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Off the Hook
Why men's tennis tourney didn't live up to its commitment to New Haven
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Business New Haven
10/19/1998
By: Michael C. Bingham
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When tennis promoter James Westhall convinced city and state officials to spend $18 million in public dollars to build him a state-of-the-art tennis stadium as a precondition of moving his tennis tournament to New Haven in 1990, his collateral was a commitment to keep the event here for 15 years.
And when Westhall sold the financially troubled men's event to a group headed by Floridian Butch Buchholz in 1997, that commitment was part of the deal.
Now the event is gone for good, its ATP tour sanction sold to an existing tourney in Kitzbuhel, Austria, for the fire-sale price of $1.7 million.
So, what happened to the commitment to stay in New Haven?
The Tennis Foundation of Connecticut (TFC), which operates the 15,000-seat Connecticut Tennis Center, released Buchholz & Co. from their obligation.
Why?
Says tournament president and CEO Mike Davies, “We explained to them that the alternative [for us] was bankruptcy.”
And that specter, according to TFC President Rick Nelson, was the greater evil, since it would mean losing the year-old women's tournament, on which the hopes of Buchholz, the TFC and title sponsor Pilot Pen Corp. of America now ride. In 1999 as this year, the event will take place the week before the U.S. Open in New York.
“The alternatives” to releasing the Buchholz group from its commitment, acknowledges Nelson, “were few. One was to find somebody to assist in subsidizing or taking over the [men's] tour event. That was not possible. The second alternative was to sell it for a number that would allow them to pay their obligations to their local suppliers and vendors. The third was to bankrupt the entire organization and lose the women's event also.”
Nelson says that despite the outstanding public debt on the tennis stadium, city and state officials participated in the decision to allow the event to be sold. Proceeds of the sale, Davies says, will be used to satisfy the bulk of the $2 million in debts the event itself had run up.
“Obviously, the primary goal now is to make the women's event successful,” Nelson says. “We think we can. It will be a scaled-down event from a cost standpoint. We have title sponsorship in place [Pilot Pen], but clearly [Buchholz and Davies] need to enhance their sponsorship base and sell and market tickets.”
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