In 2022-2023, a Task Force of the Board of the NWTO completed a 10-question survey of 16 of the 17 Sections of the USTA (all but the Caribbean). The newsletter will be publishing the results of the survey, one question at a time. Learn more about this initiative here.

QUESTION 3: What does the Section do to promote adult tennis in general? How does the Section promote adult age-based tournaments—both in the Section and Nationally?

Florida: A weekly e-newsletter is sent out to all USTA members in the state with a link to the adult tournament calendar. Tournament Directors can submit tournament details to the local calendar for both sanctioned and unsanctioned tournaments.

Midwest: Targeted emails, social media and general advertising methods. The districts are responsible for other local promotions.

Intermountain: The Districts promote their own tournaments. There is a printed book of tournaments, and the Section does publish email blasts.

Eastern: Eastern has an active website, Facebook page, Instagram account.They send email blasts ALL the time! (Truly)

Pacific Northwest: The Section promotes the opportunity to host adult tennis programs and tournaments to each individual provider (club, facility, park, CTA, Tournament Directors, etc.). Each provider then decides what programs they wish to host and provide court time and marketing resources to support. Each provider submits a request for a tournament sanction, which the Section then approves and places on the master calendar (USTA and Serve Tennis) for promotional purposes. The Section also supports and promotes all USTA marketing campaigns, including but not limited to National Tennis Month, etc. The Section also hosts/directs Section Championship level events (*Note: events that do not garner viability via participant registrations will be canceled.)

Southern California: The Section has a marketing team, and everything has moved digital through email, the website, social, and digital ads. They highlight/spotlight players, tournaments, results, player and team profiles, etc. There are links to sign up for events in all correspondence and social website posts to highlight tournaments, results, players, events, etc. On their website and social properties, they have a list of links to every tournament through a rolling calendar. They use Constant Contact to schedule communication. They took the emails from approximately 60-70% of the tournaments held in the Section to put in their database along with the marketing communication list. As well as monthly and end of year newsletters, they do flash letters of upcoming events - the District also does a newsletter. The Section shows tournament directors how to promote their tournaments (e.g., how to come up on search and link information). The Section’s league coordinators are paid positions. However, all of the league coordinators are given gifts as well as the league captains and sectional champion league players.

Texas: Promotion is currently focused on player education and raising awareness that tournaments exist. Outreach is mostly via social media. The section maintains a list of upcoming sanctioned tournaments (includes tournaments that are not yet populated in Serve Tennis). This is useful because some TDs want to spread payment of the sanctioning fees over time rather than paying all as a lump sum at the beginning of the year. (So the query calendar doesn't get updated.) TD training includes information on how to promote tournaments at the local level.

Southern: E-Newsletter with live link directly to tournament website for registration, paid ads on Social Media, calendar on USTA Website, and in future hope to be able to send out direct emails to players.

New England: The New England Senior Tennis Foundation (NESTF) does a lot to promote senior tennis in this area. They created an adult tennis newsletter and are revamping it. It includes information on leagues, tourneys, social, tennis on campus players (over 18 and an adult). People will get 2 newsletters. One will go out in March (when the weather is getting warm, leagues are starting), then in August or September (to offer congrats on a great year, what to think about for the indoor season). I am not sure if the National office has a newsletter.

Northern California: Provides player t-shirts or other player gifts for some larger events. Hosts Bay Area Senior Games (unsanctioned) tennis events. Reaches out to potential providers to encourage hosting new events. Sends out a listing of tournaments available for registration to membership weekly. Provides stipend for TD's running their first event. Hosts regular TD workshops.

Southwest: The Section has an accessible website. It promotes newsletters in the Districts of the Section. The newsletter for the Northern New Mexico District showed 12 adult tournaments scheduled for 2023 in that District alone, featured two women from New Mexico who were finalists at the Wilson World Tennis Classic in January in the 55+ bracket, and advertised a Super Senior program in Albuquerque for players over 60, in addition to a lot of adult league-based and junior program information.

Middle States: Yes. This year every district in Middle States (6) is charged with hosting an adult social event.

Northern: Northern runs the greatest number of leagues across the sections in terms of the number of opportunities to play and advance (i.e., we run our 18, 40, 55 & Over leagues year round and most sections run those leagues once a year). We promote adult tennis through our marketing channels and email promotions. We have started to add tournament promotions in our marketing efforts in both social media and email promotions.  

Hawaii: Our section cooperates with local tennis groups and promotes adult tennis via the USTA Office Play and Learn Program. Our section promotes adult tennis with newsletter content.  Relationships within our community are maintained to promote adult tennis. One-on-one communication serves as a way to receive feedback and share information. Community members are encouraged to submit emails with ideas and suggestions.

MidAtlantic: Adult newsletter (quarterly), but members must have opted in to receive digital newsletters; webpage–looking to revamp; what’s advertised on serve tennis; social media to geo target players for elevated events.

Missouri Valley: We are not proactive about Intersectionals, but we are impressed with the Midwest Section. While Movalley promotes adult play, we are always striving for improvement. We promote adult play within the Section with monthly newsletters, Facebook, Instagram and direct texts to tournament players.

After reading the above, do you have any recommendations or suggestions on how Adult Competition is best handled?  Please provide your feedback to Info @NWTO.us. We encourage you to reach out to your Section contacts with concerns or feedback:

Eastern – Lynn Buffamonti  buffamonti@eastern.usta.com
Florida – Christine Ducey  ducey@ustaflorida.com
Hawaii – Sara Yoshinaga  yoshinaga@hawaii.usta.com
Intermountain – Monica Haller-Bradley  mhaller@ita.usta.com
Mid-Atlantic – Rachel Kros  kros@mas.usta.com
Middle States – Mary Wurtz  Wurtz@ms.usta.com
Midwest – Toby Gaynor  toby@midwest.usta.com
Missouri Valley – Scott Howes  howes@movalley.usta.com
New England – Shawna Fors   shawna.fors@newengland.usta.com
Northern – Taylor Heltne  taylor@northern.usta.com
Northern California – Joanna Broda-Schnuk jbroda-schunck@norcal.usta.com
Pacific Northwest – Matthew Warren  mwarren@pnw.usta.com
Southern – Milagros Sequera Huss  sequera@sta.usta.com
Southern California – Anthony Shirley    ashirley@scta.usta.com
Southwest – Matt Gleason  gleason@southwest.usta.com
Texas – Veronica Nicholls  nicholls@texas.usta.com
Caribbean – Angela Vargas  adults@cta.usta.com

Learn more about this initiative here.

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