NEW YORK • After weeks of clinging to its hopes of holding the US Open at its traditional New York home in front of fans, the United States Tennis Association (USTA) has begun to seriously explore alternative plans for the signature event that accounts for more than 80 per cent of its revenue.
The scheduled late-August start of the tournament is still three months away. But the dual realities of the ongoing coronavirus pandemic and the financial peril the USTA would face if it has to cancel the event have forced the organisation to consider whether it can hold its premier event elsewhere.
Its Flushing Meadows site is next to the Queens neighbourhoods that have been at the epicentre of the Covid-19 outbreak in the city.
Any move from the Billie Jean King National Tennis Centre would be both unusual and an enormous financial sacrifice for a US$400 million (S$568 million) tournament that attracted 738,000 fans last year, generated most of the USTA's US$161 million in ticket revenue and prompted hundreds of millions more in broader spending on things like hotels and restaurants.
Yet it is becoming more difficult to see the event taking place as originally planned. Over the weekend, New York City officials floated the idea of using the tournament site as a quarantine centre. Last month, a 12-court indoor facility at the tennis centre was converted into a temporary 350-bed hospital, and another stadium on the grounds was used to prepare and distribute up to 25,000 meal packages every day.
USTA spokesman Chris Widmaier said on Wednesday that the last patient had left and that work to convert the building back into a tennis facility had begun.
"I think what they will end up trying to do is go elsewhere," said Donald Dell, the tennis agent and promoter who last month participated in a call with tennis officials and the White House about the logistics and financial details of staging tennis tournaments this year.
Other options for the US Open this year could be Orlando, Florida, at the organisation's 100-court training facility, or near Palm Springs, California, at the site of the BNP Paribas Open in Indian Wells.
Major tennis tournaments have relocated before but largely because of the need for bigger grounds. The US Open was held in Forest Hills, Queens before moving to this home in 1978. The Australian Open was played at the Kooyong Lawn Tennis Club from 1972 until it relocated to Melbourne Park in 1988. Wimbledon's original ground was situated off Worple Road but is now at Church Road.
Even if this year's edition of the US Open finds a new venue, holding the tournament would be difficult because players would need to travel to the United States from all over the world.
Widmaier said the organisation "continues to plan and model numerous scenarios for the 2020 US Open". "Obviously, cancellation of the event would have a significant impact on our Association but not an insurmountable one," he said.
At the USTA's Orlando facility, there is no infrastructure for fans, and its courts would need to be wired for live television.
But Florida has increasingly been looked at as a venue to stage sports events. By Saturday, the Ultimate Fighting Championship would have completed three fight cards in Jacksonville. Exhibition golf matches this month featuring Tiger Woods and Rory McIlroy will be held at Medalist Golf Club and Seminole Golf Club respectively.
Florida Governor Ron DeSantis on Wednesday said any professional sports team would be welcome in the state as major leagues attempt to plot a course back to competition following the coronavirus shutdown.
The National Basketball Association, Major League Soccer (MLS), Major League Baseball and the National Hockey League have been on hiatus since March. One of the latest proposals is for the MLS to stage a 26-team tournament in Orlando.
DeSantis is adamant that sports can return safely in his state. "Our people are starved to have some of this back in our lives," he added.
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