Craig Tiley: Transforming the Australian Open, The Player Pay Debate & How Tennis Can Make More Money (Ep127)

26:59Craig Tiley:It's a year that has maybe one or every two years has a global team event on the men's side and the women's side. Either it's combined or it's not, but it's something that really means something. And I've always said, Davis Cup and Billie Jean King Cup are irrelevant unless you have the top players playing it in full stadiums. And so we should do everything we can just to have these two objectives, top players, full stadiums. So how do you build a calendar to enable that from a team perspective? How do you build a calendar to enable that from a playing perspective? And then, you know, I mean, it's to the tennis playing world.

27:31Craig Tiley:If a player that's number four in the world goes and plays a little event in, you know, I won't name many names because I probably, but there'll be some obscure place in the world. that only that local environment cares about it is it doesn't contribute to the you know to the overall ecosystem's growth and strength so i mean so that may be more of a pipe dream um because many people will say no what we've got really works well because i run a 250 or i run a 125 challenge and it's great for my and my goal is to get yannick sinner or serena williams to come play it um and the reality is they shouldn't ever play those events because it doesn't make sense to the you know to the picture for the whole sport and and raising the whole sport because remember this is not just about raising the commercial opportunities for the players but it's about raising fan interest and we have fans we have a lot of tennis fans and we have a lot of fans outside of tennis that only kind of lean in a few times a year for wimbledon or for the australia open it's also about if we're then taking it one step further and looking where you distribute your money it's about the development of the global game absolutely into countries that maybe don't receive some of that funding.

28:38And if you've got a global tour, an ATP, let's say type tour, rather than Australia, the US, France, and the UK getting the majority of the money to feed into their infrastructures and systems.

28:50Craig Tiley:That's right. A hundred percent. Well, this has been the role of the International Tennis Federation, which is now World Tennis. And I'm hoping into the future there's going to be, they play a much better role than they have historically. I don't think they can be, you know, we can really look back and say that we've made this unbelievable contribution to more people playing in the nations around the world feel really empowered and and supported i don't think we can say that and if we can then i'm wrong but uh but i i i feel that this is where the grandstands can play a role it's where the sport can play a role and this is where the team plays a role when we get together and do things and and and take our self-interest aside and just put it to put it to the side and actually focus on like how can we make the sport better and uh and one of the ways we can is the international federation world tennis does play a bigger role globally and does rely on the partnership with the slams, which are big revenue drivers.

29:41Craig Tiley:Just as a side note, for example, I've asked this question. There's this push for the players to hit, I think it's 21 or 22, I can't remember the exact number, percent of revenue by 2030 to play compensation. If you total that up, you're going to be over three quarters of a billion dollars funded in prize money to players from four events. That's great but where's the rest of the ecosystem comparative to that? And now you start to get this divide where fans look at that okay this event over here you're making 20, 30, 15 million dollars on the men's side and maybe 15 on the women's side for a master's event but the slams is like in the stratosphere comparatively is all the players are going to do all the fans are going to just prepare themselves for those four events in the year and they have any interest in that.

30:32Craig Tiley:So there's a whole bunch of offsets. We've got to think about more into the future, think about the structure of the sport, but it's always got to come back to what are we doing for the fan? What are we doing for the sport? Our responsibility is sorting out what we do for the player, which totally agree needs to get their fair share, needs to get more. But it has to be done in the context of those two things. And I think that's maybe the International Tennis Federation now called World Tennis. you know maybe maybe the brand very political of you again for the brand trade what's what the brand change maybe maybe re-energize the opportunity i don't know or maybe hide the fact that they've been pretty ordinary for you sitting responsible then for all of this yeah in australia before we go into the years but but with that role that you've held yeah the money at the top of tennis that can get talked about a lot yeah but really it's the feasibility of a tennis career below maybe the top 100 that is really where the percentages start to make a difference and when we've spoken to dominic team patrick mortoglu carl edmund on the show before there's a theme that keeps coming up with them and it's the it's the cost of becoming a professional dominic team literally sat here and said you know through his academies that he has now to get people playing tennis in Europe can be a million dollars to get a top player from all the coaching and academy systems, et cetera, through.

31:55Once you then get there, unless you are at the top end of the game, it can be very hard to make a living. When you're traveling around the world, when you're hiring the physios and the nutritionists, et cetera, the money that you're making on tour can disappear quite quickly if you're paying for all of that. so there is i guess there's a broader economic challenge in an ecosystem play as well where you need to make it an affordable sport to enter if you don't have a huge financial backing and you need to make sure that there is a pyramid system that at least supports those players as they do go through their career if they're not sitting right at the top of the game yeah i think

32:29Craig Tiley:oh you've nailed it basically your question's given the answer because the the the challenge that's where I've lived my life. I've lived my life down at that part of whether it be coaching and trying to make it as a player. And that's where I've lived in that world. I haven't lived in the top 100 world at all. I've been a mile from that. And so I do appreciate and understand. And it is we have a huge problem because up to what point do we define professional tennis? Well, today you can say you can only define it to a point where someone's making enough of a living to afford a coach to travel with and to afford their expenses.

33:03Craig Tiley:and then hopefully to afford something that when they do retire that they've got some cushion built up that they can decide what they do next. But most tennis players have to go and get a second career. So that's a problem for the sport because it's not going to be who's going to get into it when you're going to lay out$250 ,000,$350 ,000 a year at a minimum to make it as a player. There's only a small niche number of people globally that are going to be able to do that. So it's on the sport. It's our responsibility to make sure that that's not the issue. So I'm very clear. I think that players rank between 100 and 300, 350 maybe the number is.

33:37Craig Tiley:Those are your professional players. They're providing on the women's side and the men's side, both equally. Whatever this is done needs to be done on both sides, and there should never be an argument about that. That's where we should be paying our attention. So if there's increases in compensation, if there's money coming into the sport, could there be an environment where every player that's your second tier professional athletes gets a minimum guarantee? So there are no coming in. They reach that point. there's a minimum guarantee that they have that they know that comfortably can go out then they're not chasing points then they're getting on a plane and going to some place in Hungary then getting on the plane the next week and going someplace down into New Zealand and having these ridiculous costs that they'll never be able to afford and they they have to chase these points because that's where they get the best opportunity to get into a high level so we haven't organized the sport effectively we've just put more events on more more more more but haven't looked at it and said, so now that person playing it, how do we best create an environment that they can make it affordable?

34:34Craig Tiley:So I think minimum guarantee is one avenue. So in fact, a version of being an employee, not necessarily saying an employee, but then also creating significant regional swings where the earnings potential is higher than it currently sits today. And that's federations leaning in, world tennis, ITF leaning in, and the Grand Slams leaning in and making sure we're funding enough circuit events that your beginning circuit events that are close enough to each other where a player doesn't have to get on a plane every second of the day to try and make it work as a pro. And then once you get closer into that top hundred or you start meeting the first round or the qualifying of a Grand Slam or the first round of Grand Slam, and now you can start to make two, three, four, maybe half a million dollars to offset your costs.

35:19Craig Tiley:But I talk to kids the whole time and to their parents and the first thing they say, it's not affordable and I can't agree. I have to agree with them. Yeah. You've achieved all of this in the time you've been at the Australian Open. And the three-week entertainment, music, sporting event, and the one point, which was brilliant. We didn't even talk about that properly, but, you know, a fantastic kind of... That was connecting the community and the pros, and the pros were great. Because the story, I mean, you almost got the perfect outcome from it. We did. Not planned, just completely worked out that way.

35:51But a brilliant way to engage, and I'd imagine socially, if you're looking at all, that was a brilliant piece. um so you know was it because of achieving all of this that you decided now was the right time to move on and take on a different challenge because you're about to start as the chief

36:06Craig Tiley:executive of USTA I've been incredibly fortunate personally and professionally um one I I was as an early kid I fell in love with something and it was tennis so I've been very lucky not many people can fall in love with something and then that can become their career and uh so I've been lucky that way so I have a deep appreciation for the sport and the history of the sport and a deep respect for those people that have come before us that have given us this opportunity today and and that's all i want the players to do today as well you know we forget we need to we need to look at the rogers and the roughers and before them on the men's side on the woman's side the chris evitz and the martinez you know they've forged a pathway for where we are today so i always feel that we should be absolutely celebrating and revering those people every single day and and we do in australia with our legends we in fact we employ our legends when they when they finish playing because uh we want them to be a legends forever and uh and i was you know and i'm getting off topic here but like rod laver is a good example is that i saw what rod laver made and it's an icon of our sport you know forged away for players and so so i said you know whatever you need rod you can have whatever it is you have it for the rest of your life and including the fact that we're gonna pay you some money just for the fact that you're rod laver um that uh that's a place to get to isn't it when you get really good there but um but i think and that comes out of the Australian Open revenues too.

37:21Craig Tiley:So that's part of our contribution. But it was a question again. Why now? No, I got it. Why now? So I've been lucky. I fell in love with the sport and then double lucky is being able to coach at a university in the United States and have some success and then get offered a job in Australia. And I went to Australia because I thought it was going to be a three-year gig. They've got the best players in the world and the best history. This is like a dream job and I wouldn't have to do anything and I found out very quickly I was brought in there to make a bunch of changes which we did and they all worked uh changes with the event we did that and that all worked and so I've been fortunate I've got had an unbelievable team you know people I love and uh and yeah so everything is worked out perfectly in that sense and then like everything I think the changes every year in the Australian Open was also but it may be of a personal thing I don't like sitting still uh I like things to be different I like I like challenges I like jumping in the deep end and figuring it out.

38:17Craig Tiley:I don't like failing, but I accept failure as part of the journey of having success and actually sometimes force failure so you can really learn. So all those things just worked out. And then the U.S. opportunity came by and I thought, well, there's so much to unlock in the United States. And to become the central hub of tennis globally and to be able to contribute and have an impact on tennis globally, it's probably the one place in the world where that could really happen. and to be able to do that, to be able to get more people playing across all the 52 states, the 17 sections across the years, get more people to play the game, more people engaged, have bigger events coming back to the U.S.

38:57Craig Tiley:to have more opportunities to play, you know, pro circuit events. Everything that exists today, I want to kind of unlock the potential, unleash the potential and take it to a completely different level. So I got excited about being able to do it in that market and that environment And even the US Open itself, which is America's biggest sporting event, and it's a magnificent event. And people forget about the scope and the extent of those three weeks, what they bring in viewership and what it brings in impact and visitation. But then also be able to continue to transform that to another level. So, yeah, I think it was the attraction of that and also part of my DNA of change.

39:38Craig Tiley:And I also think it can be a platform to help really drive what players want today as well. Interesting. What do you mean by that? Well, I think this comes down to the fair share, the players fair share. I think it's more than just being paid money at an event. I know what's important to players, what absolute amount they have. If you give someone a check of$10 or$20, they'll take the 20. And so we've got to make sure that we're putting the highest possible amount we can. But in the environment that you're in, it's also getting everyone to understand there's other realities which are not a choice.

40:14Craig Tiley:The USTA, for example, it's set up constitutionally that it's a member-based organization. And whatever money is generated, there's a percentage of that that has to go back to the members to help them grow the game. You can't get away from that. And you shouldn't get away from that because that's how the organization is set up. But there's other opportunities you can start to look at when it comes to compensation. compensation. I think the US is a good place to do that from a player perspective. So what kind of partnership could I have with a player ultimately where they can maximize their commercial return on top of the prize money they make?

40:46People who do follow tennis may know that right now the PTPA, Professional Tennis Players Association, have an antitrust lawsuit against, well, collectively in the sport. You at the Australian Open settled that and I can, having spoken to you, start to probably see how that came about with the relationships that you clearly hold with some of the players you're now going into the u.s where they haven't settled it how do you move between these two organizations now because for you to achieve that with the players i'd imagine this is a really important thing for you to be able to navigate yeah i look

41:17Craig Tiley:it's now when you answer this question every time i answer this question someone comes and puts a break on you and says we're the lawyers you can't say anything about the lawyers in the room so i always say that with a bit of qualification because um i will talk as a as a person in a logical way and I'll probably say the wrong thing anyway but here we go but no look so little bit little going back a little bit because Tennis Australia's had a lot of criticism for the decision that they made but at the very beginning of this conversation I did say that the organization doesn't own any assets it leases the the land it's on it pays a significant multi multi millions of dollars to the government for the right of that and that's a fair amount for the right to to lease that.

41:59Craig Tiley:So if there was an antitrust lawsuit against the organization, Tennis Australia, which there was, in any circumstance, it could be brought in by players, a group of players, one player, it could be brought in by a fan, it could be brought in by anyone. The very first position we'll have is how do we settle that? How do we get out of that? Because if we were to fight it, the risk of losing is far greater for us than the risk we take of settling, simply because, Now, this is not an invitation for everyone to have lawsuits against Tennis Australia, but simply because we don't have the assets to offset the cost that we would be, we could potentially put the company out of business.

42:35Craig Tiley:So as the CEO and as our board, we have a fiduciary responsibility to ensure the future viability of the organization. So we actually have no choice. It's not because it's something we liked to do. It's something because that we had to do it. And there wasn't one person on our board. There wasn't one person on our executive team that looked, stared us in the face. whether the claim, the antitrust claims, have any veracity or not didn't really matter. What mattered is that when we look at our set of lawyers and we say to them, we want to de-risk the organization into the future, what's the best way to go forward?

43:08Craig Tiley:They say, let's look at the case. Let's see if there's any validity in it. And if there's 0.005 % validity in it, we recommend you settle because of what the question you've asked us. So that's the world the Australian Open was in and Tennis Australia was in. Now, everyone has a different positioning as to what decision that they make. I'm not under the hood yet to understand the USTA's position, and respectfully they have, for their reasons, would make their decision, as would Wimbledon, as would the French. The thing that's been a little bit, maybe concerning is the right word, but a little bit unsettling and challenging is the fact that the Australian Open has been ostracized a little bit because it decided to make the decision to settle.

43:54Craig Tiley:Now, down the road, I don't know what's going to happen. I don't know what a judge is going to do. There's a legal system in play. And the conditions of Tennis Australia's settlement have been made public, and it's pretty straightforward. There's nothing secret about it. It's actually what we've been talking about for the last half an hour. It's the opportunity to bring everyone together and create a tour that everyone wins, even the 500s and the 250s and the 1000s and the Grand Slams. And most importantly, the biggest winner out of the whole thing needs to be people who say, is it the players?

44:28Craig Tiley:Is it the fans? But it's the fans. And if you can drive that outcome for the fans, the players are going to win and everyone is going to win. That's what we saw in COVID, right? Across all sport, you can always think about the product, but when you watch sport in empty stadiums. Yeah. When I was a kid, I used to ask the question is like what makes it makes a successful event i was very curious about and i don't know i didn't realize i'm going to end up one day being involved in the australian open and now coming up the us open which i'm pretty excited incredibly excited about but and and and people used to always say it has to make a profit and i always was curious about that because i thought like okay so we just run events to make money and then i came to learn over the journey is actually one it's much more than that but what i what i tell people is that what how you define success You define success as you've got your top players playing in a full stadium and the fans coming away.

45:20Craig Tiley:And as they're walking out the gate, is they buying the ticket for the same event next year because they don't want to miss out. And if you've got that formula going, you're a winner. So we need to look at our sport. It'd be interesting if we went today. I've never done this, but maybe it's a good question, is if we go and say, OK, let's go and take every event, every session, and let's look at their attendance and look at the players that are playing. And let's see how we're doing as a health of a sport. And I bet you we're probably giving ourselves a D. Do you feel conflicted? You've said at the beginning, you always want to act with the player's best interests at heart.

45:50But being a tennis executive doesn't necessarily always give you the luxury to do that. You mentioned that fiduciary responsibility as shareholders, you're going into an organization now that does have assets and is, as you said, the biggest viewing event in the US sport. I mean, that's incredible. To execute and be able to deliver both can be a huge challenge. One of the great challenges of sports governance for the executives that really want to put themselves at the heart of it. Has that been difficult on occasions for you?

46:12Craig Tiley:I think it is, but I actually never looked at it as conflict because I will always come from the baseline of the player. So maybe it's my DNA. I don't know. I mean, I can't get away from that. I try. I try to try, but I can't get away from it. But then I do it in a responsible way. So how do I bring that baseline to the argument? And our team at Australian Open will tell you when the finance team comes to me, they don't even come anymore with a discussion on what compensation is going to be. because they know that I'm just going to put a number out there that's going to be much bigger than they're thinking.

46:47Craig Tiley:And that's been the Australian Open's positioning. Now, when we get to the US Open, there'll be a board that makes a decision and I'll be advocating to the board that the players need to get their fair share. But at the same time, I'm not going to do that to compromise the growth of the game in every single section because ultimately in the US, if there's more people playing the game, right now there's a little under 30 million people that are playing tennis regularly. The goal is to get to 35 million in the U.S. by 35. And that's a big stretch because you're going to have churn every year on it.

47:19Craig Tiley:But if there's 35 million people by 2035 playing tennis in the United States, that is a top sport in the U.S. And so that's one of the objectives. And you know what? If we did that, the U.S. Open will be humming, generating revenue. Players will be getting their fair share. So it's a symbiotic circle where we've got to keep supporting each other. But coming to your question on always feeling conflicted, I do every day feel conflicted. But it's a healthy conflict. And it's a healthy debate you have internally in your own mind of what's in the best interest. But it's also a reminder you don't do anything without compromise because you're always going to have to have some compromise.

47:54Craig Tiley:Unfortunately, I think in our sport, from a global perspective, there's too much compromise. We're not clear enough in our own minds and willing to give something up. So instead, we're just going to compromise. so if we were to give up compromise and say this is the direction we need to go and we can have losers and winners as a coach i always just always used to say the pain of change is greater than the pain of losing people choose to lose over change and that's why it's so difficult to change okay so a mutual friend may have let slip that and i was like this is amazing that you call pretty much every player on their birthday you have a great i connect with them you can say in some form cool yeah yeah i was going to expose him if it wasn't um and then you know also told me a story which he said you told him about a young man walking across or a young boy walking across the street a 15 year old in melbourne you spoke to him he always remembered that and that person was rafa nadal yeah so the element of trust i'd imagine that you've built up and the relationships that you've built up however difficult all of this may be however challenging it may be however big that gap is between the players and the executives if you have people like yourself building these relationships at that side there's the opportunity to solve this right there is to fix it yeah and i think i'm proud of the fact today there's more people in our sport that have that view uh when i first started i was there's i was definitely a lone wolf in the in the picture i was a rebel i was and i and i have you know and i know what people say about some things that i I think, is that I think they get a bit nervous because maybe I'm a change agent or I'm going to say what I think or I'm going to support the players with complete disregard.

49:38Craig Tiley:People will say those kind of things. In fact, my father used to say, unless you've been criticized, you're not doing anything. So I'm quite happy I'm doing stuff. So people keep criticizing. But I think when I look at it, is I've always felt that the players do need to trust you. but so does your team and so does everyone you work around because if you don't have that transparency and trust you can't sit in a room and feel like you're really working in the best interest and generally in tennis there's been a bit of mistrust and I think it's because maybe people are looking out for their own interests so I don't know generally what the reason is but there's a massive opportunity what I love about our sport while we can argue about something and even like yesterday I was with some agents which we're having an argument about on, you know, is percentage of revenue the right metric?

50:28Craig Tiley:But we had a big debate about it, and then two hours later we were out going to have a drink. So that's what's the, you know, the family nature of the sport, I think, is healthy. There's no one that hates on each other. But I think, and that's where we have a bit of a gap right now. The gap is that we're not working together collectively, and people have been left out. Tennis Australia has been left out of the conversation, and that's not right. and players have been left out the conversation as well and that's not right. And so I'm going to always come from a position of advocating for the players, but that's not just the professional players.

51:00Craig Tiley:That's the person picking up a tennis racket as like a five-year-old. The satisfaction I get in life is when I walk past a tennis club and every quarter's full, you walk past a stadium and the stadium's full and people are absolutely loving the game. I have kids that play the game. That's the only thing I really know. So I've got no choice. It's always a big challenge when you move in sport or actually in business and organizations and anything, especially when you've seen success and you've done something well to go at australian open we did it like this yeah or you're moving into an organization that has huge opportunity that has a lot of spaces as you've highlighted to grow and develop but also has its own unique opportunities and unique challenges to overcome so have you thought about how you're going to approach that balance between the successful things that do cross over and can be implemented and how you may communicate that in this environment this this is the big question right i think this comes down to um having good people around you saying do you realize what you just said that made no sense this doesn't work here um but but i i want to have people around me that's that uh that debate that and look as a leader you've got to go and you're going to be very conscious of where you're going into because there's a lot of people that done a great job and uh and uh and i just want to be i want to go into a leading environment i will kind of say it how it is um i want to build a lot of trust with the people around and let people perform and uh and build keep building capability that you have unbelievable high performers build high performing teams but most importantly every day we wake up we love this game so much we wake up and find a way to get more people to play it uh and continue to build our relationship with the top end of with with all the top players that they can look to uh in the future can look to the u.s uh as a place they feel really comfortable and the place they feel really supported and the place that's really after their interests and there's a lot of great people that are doing some great things with U.S.

52:45Craig Tiley:tennis and I want to be able to elevate that and amplify that even further. So a lot of it's going to be sitting back and learning and listening and seeing what people do, what they do well, and where I see there can gap that we can improve and less criticism because I don't think you get any benefit criticizing someone because you think it should be different. But I do think you get a lot of benefit about enhancing people's opportunity and then my view on leadership is going to be unlocking all the potential that exists and I know there's going to be, you know, all these federations are big bureaucracies and I don't like, I struggle in bureaucracy personally so I've got to become a better learner in that.

53:21Craig Tiley:And you chose tennis. Yeah, I know and I chose tennis, what an idiot, but I love the game too much. But I want to unlock all those layers of bureaucracy and let people trust each other and it's not going to be perfect and I'm going to make lots of mistakes and I'll be the first person to say, okay, I screwed up and that's one thing that people are always going to get from me and I'll never blame anyone for anything. and so other than myself and so so from that perspective i think it's just i look at it as an opportunity you're going to have detractors i'm sure there were people that were nervous about me getting the job in the u.s or didn't want me to get the job and advocated against me getting that's fine too i don't i don't have any problem with that because at the end of the day i know what i'm really passionate about and i know what i'm really going to be delivering on and that's growing the game today what's the you know the u.s open being the flagship right what's the day in the life again i've got a little bit of inside information so i'm kind of leading you here but the day in the life of a CEO of a major federation during those big tournaments.

54:15From my understanding, you don't really sleep much.

54:18Craig Tiley:No, you don't. You don't get much. Well, if you think about it, it's your three-week opportunity to showcase your sport. And I think sometimes we think these Grand Slams are just for the players. They're not. They're for the fans. And they're for the – you know, kids watch this on TV, and it's their aspiration. And that's why we've got to have more of it. In the U.S., I want to see more of those opportunities, like whether it be the tour finals or whatever it is, or the team events. And the USG want more of those things because you want kids to be closer to that experience about having this aspiration.

54:46Craig Tiley:Then they choose tennis. And then we kill off all the other sports ultimately because everyone's playing tennis. That's the goal. But in those three weeks, it's more than just like the event operations, but it's also all the stakeholders you want to meet and spend some time with and listen to and all the players and having the conversations. And so, yeah, I love it. So I don't have any problem not sleeping during those three weeks. and you do sleep a little bit, but you have adrenaline flowing through your body. You can always generally stay awake for that. Just make sure you stay healthy so you don't fall over at the end of it.

55:18Craig Tiley:But I think you do it because you love it. And so I've never looked at the Australian Open, the roles I've had there every year. I've never looked at it as work. I've looked at it as like the eyes of the world are now over here on the sport. So how can we do a really good job of showcasing? We've talked all the way through this about changing and innovating and developing better products for the fans for the players and i think this brings it all together nicely because the way we actually connected was through work that australian open are doing with investments and venture arms and anyone that knows what we do knows that the root of a huge amount of that and i bang on about it across sport is the ability of sport to leverage its opportunity as a kind of an incubator as a technology hub yeah it's a completely unique industry to to test out businesses and technologies and you've done an amazing job of that at Australian Open Ventures, which actually includes investing in companies that you've got working with you.

56:10How important has that work been in that kind of integration? And then also the opportunity to build that now moving forward, because it does sit at the heart of improving that 50 % experience and improving the players and improving the fans. It's central.

56:23Craig Tiley:Yeah. Well, you hit the nail on the head and I hope one day we're sitting here and you're telling the rest of the world how well you guys did on this thing, because I think the we've been out for over 10 years now and the platform that you have not just with the event but with the sport to test and learn on any tech it would be health, sport, entertainment there's a number of different fields you cover you cover the ones everyone's interested in investing in today but that platform that you have for testing and learning is unbelievable it was never used and I remember a story at the very beginning when Hawkeye arrived on the scene and there was an opportunity through Paul Hawkins to invest in Hawkeye.

57:04Craig Tiley:And this was maybe even just when I started 20 years ago. And I approached our board at the time about making an investment in the possibility of making an investment in a startup or something that was going to deliver something for the future. And I got told we're a tennis company. We don't do that. And it's great to now come full circle today where we have multimillion dollar investments in things that we don't know if they're going to work or not, but we try and make the right, you know, investment committee tries to make the right decision on which tech we invest in. But it's a lot of fun now today to be saying that now we actually have a diversified revenue stream that sits in our business that is going to ultimately, in my view, become the biggest part of the business.

57:46Craig Tiley:Really? I think it's going to be 100 % become the biggest part of the business. And I think the, you know, we're sitting, you know, we have an amount of money set aside with a whole bunch of different partners, but think about all the investors that, and you know this well, all the investors that want to get involved in sport well this is a vehicle easy vehicle to do it so the scale of it can jump up at the platforms exist where you can test and learn immediately uh you don't have to you know wait for a platform to do it you can continue to evolve whatever the tech is that you're putting out to the to whichever market it's going but at the same time that you as the content owner can make an investment in and then you bring partners on to do it and and this is what i meant when i when when we spoke a little about the role of the players in the u.s this is what i'd like to look about the use how do the players themselves start to get a piece of that and start to invest in that and then enjoy it?

58:34Craig Tiley:So a player ranked 50 in the world may make a$50 ,000 investment in today, 2026, on something that has got a whole bunch of other investors and is backed by the US Open or the Australian Open or Wimbledon. And then in 10 years' time, they realize that is now times 50. That opportunity, but it's not happening. So that's what I do. And there's USDA Ventures, by the way, too, which the U.S. have done a magnificent job in this space as well. AO Ventures and our whole incubator program has been around for over 10 years. But that's our next phase of development. So USA Ventures is great. You can go in and look to build on that even more.

59:16You've got a massive infrastructure play, right? The redevelopment of flushing metals. When you have something like this, so central infrastructure and what you can build off, it plays a huge part in how you can implement these developments and technologies. that must be a really exciting moment for you to then leverage as you're now looking to yeah and

59:33Craig Tiley:my 100 i'm very excited about that because my first the premise of every question is like okay that's great so what more what next um how do you how do you take that whatever you're doing there and make it better and then if you reach that point unfortunately it's going to be really stressful for people it's not going to you haven't arrived yet we're going to go again are we going to go again and uh and i always say um you know the everyone israel is the journey to success is that you actually never arrive you're always on a pathway of improvement you mentioned previously that the australian open you hadn't had the venue as in ownership of the venue yeah when you now come into this which u.s tennis owns flushing mountains right yeah with that comes i would imagine significant financing and refinancing of property and land and a bit like again football stadiums which people may be more familiar with you're taking out debt to do it and fund it that has a legacy impact on what you can do as an organization yeah is that kind of financial element of you coming into this new organization while it's great because they'll recognize much more of the revenue through ownership also created the flip side where it's like okay we actually need to make sure we can cover the costs of developments and look at a new financial structure just to keep doing the things you really want to do and i think that's when we went back to the very first part of this question about the revenue pieces australia has been pretty straightforward because we know each year, we know where we can predict where our revenue is going to be and we know what our costs are going to be as far as the rental.

1:00:58Craig Tiley:Whereas when you invest in infrastructure, you can go and say, I'm going to make a$500 million investment in infrastructure. By the time I've delivered, it's$800 million because of the cost increase of which you may or may not have built into your modeling. I try to simplify it and I am excited about the machinations we can to try and be really creative on how these things happen. There's a great team at the USTA, for example, that are very good at how to finance things and there's the history that has proved that. But if I take the dollar and you say, okay, in that dollar, how much is left for growth?

1:01:27Craig Tiley:Because the more you service debt, the more you give up too much on profit, the more you distribute without return, enough return, it diminishes the amount that you have left to invest in growth. And if you get at the end of the day down to zero that you've got now nothing to invest in growth, that's the beginning of your diminishing returns and that's the beginning of your plateauing and that's the beginning of you losing money. And so I'm going to look at it in a very simple way, not a very sophisticated way, and each year go and take that dollar and see what percentage of that dollar is being adjusted by the decisions that we are making.

1:02:03Craig Tiley:And that's why the debate around player compensation is kind of critical because you could take a big chunk out of that dollar and there's a relationship between the impact it has on others that if the slams stop investing in growth, then the ultimate if you want to take percent of profit or percent of rate whatever it is is going down and there's no question every business around the world or sorry that's exactly how it is the less you have the less you have to invest in growth the less you grow i want to finish off just having a look at um my fan perspective entertain me this is now we're in a world of athlete as star brand power that's what attracts people tennis we had again speaking we meet growing up, it was the best generation of tennis players you could possibly wish for.

1:02:49I mean, Rafa Nadal, Roger Federer, Novak Djokovic. Roger Federer is my favourite all-time sportsman across every sport.

1:02:56Craig Tiley:Then moving on from those three. I mean, as an executive, I was looking at growing the game. Did you have that moment? Are you going, oh my goodness. They all kind of retire and it becomes challenging. We've got to make sure that we create and still have those players at the top and the profiles. Now we've obviously got the Ciner Alcaraz duel, which looks like it's going to be amazing you're hoping more players can't challenge it i i've i don't know i've looked at i've never lost confidence in the fact that tennis will tennis star pops up and i'm always excited to see who it's going to be yeah uh like for example here you know in in the i mean i've been a massive fan of jack draper from day one really and i and i think that he you know i've always felt i don't want to put any pressure on him but i always felt that there's no question the next big thing he's got everything and uh i just think there's i just you know he's got to go through the pathway of of getting over the injuries and that.

1:03:43Craig Tiley:But when he does, look out, look out. But on the men's side, on the women's side, the game is healthy. We're very lucky. And, you know, when those players retire again, the only thing I would miss about that area that you spoke about is my friendships. And, you know, with Rafa and with Roger, Serena, and Novak at the end of it. I mean, these are all great people. And, you know, you get to know these people 15, 20 years, you spend a lot of time with them and you become friends. and so then you miss them and I don't see them. Now fortunately we have the Lever Cup, so I see Roger a couple of times and Rafa we make a point of doing things or you invite them to come out and like this year when we invited Roger to the Australian Open and we've done the same for Rafa moving forward and I said, Roger, bring the whole family, come for the week, hang out, do whatever you want to do and they're like the best possible time.

1:04:32Craig Tiley:So those things you kind of miss but I'm excited. We are on the men's side, on the women's side. It's in good shape. there's been a change of leadership for the WTA on the women's side I think I think that the the the new leader woman of God she thinks very broadly very big about the opportunity in women's tenure things fantastic and so I just you know as leadership capability also builds and as these players come through the sports in great shape it is in great shape the question is what kind of bigger shape could it be in and I think that's where we've got to get to I mean women's side but it's felt like the last well a couple of years in particular with a kind of the sabalenka sviante rebachina got off like it feels like i think women women's tennis struggled for a while to have really great rivalries and the extent that went on and i just feel now maybe it's getting to the stage where yeah we're going to see a little bit more of that rivalry i think i think we will on the woman's side you you can never tell it's kind of formed itself a little bit on the men's side but uh but it does every year on both sides of the sport i mean it was always about who could beat Serena.

1:05:37Craig Tiley:Maybe it's like the Arena Sabalek. And still will be. I know. And still will be, which is so great about her. It's mad, isn't it? I love her. I love her. I think it's like, it's so good for the game. I mean, and what a great story. She must still think she can win. Oh, absolutely. She's not. She wouldn't turn up. I know Serena well enough that there's no ways she's walking onto the court unless she feels she can win the whole event. And I guarantee you that's what she thinks. So good for her. Amazing. And so I don't worry about it. And you mentioned it too on the woman's side. If you look at Coco Goff's story, these are like unbelievable athlete stories and her game.

1:06:16Craig Tiley:So a lot of confidence in what we've got. Brilliant. Well, look, I'm so, so grateful for you in probably one of the busiest weeks of your year, giving us the time that you have. I'm so grateful from a tennis governance executive position as well. We've done 130 of these interviews. You got pretty good at it then. Thank you. Asking me. You gave yourself your own answer. That's good. That works too. But no, seriously, it's one of the most requested things because of, I think, the fandom around tennis. But as you've just described, I think it's also why people understand. It's a very hard thing to be able to come and talk properly and openly about.

1:06:53So I really appreciate you doing that. And I'm sure everyone will listening to this. What you have done and Tennis Australia and the Australian Open have done is absolutely awesome and kind of like pioneer status for a lot of other sports to look at and go, actually, do you know what, it can work. So congratulations on all of that. Thank you so much for the time. And I cannot wait to see what you go and do in the US.

1:07:13Craig Tiley:Yeah, well, we're going to get, yeah, I'm excited about, thank you for that, but I'm also excited about on this next journey. And I say the thing I'm most excited about is to unlock the real potential that does exist there across the board. And that's more about getting people to play the game because I think that, you know, we shouldn't lose sight of the fact is that our fans come from those that like the game. And the majority of our fans, I should say, come from that. And why at the Australian Line, we did all the other things to make sure we're covering off the non-tennis fans as much as possible as well.

1:07:42Craig Tiley:But I think the core of what we do is getting more people to play the game and then our ecosystem is going to be really healthy. Completely agree. And I'm sure you will do it with aplomb. We'll give it a good hot go, I can tell you that. Go and enjoy, well, if you can, a very nice week of British tennis. or British summertime tennis. Tennis has started, so let's get out there and watch it. Thank you, Craig. Thank you. Thanks so much to Craig for joining us as part of an incredibly busy schedule during his Wimbledon trip. As mentioned, I've wanted to do this from day one, mostly because the respect that he garners and success he has achieved in the sport.

1:08:18He has perfectly outlined the issues the sport faces to capitalise on the opportunity, but there is so much more in tennis to be excited about if the right governance structures and player relationships can be implemented and protected. I can't wait to see how Craig applies himself to the big US gig. I hope you enjoy the show and would love to hear your thoughts on it. Now, if you want to see more from today's show, you can do so by going to YouTube or any of our other social channels across Instagram, TikTok, and now Substack. There are more snippets to share and bite-sized chunks to consume.

1:08:48And whilst you're there, please do like, subscribe, and follow the show. As you'll hear from your other favourite pods, it makes a huge difference when bringing you the best guests and conversations from around the world of sport, which is of course our endless aim. Thank you again for tuning in and we'll see you next week. The business of sport is supported by Airwallex, the intelligent financial platform used by more than 200 ,000 modern businesses from SaaS and marketplaces to some of the most ambitious organizations in sport, including McLaren Racing, Arsenal and the San Francisco Giants. The off-pitch problem is simple.

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