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ROGERS MASTERS

August 13, 2006

Grant Connell

TORONTO, ONTARIO

GRANT CONNELL: All right. I might as well get started here.
Just wanted to say thank you first of all for all the great coverage. It's been an amazing week. I thought the amount of coverage here has been incredible. Really appreciate all that.
It's been a fun rookie here for me. I certainly chose a great year, considering the history here with the blackouts and the floods. We had seven gorgeous days, a great field, some really enjoyable tennis.
I heard from a lot of people, I spent most of my time walking the grounds, getting feedback from people. It's interesting listening to people, how much they enjoyed the tennis, how much Federer, Nadal, all these new kids are bringing to the table.
I just feel like I get the feeling that the general population is really, you know, beginning to catch on to the game again. It's really nice to see the sport be so popular again.
Our tennis was very high, had great turnouts, four sold-out sessions. We did 155,290 people through the gates this year.
I'll open it up for questions, if you have any.

Q. With Federer and Nadal here, you kind of had the marquee names. Are you fearful, though, when you see what's happening in Montréal on the women's side with all these people, all these women dropping out? What kind of solution is there to something like that? How do you prevent that from happening?
GRANT CONNELL: Obviously, it's very unfortunate for the fans in Montréal and for the people who put so much effort into it.
But you have to understand, they're in a state of transition. They have a new CEO, Larry Scott, new president, Stacey Allaster. They're working around the clock to fix the situation.
If anything, I'm actually optimistic about the next go-around here in that it is going to be remedied because there are so many conversations and discussions going right now on fixing it. I'm very optimistic about it.

Q. What is the problem? Is it because they're playing too much? Too much injuries?
GRANT CONNELL: The men's game went through the same thing. It's growing pains. When the men's tour formed in 1990, we had some issues with growing pains, as well. We were getting some more of the dropouts. The women's tour, as we all know, became extremely popular. More and more cities were vying for the players.
It just grew really fast, and as a result, it kind of is creaking a little bit now. Now they'll adjust.

Q. What could be the solution? To have a tour like the men? To get penalties?
GRANT CONNELL: I think we'll probably end up getting closer as far as how it's structured with declaring certain events more valuable than others, and basically streamlining the calendar. I don't pretend to be an expert on the WTA Tour circuit. I played doubles actually with Larry Scott, my first doubles partner. I know he's a bright, smart man. We all know Stacey. They are on the right track, despite how unfortunate it is in Montréal.

Q. I understand the point of view of profit, it may be unfortunate in Montréal. There's another way of looking at it. If the mandate of tennis is to reach out to many different people, look at what you have in Montréal. You have Sania Mirza, bring out a lot of people from the Muslim community. You have three Israelis in the main draw which will bring out a large segment of the Jewish community. Sometimes you never know, in other words, what could be perceived as a problem because you're reaching out to a different kind of market, isn't it always a situation you make the adjustments and things don't turn out to be that bad?
GRANT CONNELL: Very good points, very valid. Historically the sport is driven by the top marquee names. But you're absolutely right, Montréal is going to do fine. Their numbers will be fine. They're going to have to go through some media questions, some fan questions early on.
But the game itself will override it. Tennis has become so cosmopolitan, so international, you're absolutely right. We had Baghdatis here from Cyprus. There's a 300,000 strong community here from there. That's how tennis is becoming.

Q. You mentioned how great of a week it's been. How do you maintain the momentum in terms of keeping tennis popular in Toronto 52 weeks of the year instead of one-week great event and then people forget about it till next year? What are you going to do this year to keep people enthusiastic about the sport?
GRANT CONNELL: The whole purpose of this Rexall Centre, we're paying down debt, we're putting everything to junior development. We've hired two amazing coaches. We have now national centers being formed in Toronto and Montréal. When you start getting the infrastructure set, we'll start getting smaller events. When you look at some of the super powers of tennis, like Spain, Brazil for a while, they had numerous little events as well that lead up to this.
We don't have as many smaller home events that will help Bester, Polansky. It would be great if they could get six wildcards a year and work their way up to this instead of being thrown right away into a Masters Series event.
To answer your question, more events are needed.

Q. How would you feel about getting regular coverage on sports radio in Toronto, television in Toronto, more coverage in Toronto on the airwaves?
GRANT CONNELL: We'll get there. It's getting better. We were quite strong in the early '90s. TSN had us for a while. Our Davis Cup group was in the World Group. The coverage was strong.
We have to do our own bit, too. We have to produce players in the top hundred and have something for you guys to write about and to show on TV. We're going to get there. We have a good young crop.
TV is going after a sports audience, not just the tennis segment. We have to find ways to transcend our sport, attract all kinds of sportsfans.

Q. What is your take on the concept of having the men and the women play together in one event alternating between Toronto and Montréal? Has that been discussed? Is it feasible?
GRANT CONNELL: It works in Miami, it works in Palm Springs. Toronto and Montréal are just -- it works so well the way it is in individual cities. Logistically, it wouldn't work with sponsorships and stuff like that. I think the way it functions now with Montréal and Toronto as separate events works best.

Q. Can you put that 155,000 figure in context. Is that a best ever, average? How does it fit?
GRANT CONNELL: It was right up there. We had one year where the numbers were higher, but there's a lot of seat-filling programs. It was right around the SARS period. We gave a lot of tickets out to health care workers, stuff like that. Technically that number might have been higher, but this one is revenue-wise our best.

Q. How much better in terms of revenue?
GRANT CONNELL: Unofficially we are over $1 million better than we hoped to be revenue wise.

Q. What do you could for the rest of the year? Do you stay in Toronto to work on this event or go back out west?
GRANT CONNELL: Anybody looking for a house in Vancouver? I sell real state. It's my full-time job. This has been an amazing great contract, but I live in West Vancouver. I'm in real estate. Stack of cards in the back there (smiling).

Q. You really can't understate how important it is to have seven beautiful days of sunny skies?
GRANT CONNELL: Yeah, you know, the atmosphere out there was so much fun. They've done a great job in the field there. I had Roy Emerson, two days walking around with the legend. People loved it. Lendl was out there early in the week. Yeah, all that could have been erased with a huge downpour. We wouldn't have been able to take advantage of those personalities. We wanted to build a festival atmosphere. We almost got there. Still things to do better. It's a good step in a new direction.

Q. Given this is your first year doing this, you had the weather, you had the men's tournament, which is a much easier go in terms of people actually showing up, how lucky do you think you are that you got to start with a week that actually went better than has been historically?
GRANT CONNELL: I was very lucky. We were all laughing about it. I was laughing with Stacy about it. She actually chuckled as well because I was walking a little gingerly from all the blisters of walking around.
I was very fortunate. Quite frankly, I don't even want -- when I get thanked out there on center court, it's laughable. Everybody behind does so much work. The staff is wonderful, which I'm a part of. It's really a good collective group of people. I walked into a very tight, good unit. It was a very stress-free week for me.

Q. Which player has been the surprise of your tournament?
GRANT CONNELL: If you don't mind, I'm going -- the young players surprised me. Gasquet I thought and Berdych. I thought was fantastic. In general, the level of play from them was a big shock. Lendl even pointed out these guys are so much better than when he played even.
Then I will say that it was an absolute joy. I got to sit in the stands and watch both Federer and Nadal play a few matches. It was tennis I've never seen before.

Q. There's some discussion on the website about is Federer the best player ever. What do you think about that?
GRANT CONNELL: You get that. We had that Agassi. We had that with Sampras. Basically in his day, he was the best player ever. Unfortunately, that's all you can do and one day someone is going to come up and beat him and he's going to be the next best player.
He's certainly a treasurer for tennis fans, that's for sure.
THE MODERATOR: Thank you.

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