Q. Last weekend the signs were up on the gates during the day sessions, "Sold out. No tickets available." What kind of limitations create a sold out situation? Is there something you can do next year to let people in on the middle weekend?

CHARLIE PASARELL: “Parking. We ran out of parking spaces.”

RAYMOND MOORE: “… We wanted to sell more tickets, believe you me. We print them, so we could have printed more. We're like the federal government. We could have printed more money. But, you know, the fire marshal wouldn't let us. We were totally jammed on Saturday and Sunday.

“We're starting to look now into remote parking, bussing people in, which we never wanted to do. But in order to increase the attendance, that's what we have to do.”

CHARLIE PASARELL: “But as you know, most sporting events and certainly other tennis tournaments from anywhere around the world also have to do some remote parking. You know, and so we've -- I think we provide a lot of parking within walking distance to the stadium. Raymond is correct. I think we're going to have to start thinking about remote parking.”

Q. Along those lines, probably it's difficult with the other things you've got to worry about in terms of making it or not, but Stadium 2 and Stadium 3 are temporary structures, and potential revenue sources (with) additional tickets. Is there a plan right now other than, ‘Gee, wouldn't it be great?’ Is there any kind of plan or research in place to make those permanent sessions, perhaps split sessions?

CHARLIE PASARELL: “It's in the plan, it's a question of when. It is strictly a financial issue. It's interesting that you mention, one of the things that we witnessed this year is absolute increased demand for people wanting to buy reserved seats in Stadiums 2 and 3.

“I mean, it's amazing. My ticket office, I was there yesterday, and, you know, just kind of sitting down and relaxing. I said, Well, what's your first thought? The first thought that Margie said, Raymond, we need more reserved seats to sell Stadiums 2 and 3. I can sell them. I thought, Well, that's good news.”

RAYMOND MOORE: “That's a comment on Charlie. He goes to relax where the money comes in. (laughter.) Into the box office.”

Q. Could I go back to the television issue? This year ESPN declined to pick up the coverage and you went with Fox Sports Network. We were getting reports that Fox was switching away from matches in progress to go to things like spring training baseball. How, for the future, are you going to work with Fox - who I assume will cover it next year - to really get the focus on television to sell the sport?

RAYMOND MOORE: “Well, firstly, just to correct what you said at the beginning, ESPN didn't decline to pick it up. They made us an offer. The problem was that they reduced the coverage and they were only going to give us eight hours live and four hours taped delay, and that was just …

CHARLIE PASARELL: “Tape delay to 1:00 to 3:00 in the morning, which might as well not happen.”

RAYMOND MOORE: “We just couldn't do that. So we entered into a new relationship with Fox, and, yes, there are problems. You know, it's not perfect at the beginning.

“But the reason we did that is we want to work our way to be on network, and it appears to us that Fox might be our only chance simply because the networks have got commitments.

“I've talked with NBC several times, and they've said to us, We want to televise Wimbledon and Indian Wells. It really works for us. But they've got two major commitments at the same time to Arnold Palmer's golf tournament first week and to Doral this week.

“NBC told us they would cover us if we would put our final here at 9:00 in the morning. Well, we couldn't do that because of the three-hour time change would be 12:00 on the East Coast, and they begin televising Doral on Sunday at 2:00 East Coast time. On Saturday, at 3:00.

“So it just doesn't work for us. And then you've got CBS and ABC doing college basketball. So we've entered into this honeymoon with Fox Sports. We know it's not perfect, but they're enthusiastic, and they're embracing us and they're promoting us and they've given us 40 hours of live television this year versus the eight that ESPN offered us.

“We're hoping that down the road we can be attractive enough to Fox that we can be on network. Now, they've got NASCAR on Sunday, and that's a problem because NASCAR goes all day. But they can put us on network on Saturday, and we may switch one of the finals to Saturday.

"But we want to be on network, because we get a broader audience, and we are very happy with Fox. You know, yeah, it hasn't been perfect. They have delayed. I got a call from a friend of mine in Texas this morning, who Bud Collins will know, Russell Seymour, haranguing me because he couldn't get his final at 12:00 today in Tyler, Texas.

“I said, ‘Well, Russell, what time does it come?’ Well, it's going to be 8:00 tonight or 10:00 tonight. I don't get to see it live. I said call up your local Fox Sports network there and complain. He says, ‘That's what I'll do.’ He says, ‘I'm going to get my entire tennis club to call them this morning.’ ”

Q. That works.

RAYMOND MOORE: “That works. The squeaky wheel gets the oil.

“So that's what we're trying to do, and we are very happy with what Fox has done. They, unlike other things that have happened to us, Fox have promoted us; they have embraced us. They're enthusiastic. They're raw with the announcers, et cetera, like that. I know it's raw. But we're hopeful down the road that this can really lead to more and better coverage of tennis on TV.

Q. I'm just curious why you feel a network is better exposure than ESPN.

RAYMOND MOORE: “Well, ESPN just wouldn't give us the time.”

CHARLIE PASARELL: “ESPN, they gave us basically four hours, period, because the other four hours were worthless. They were literally delayed tape, and I think it was . . . ”

RAYMOND MOORE: “Three o’clock in the morning. They were going to play the men's semis at 3:00 in the morning. That's not coverage.”

CHARLIE PASARELL: “What good is that?”

RAYMOND MOORE: “We would have stayed obviously with ESPN. They just reduced the amount of hours.”

Q. Bud (Collins) has been getting a lot of mail through his website about how disappointed people are with Fox. Of course we're not seeing it because we're here, but …

RAYMOND MOORE: “I've gotten those same calls from friends of mine in Florida. ‘Where do I find it?’ It's new. It's new. So they're going to have to learn which channels to go on to find Fox, and it's an experiment this year.

“As an experiment goes, I think we're very happy, and it's a way to get better in the future. That's what we're looking for.”

Q. Charlie, you always talked about creating the greatest show in the world, and it is. We have seen yesterday, Morgan Pressel from the (Kraft Nabisco Championship) came here to the press conference to meet you, escorted diplomats. Gwen Stefani was here the other day. What's the idea to expand this in a celebrity way and bring this to the level the tournament is considering, the $9 million award next year?

CHARLIE PASARELL: “We've always had celebrities historically. Some of you may remember back in La Quinta we had Johnny Carson come here. One thing we don't do here is parade the celebrities. They're here. There are a lot more than the people you mentioned. They're going to be here, and they come because they enjoy that. Some of them like to be paraded. Some of them don't. We certainly leave it up to them. You know, I mean, we're always inundated by mega celebrities in here.

“I always say, if you have to put a label to this thing, you know, this could be called ‘Hollywood's Grand Slam.’ It's just a label. But in a way, yes, this is the celebrity capital of the world, and they've been coming for a long time. More and more are coming every year, so I think you'll see that trend to continue to grow.

Q. If you guys take care of the parking, what would the capacity be here for attendance?

RAYMOND MOORE: “Our CUP (conditional use permit with the city) allows us to have 25,000 people on-site at one time. For those weekends we were only at 20,000, but we need to get more parking.”

Q. What's the parking capacity again? I don't remember what it was.

CHARLIE PASARELL: “About 7,000 cars, close to it … And the parking studies that they do, that's an average of three people per car. That's about 21,000 people, and that's about what we had.”

Q. Can you confirm that the first weekends of the tournament have become your real heavily attended revenue-generating weekend, even more so than the final?

CHARLIE PASARELL: “Oh, yeah. Just like the Grand Slams. It's the same thing when you go to the US Open, the biggest -- that Labor Day weekend. I mean, it's phenomenal. And Wimbledon. Because you've got so many matches all over, we have people actually who come that weekend that won't even go into Stadium Court. They sit in Stadium 2 or sit in Stadium 3 because they get to be closer and watch the matches there, and so I think it's a great scene to see all those people roaming around.”

RAYMOND MOORE: “It's a great sporting spectacle. And, you know, if you go Saturday and Sunday you'll see every great player in the world, whether they're at practice courts or easily accessible to the people or they're playing matches. So as a sports fan you're going to see all the best players. That's the attractiveness of that weekend, whereas when you get towards the final now you'll see two players only. You're not going to see them all.”

Q. I know it's kind of a huge subject - and Charlie you're obviously involved heavily with the ATP - if you were having a sort of state of the game address, what would your specific points be? What do you think of the state of the game as we stand today?

CHARLIE PASARELL: “I think we've got a tremendous future. I think, you know, I think most of the changes that we're making for the sport are going to really propel this game to even much greater heights, you know, and this was not done, you know, from what we think or what we believe or anything.

“This was actually done with a lot of research, consumer research, because at the end of the day it doesn't matter what Raymond thinks is best or what I think is best, it's really about what -- those people are buying tickets, and what they think is the best. Same thing for you guys.

“And so I think these moves are, you know, I know they're controversial, many of them, but I think it's -- you know, I think it will propel the game even to greater heights, and so I'm a strong supporter of what we're doing, obviously. I haven't agreed with everything, but I agree with 95% of what we're doing?”

Q. Charlie, coming back to the television coverage, I was talking to a woman from England and her husband out on the grounds. When they watch Wimbledon, they can pick, from a satellite TV service, one of four or six courts to watch matches on. Is there any possibility to expand that connection to Fox, maybe Center Court coverage but having auxiliary TV coverage?

CHARLIE PASARELL: “Yes, absolutely. And that's certainly one of the topics of discussion.
And now we're developing new media, you know, your computers and, you know, basically. All sports are doing that, and I think we're pretty much up there trying to do what everybody else is doing so that if you are, I'll pick a name, you might want to see -- people in Thailand want to see Srichaphan, and we expand our coverage of courts, having cameras out there. We may be able to deliver to Thailand Srichaphan matches.

“That's certainly something we spend a lot of time talking about. Again, it's a function of making an investment, and we're starting to make those investments. We're doing that collectively, by the way. It's not just us individually. We have to do it collectively with all of the Masters Series and I say now the Future 500 tournaments that are going to go out there and make this investment into really creating I think a circuit.

“One of the things the research said is the average fan, and many of the hard core fans don't understand what the circuit is all about, what the tour is all about. They kind of know some events, but they don't note the difference of the events. They really just didn't have a good understanding.

“Part of it is to try to give a sense of there's a beginning, middle, and there's an end to the tour, and every one of us is a piece of that tour, every single major event, every single event is a piece of that tour. What piece, you know, how big or important of that piece is, it's really what it's all about. I think if we succeed in doing that, I think we will gain many, many more fans.”

Q. In terms of new media, where are you are with streaming video?

RAYMOND MOORE: “We're doing it. It still needs to improve, but we're doing it. We're actually trying to -- and we're trying to understand, like almost everybody else -- is that going to be advertising driven or is it going to be more, you know, consumer driven. So we're kind of doing little bit of both and trying to find out even amongst ourselves. We have discussions, and some people say, no, we should push the advertising driven and other people say no, let's do the consumer driven.

“TV is still, you know, king …”

Q. Coming back to the TV, I guess I'm bit of an old-timer. 30 years ago when Bud (Collins) was doing the PBS broadcast and there were a series of five, six, U.S. tournaments, that was considered the glory days of tennis with Connors, Borg and Nastase. Is there any chance that that sort of circuit will (return)?

CHARLIE PASARELL: “What happens, Connors, Borg, Nastase, McEnroe leave the game? Next thing we had Sampras, Agassi, Chang, Courier, Edberg, and we had a whole host of great players that came along.

“So we just go through the cycles. Now we have (Roger) Federer. For a couple years it was Federer and Nadal. Now we're starting to ask ourselves, Maybe there's Djokovic in there, and God knows who else is going to pop up. You know, hopefully we get one American, whether it be Blake, Roddick, or Fish that can kind of start catching up with these guys.

“But anyway, there's a lot of good players out there, and that's the game.

Q. One of the reasons we were so successful on public television was Monday night finals. Nobody's tried it since.

CHARLIE PASARELL: “We did it once at Indian Wells, and we had -- ESPN was broadcasting it, and they had a conflict for the Sunday. I forget what the conflict was, but they said, ‘We got Monday night open.’ We jumped on it right away, and we did it.

“Not only did we get Monday night from them, but we actually had a Sampras/Agassi final, which was like -- that took the air of a world heavy weight championship fight. We were getting phone calls from all over the world. People were saying I'm going to fly my jet. Can I get a ticket? It was incredible. Frank Sinatra always bought seats here. His wife, Barbara, loves tennis. She's here, she's going to be here today. But Frank never came. He came for that one. I mean, he wasn't going to miss that.

“So you're right. I mean, that would be sensational if we could get back into Monday night.

Q. I can't imagine why they don't do it.

CHARLIE PASARELL: “It's not us.”

RAYMOND MOORE: “The Monday night finals were just spectacular in the summer. The problem we ended up with and which we encounter now, is those were all in the summer. Now when you've got three majors in the French, Wimbledon, and the US Open played over, like, 14 weeks, the players aren't playing all of those -- and July is almost a dead month, you know. The top players are taking time off.”

CHARLIE PASARELL: “To do that in the summer, what Raymond is trying to say would be difficult because you have so many tournaments, you know.”

RAYMOND MOORE: “I still think I agree, Monday night's sport in this country certainly is huge, but then you go up against ratings again, you know. They put on a prime time show, it's difficult to compete with that kind of stuff on view.

“I just want to go back to one thing when you talk about state of the game, and state of the game is, I think, always measured with equipment sales, because then you know about participation. And the one barometer is tennis ball sales. That's how you know how many people are playing the game accurately, because the racquets now are so well-made they never break, and so the way that you gauge participation in the sport is through tennis ball sales.

“We've had, I think now, 12 straight quarters of growth. And so participation in this country is on the upswing. It is very positive.”

Q. That's in the United States as a whole?

RAYMOND MOORE: “That's in the United States as a whole.

“If you compare it to golf, for example, golf is down like 14% over the same period. Tennis is going up.

“More young people are playing. Kids now, the USTA program they've embarked upon, they're really pushing ...”

CHARLIE PASARELL: “It's working.”

RAYMOND MOORE: “It's working. Because they're selling now the racquets for kids, those models. Huge increase in sales. So I think the state of the game is very, very good, very positive.”

Q. You have to convince the sports editors …

CHARLIE PASARELL: “That was my comment. We get a bum rap. We don't get our due, what we should be getting. But we won't quit.”

Still more to come

-- Jim Alexander
jalexander@PE.com