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ROGERS CUP MEN

August 15, 2010

Karl Hale

TORONTO, ONTARIO

MICHAEL CVITKOVIC: Good afternoon, everybody. Thank you for coming a little earlier before our 1:30 scheduled final here at the Rogers Cup presented by National Bank. Michael Cvitkovic, the communications director here in Toronto.
It's my pleasure to welcome our tournament director, Karl Hale, in his fourth year as tournament director of this event.
The format for today, we'll have some opening remarks from Karl, and then we'll open up the floor to questions. I would also like to introduce Michael Downey at the back, our president and chief executive officer, who will be available for any questions regarding the organization of Tennis Canada, and of course welcome Derek Strang, our chief operating officer at the back, as well.
Without further ado, we'll hand things over to our tournament director, Karl Hale.
KARL HALE: Thanks, Michael.
With great enthusiasm, I come to you today with a great week of the Rogers Cup presented by National Bank. We started off with the draw by Rafael Nadal on the Friday night where we launched LoveMeansNothing.ca on behalf of Tennis Canada.
We had a great qualifying weekend where we had record crowds. Our attendance was over 161,000 for the week, which we're very, very excited with. We're look forward to a virtually combined event next year with the WTA coming back. We had a top 20 field last year, so we look forward to that.
The enhancements we had this week were tremendous with the Rogers Cup On Fire, and also, the video boards on our grounds were tremendous which we're going to enhance next year as well. We'd like to thank the thousand volunteers who helped us and the staff and look forward to a great final today.
MICHAEL CVITKOVIC: At this time we open up the floor to questions.

Q. You mentioned the attendance was 161,000. Can you put that in perspective for us compared to previous years, last year and heading back?
KARL HALE: We had -- 155,000 was our record to date. We had five sellouts this year versus eight two years ago, but we had more seats this year, more capacity, so that's why we had a record attendance.

Q. Do you know what it was last year?
KARL HALE: I don't know it off the top of my mind.

Q. Could you talk a little bit about what's going to happen next year and the format, just a little bit about the...
KARL HALE: The event next year?

Q. Yes, please.
KARL HALE: So next year is the first year we'll have the women's event combined with the men's event. It's week 33, which, as you can see by the calendar, is a great week to have it. This week we have Kim Clijsters and Maria Sharapova in the finals of Cincinnati, so we look forward to a great event there with the women's side.
And also, we're going to have a legends event combined with our women's tournament next year that will bring an enhancement to our fans.

Q. They will be played at two different venues?
KARL HALE: Yeah, it will be the same event as it is now, two different venues but just the same week. So on broadcast, there will be three options for matches, one women's and two men's. So the broadcasts will change, but on site it will be exactly the same.

Q. Is there going to be any way that people here can see what's going on in Montreal?
KARL HALE: Yeah, on the on-site video boards where we have over the draw board this week, so we will have that and probably enhance that, as well, so people here can see the connectivity, so they can enjoy the event in Montreal, as well.

Q. Are you going to be able to have like interactive news conferences or press conferences with the players there and here?
KARL HALE: I think Mike would be best to answer that.
MICHAEL CVITKOVIC: Yes, we will. Both media centers will be virtually combined, as well.

Q. Are you planning to stagger the schedule of play so that basically the matches in Toronto will not overlap with the matches in Montreal and vice versa?
KARL HALE: That's more on the weekend with the semis and the finals where it will be staggered, but during the week a little bit, as well.

Q. Especially the evening sessions?
KARL HALE: Evenings, yeah, yeah.

Q. So you will coordinate with Montreal as to scheduling of matches as much as you can?
KARL HALE: Absolutely.

Q. You've told us a little bit about what you like about this. What about this for Tennis Canada is maybe not ideal, even though you had no control over it? How is this good for Tennis Canada but how is it also maybe not as good?
KARL HALE: Well, I think it's good for Tennis Canada because the event will be a bigger event being a combined with having the men and women in one week. We lose a little bit of broadcast, you know, the second week, one week instead of two weeks.
But other than that, we think it's going to be absolutely fantastic. The players are really excited about the whole idea of the combined, so we think it will be much better for spectators and fans in the future.

Q. Do you have a figure on how many hours you are going to lose in terms of total broadcasting?
KARL HALE: I don't have the exact number, but I think we'll have the same or more hours.
MICHAEL CVITKOVIC: Number of hours? I believe it's going to be about 30% less. However, it's more kind of a Grand Slam feel, so if it's raining in Montreal, we can come here, and vice versa, if it's a double bagel here in Toronto, the desk can throw it into Montreal.
Our president would like to add a point to that, as well.
MICHAEL DOWNEY: If I can just add to that, because we have been in discussions with our broadcast partners. All the semifinals and finals will be at different times, so we will have a Super-Saturday on CBC. They may call it something different, but we will have actually four semifinals.
During the week, there will be some staggering. But keep in mind, because of the new broadcast situation, a lot of our partners have more than one station. So they may be on at the same time, but you'll be able to actually flip back and forth between stations, because there's three matches that can be on TV at the same time.
Obviously, as well, there's Dot Com, so the viewer will be able to actually -- may have to go to one station, but they can go to another station to pick up a second match or a third match, depending on what their preference is and who they want to watch.
MICHAEL CVITKOVIC: Any other questions from the floor?

Q. Have you investigated the possibility of starting on Sunday instead of starting it on Monday and making it an eight-day tournament just not to lose as much exposure on the media?
KARL HALE: It's very difficult to do that, because Cincinnati follows us, so it would be -- at this time, we're not doing that for next year.

Q. In previous years the women's tournament, in terms of the calendar, they used to follow I think the week prior to New Haven. How did you work out with Cincinnati who would get the earlier date, which you got, and who would get the later date? How did that work out? Question No. 2 is in Montreal they added one day of qualifying on Friday. Will you be doing that in Toronto next year?
KARL HALE: Okay, question No. 1, Michael was in negotiations with that. We think week 33 is the best week, because the players have a layoff after Wimbledon. So we lobbied for that week and we got it.
With the qualifying, we're going to look at it and see how it worked in Montreal and then discuss with the WTA if we're going to do that as well in the future.
The qualifying, yeah. We don't know yet. We will see how it goes in Montreal and look at it.

Q. It's probably too early to ask, but do you have a figure on whether revenue this year was up, whether it was down?
KARL HALE: Too early to ask.

Q. How about a guess?
KARL HALE: I would think we're doing a little bit better just based on attendance.
MICHAEL CVITKOVIC: Thank you, everybody.

End of FastScripts

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