Mouratoglou: "Relaunching the activity with an innovative test"

In full scarcity, there is first the desire to fill a void by offering high level tennis live, but also to persist after the crisis. In the casting, David Goffin, Hope Alexei Popyrin, Benoît Paire and Fabio Fognini are already announced. Lucas Pouille, Stefanos Tsitispas and Daniil Medvedev could follow very quickly. 

How did the idea for this league come about?
The unprecedented and dramatic situation we live in has given us the opportunity to create this league, which I hope will find its place in the world of tennis. It was the father of Alexei Popyrin, a very promising player from the Mouratoglou Tennis Academy, who offered me this innovative concept with tournaments throughout the year, a ranking and a prize money. The entire tennis industry is suffering. Players can no longer exercise their profession. It is a good way to revive tennis activity and good news for sports and tennis fans who are frustrated not to attend live events. The idea is also to perpetuate this league with a concept that is both innovative and traditional.

How will this new circuit go?
There will be matches with points won based on the opponent. Five meetings on Saturday, five on Sunday, from May 16, for five consecutive weekends at the Academy with players who train in the region or some from neighboring countries. The objective is ultimately to have a female circuit and a male circuit and to compete in matches all over the world. We just need to give ourselves some time. Normally, it takes a year to set up a tournament, we will do it in a month and a half. We are going to offer broadcasters a package of 50 games.

“The average age of the fan is 61 years. Young people don't watch our sport any more. We want to rejuvenate it by bringing more spectacle ”

Do you already have diffusers?
We are in full discussion with them to discuss the game format that we will adopt. I have been fortunate to work as a consultant for years at Eurosport, ESPN and Fox Sports Asia. I know that some of them would like to do different things on a tennis match with the desire to seduce young people. There are people, attached to the tradition, who will not like our concept, but others may be attracted by the novelty. The enthusiasts do not renew themselves enough. The average age of the fan is 61 years. Young people don't watch our sport any more. We want to rejuvenate it by bringing more spectacle. We will be a laboratory with the desire to show how tennis could be in the coming years.

How will this League be innovative?
Tennis will be at the center of a universe very influenced by e-sport with augmented reality. We want there to be field interactions with the fans. Americans do it very well in US sports. The players express themselves with their rackets, but we also want to know their personalities. The ultimate goal is for the players to express their emotions on the court and share them more with the spectator. That's why we liked tennis in the 1980s when there were the McEnroe, Connors or Nastase. We want to come back to the reason why these people liked this sport.

You plan to launch this project just a few days after the deconfinement in France…
We are tackling these questions with the utmost seriousness so that nobody gets sick during the event, of course. We will get in touch with all the bodies concerned to be in full compliance with the new regulations related to deconfinement. But there are still gray areas…

"We can imagine everything, but we can wonder if a tournament can function without sponsors, without public relations and without spectators, because it is to my knowledge about 60% less revenue"

Can the UTS find its place in an already busy schedule?
We are talking to ATP and WTA so that everyone can work together. I would like this circuit to be under their aegis. I have good relations with these bodies. I will work with them, not against them. I don't know if tennis is a big family, but we work with the goal of appealing to as many people as possible. As this league will be played at the weekend, we have a lot of flexibility. One could imagine a UTS stage on the weekend, where the ATP tournament will take place.

Like many observers, can you imagine a white season on the big circuit?
I have no idea. We don't know what the face of tennis will look like when life resumes its course. Everything will depend on the policies of the countries. If they keep their borders closed, there will be no circuit, if they open them we can imagine that it will replay. In any case, the economic crisis that we are going to experience risks being unprecedented. There are many sponsors who will no longer invest in tennis, at least in the short and medium term, because they will have other priorities.

Your League will be disputed at first in camera, but can we imagine a Grand Slam like Roland-Garros without spectators?
We can imagine everything, but we can wonder if a tournament can function without sponsors, without public relations and without spectators, because it is to my knowledge about 60% less revenue. There are TV rights, but they are not important enough for a tournament of this magnitude to be viable.

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