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UNITED STATES TENNIS ASSOCIATION MEDIA CONFERENCE

June 7, 2007

RITA GARZA: Good afternoon, everyone. Thank you so much for joining us. We're happy to be with you today. We've got a lot of great news to share with you. I'm not going to waste any time. I'm going to turn it over to Jeff and have Jeff give a brief introduction, then we'll allow questions to happen ongoing so we don't have to wait until the end.
Jeff.
JEFF RYAN: Thank you, Rita.
Good afternoon, everyone. We thought it would be in everyone's best interest if we just touched base with you, the media, and hopefully the public as well to let you know that as far as ticket sales are concerned for the Fed Cup this upcoming July, things are going in a very positive direction. In fact, I would anticipate very shortly that the allotment of tickets will be sold out.
We at the USTA are of course very pleased with that. Andrew Chmura, who is on the phone with me, one of the people who helped attract this event to Stowe, is obviously very happy about that as well. Again, we just wanted to communicate that simple message to everyone so you were aware that we are getting very close if not almost there to a sell-out for the Fed Cup.
RITA GARZA: Jeff, can you address exactly or about how many tickets have already been sold, because it is in excess of the 3,000 initial number.
JEFF RYAN: That's correct. For those of you who were here in the beginning know we embarked with a 3,000-seat seating plan. During the process of selling tickets and up to today we expanded that capacity to 4,100 seats, which is where we are today, and would be a sell-out.
RITA GARZA: We'll open it up to questions right away.

Q. The seating capacity, when you were up in Stowe, you said it would be perhaps somewhere between three and five thousand seats. Any chance it will go higher? When do you have to put a cap on how many seats there may be?
JEFF RYAN: I would tell you that, you know, when we embarked on this, along with the overall enthusiasm for the event, that's how you heard that range of three to five thousand. When it comes down to it, I feel our job at the USTA first and foremost is to make sure we can fit everything in there.
What we're saying today, what I'm saying now, is that we feel very comfortable that that 4100 number is a good number. It will be a positive experience for all different perspectives of people involved.
I'm also prepared to tell you that if there is any more space out there that I can find to put more seats, I'm in the process of evaluating that and looking at it. So I'm not ruling it out. But I just want you to understand that it's just not a matter of there being space there on the ground to erect an additional few rows of seats. It's about making sure that the overall experience from a number of points of view will be positive.

Q. When is your sense construction of the seats, the court, will actually get underway? I'm sure there's preparation getting underway now.
JEFF RYAN: Well, you're right, to the second part of the question. We did invite the company back that works with us on constructing this facility. We were out marking things off and looking at it.
In terms of the general time frame we're talking about, it's on or about the 20th of June, which is midweek. If you were standing here, you would probably be likely to see trucks and equipment rolling into the area with that following weekend being the weekend that construction starts.
I can tell you for someone who's not involved in this like we are, it's not uncommon for these facilities to go up a lot quicker than one might imagine. I've seen a facility of this size go up in four or five days. For example, when you're erecting seats for parades and other things, you can have facilities and seating systems going up even faster.
But the 20th, again, is our target date. We'd like to have it up, done and ready by that Monday the 9th of July. When we say "done," there's a lot of stuff that needs to be done to the facility in terms of gussying it up a little bit with the decoration, signage, stuff like that. Monday the 9th would be our target date to have everything done.

Q. Might you expand upon the notion of whether it would be possible to expand the stadium beyond the 4100 seating capacity you're at right now. What exactly would that entail to expand more? Does that mean adding more onto the stadium itself?
JEFF RYAN: Literally the assumption that I'm making is that people are talking about expanding the stadium. In order for me to do that, for me to endorse doing that, do that properly, I think I need to visit with all the partners that we have in this event, Andrew, Top Notch, people involved in other details like parking, concessions. You've got to go through a checklist of things and just make sure that everybody's on board before you can just go physically adding seats.
RITA GARZA: I wanted to give Andrew a chance to chat with us since he's been a key person in this process. Do you have anything to add this afternoon?
ANDREW CHMURA: I'm just really excited with how everyone's kind of come together to bring this thing to the point that it's at. I mean, with Stowe being a town of right around 4,000 people, to think that within one day of going on the public sale we can be at 4100 seats is a pretty astounding number. It just kind of speaks to the excitement and support the town has given this event, and the extent the USTA has gone to promote it.
It's just kind of a happy day for me when I see everybody kind of come together and us being able to get to that 4100 seat number within I think two days like this is just phenomenal.
RITA GARZA: It is phenomenal, indeed.
Thank you so much. We look forward to being in Stowe very soon. Please let me know if I can be of service. Jeff Ryan, Andrew, thank you very much.

End of FastScripts

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