback story in twenty twenty four. I'm happy to tell you good, very cool.
I'm glad to hear that. I also, I love that you love Trader Joe's.
But you hear that I love Trader Jet. I know, Oh, I love Trader Jet. Love to say that he's not a conflict of interest. I'm an unpaid folks.
It's out there. It's good stuff. Thank you, thank you so much.
Oh, pleasure, this is a pleasure.
We always feel like it's just such a smart.
Dive and he's in the flesh. This year isn't a flash. He's here, speed zoom.
The Tennis jo is going to be calling like, hey.
Yeah, right, get back to Santa Monica now, pleasure.
No, no, don't, don't don't. John Worthiam, of course, as we said, he is covering the US Open for the Tennis Channel. He's executive editor senior writer at Sports Illustrated UH, and of course correspondent for sixty Minutes