US Open Observations

EZS
EZS
Sep 3, 2018 · 5 min read

(Typos credited to Galaxy S9)

A friend of mine had an extra ticket to the US Open and invited me to attend with him and his father last night. As my mind has a tendency to do it wandered into a few different places and I wanted to share a few observations.

First of all let me say that I was a sport obsessed jock in my youth and I love sports to this day. Mostly playing but also watching. Although increasingly I’m becoming disillusioned with watching because of the business side of sports and obscene amounts of money being thrown at professional athletes. $100 million for a single fight for Mayweather. $300 million shoe contract for Kevin Durant. $134 million contract for Aaron Rodgers. $50 million per year salary for the NFL commissioner Roger Goodell.

$100 million for a guy to throw punches for an hour? $50 million per year for NFL commissioner to run a business? This to me is a hideous distortion in our economic system that we have come to accept without spending a whole lot of time thinking about what it means and the implications.

My friend had court side seats (he was spending bonding time with dad who is a rabid tennis fan, this was his gift) so we zoomed past the large lines through a mostly empty VIP line. It was the first artificial and temporary ego boost. The commoners were over there, I was over here.

As we entered the grounds into the bustling crowds, I immediately wondered how much money was being generated by the event. Roughly $600 million it turns out, between ticket and concession sales, merchandising, television and advertising. It’s a colossal business. The two week event generates enough revenue to make a lot of people boat loads of money. $53 million goes out in prize money to the tennis players. It’s not clear how much the fat cats at the top take in.

I was hungry so I grabbed a quick bite. Everything is served in disposable cartons so I wondered how much waste was being generated. There isn’t data available on this but the Open proudly proclaims that it has diverted more than 1300 tons of waste from landfills since 2008. So if this much has been diverted how much has actually gone into landfills? Any way you slice it, a massive amount of waste is generated in a two week period. Another distortion.

We entered into Arthur Ashe stadium and proceeded to our courtside seats. Another VIP entrance for another momentary blip of feeling good about oneself. Our seats were at the baseline, close enough to see the sweat dripping off the face of Sloan Stevens. It’s undoubtedly a rush of energy walking into a stadium full of people with lights flickering in all directions and music playing. Feels electric.

11 year old Rika Nishikawa from Chicago came on to sing the Anthem. She was mesmerizing — entered the stadium with confidence and grace and sang with authority, command and passion. I was completley blown away by her, for me the highlight of the night hands down. What a special, child — my mind wandered to wanting to see my nieces and nephews do big things.

We watched the round of 16 and both Sloan Stevens and Del Potro won their matches straight sets. It was all very fun at first but as the night wore on, I found myself become more and more underwhelmed. The novelty wore off quickly. I found Del Potro’s rambunctious fans in the box seats a little annoying — their schtick of breaking out into song at every point was amusing at first but then became irritating.

Maybe I was underwhelmed because I didn’t follow or care about any of the players I watched last night. Sports is a lot more interesting when you’re cheering for someone. It’s deeply tribal in that regard.

We headed home on the 7 train. I was shoulder to shoulder packed like sardines with the commoners. My ego quickly crashed down to my normal baseline. A place I’m quite accustomed to being.

I thought about how much money we spent on tickets, drinks and food. It was enough for me to take a vacation somewhere. 4 hours of sports entertainment versus a trip to the Riviera Maya. I understand it’s not an either/or, one can take in both but in my view I can enjoy sports on television, the beaches of Tulum not so much.

I will likely go to another live sporting event at some point but it definitely doesn’t rank high as a priority. Over the summer my brother, sister-in-law and my nephew went to an Anoushka Shankar concert in the park. We spent maybe $100 total and it was an incredibly enjoyable 3 hours.

I guess it boils down to your personal sense of fulfillment. For me, paying hundreds of dollars to sit in the nose bleeds to take in sports isn’t very fulfilling. Neither is it to spend exorbitant amounts to sit a few rows lower.

What I enjoyed most was the time spent together. Meeting my friends father and hearing about their youth playing sports. I didn’t know my very humble friend was one of the top cricket players in all of India when he was 17. It was fun to hear their stories. Men were bonding over sports.

I’m glad I went if for no other reason than to meet my friends father and for the privilege of seeing this little girl sing.

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