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BNP PARIBAS OPENMarch 20, 2011Raymond MooreCharlie PasarellINDIAN WELLS, CALIFORNIA MATT VAN TUINEN: I want to just thank everybody for coming in this morning. I will let Charlie and Ray open with just a few of their thoughts about the tournament this year thus far, and then we will open it up for questions. Feel free to get more food if you like. Easy breezy. CHARLIE PASARELL: Well, obviously we feel we are very pleased with the way things turned out this year for the tennis tournament. Record-breaking crowds again. I don't know what the final number is going to be, but it will certainly be over the 350,000 number. RAYMOND MOORE: We will be close to 350. That's borderline. CHARLIE PASARELL: Is it? RAYMOND MOORE: Yeah, if we have a total sellout today, I think we will just hit 350. CHARLIE PASARELL: Well, as of last night, I went to the ticket office, and we had, I think, 87 tickets left to sell. So I think we will probably... RAYMOND MOORE: We are at 333,000 as of end of last night. So 16,000, we're going to be right on the cusp of 350. CHARLIE PASARELL: Just a sidebar on that, we think we can actually do better than this if we can figure out how to find more parking. Certainly in the first weekend we always have to stop selling tickets because of the parking issue. But we will try to come up with some solutions for that, because we are confident that we can exceed that. Again, I think the matches, almost maybe one of the biggest features we've had is the doubles competition here this year. It's just been incredible with first of all, nine out of the top 10 top ranked singles players playing in the doubles. One withdrew; Soderling withdrew because I believe he was battling with the flu through the week. I thought it was phenomenal, you know, and the excitement that having the top singles players playing in the doubles, what that brought to doubles. A lot of us who love doubles, you know, really were pleased to see that. Outside of that, Raymond, I'm going to turn it over to you to make your comments. We're ready for some questions. RAYMOND MOORE: Yeah, I don't think there is much more to add to what Charlie said. Everything is aligned for us this year. The gods aligned; the weather has been good. Hopefully it will stay until about 5:00. I think Steve predicted rain sometime today. Hopefully it will be after the men's singles final. But everything has worked out really well. Great matchups, top players winning. It really has been terrific. Record-setting crowds. I mean, records everywhere. So we are really, really happy. I think the Hawk-Eye and the other improvements we made over 2010 were really embraced by everybody, the players particularly, the spectators with more seating, more comfort, more things for them to do. Corona bar was a big success. Video screen. I mean, it's kind of like Henman Hill. We're getting there. We're not stating that we are there, but getting there. It's still a journey. So we will immediately after the tournament go to the drawing board and see what improvements we can make for next year. We look for feedback. Various people say, Well, you can do this; you can do that. We have already had some ideas. That's what I think we'll do for next year. We just want to improve the event again for next year. CHARLIE PASARELL: Go ahead. Q. What is a sellout? Is a sellout how many cars you can park? (Laughter.) RAYMOND MOORE: You know, a sellout for today is not a problem in terms of cars being parked. But, you know, the city and the county govern us when we're selling outside tickets to outside stadiums and grounds passes, and that restricts us on the middle weekend. Because what we don't want is a boxholder to have bought a box and they can't park. So that's not something that we would want to do. But we do have on the drawing board, as Charlie said, we have three options in securing more parking. It requires approval of Mr. Ellison to buy the land, but we are looking. We hope to have more parking for next year, and then we will be able to increase attendance. Q. So what's the biggest day you ever had here? What's the number of tickets sold? RAYMOND MOORE: Middle Saturday? CHARLIE PASARELL: Almost 24,000, 23 and some change, 600 and 700 people, you know, 23,000. Q. Okay. So 6,000 or 7,000 people are buying tickets with the full knowledge they can't get in the stadium? CHARLIE PASARELL: Right. You know, but we never have sellouts here. We always have something to sell. (Laughter.) Q. I hear there are only 87 tickets left today. CHARLIE PASARELL: Quick story: When we were at the Hyatt Grand Champions and we were in our early stages of developing this tournament, all of a sudden we had sellout crowds for Thursday, Friday, Saturday. I was so proud of it, you know. We were putting sellout signs, telling everybody, We're sold out; we're sold out. The very next year we didn't sell out. People to this day still think they can't buy tickets. So I don't like to say we're sold out full. We can be full, but we're not going to sell out. If somebody wants to walk in and say, I want to buy a ticket, we're actually going to look at ways to do that like Wimbledon does it, you know, where you have these first come, first served. Used to be standing room; now it's sitting areas. We're going to look at those kinds of availabilities. I don't know if you guys have had an opportunity to stroll around the grounds, but if you look around, people are laying on the grass, sitting on the Corona bar, sitting on those lounge chairs, watching the big screens. To that effect, actually, you know, one of the improvements - I don't know if you guys have had an opportunity to really look into it - but is people are going to be here for 8 to 10 hours a day, and they're only going to watch so much tennis. We have to provide entertainment throughout the rest of the day. We have developed an internal network of entertainment. I don't know if you guys have been inside - it's actually right behind the stage - and seen our studio where we provide the entertainment. No other tennis event in the world - and maybe no other sporting event in the world - is doing what we're doing there in terms of providing on-site entertainment and production, you know, that we're doing. We're doing for all the video walls, everything that's happening here, we actually write a script every day. We have directors. We can show something on the video walls on Court 7, and something different on the video wall on Court 3. Everything from player intros and commercials. Nobody is doing that. If you guys have an opportunity, you should actually walk in there to that studio. We'd love to show you, because it's really an amazing thing. People are not seeing that, but that's what we are doing. Q. What's the maximum number of cars you can park now? What's the maximum? What do you want to get to? RAYMOND MOORE: I don't think we have a number. But to come back to the first point about selling tickets when people don't have a stadium seat. When you go to the big tournaments, you go to Wimbledon, there are 10, 12,000 seats they sell for Court 1. So we've started that process for Stadium 2. So it's the same thing. So that's why we can have more people than the 16100 we can accommodate on the stadium. That's where we want to get to where people will actually -- they'll consider. And I think the beauty of Stadium 2 is that you actually can get even closer to the players because it's not as big a court. So, I mean, I watched a lot of matches on Court 2 this year. CHARLIE PASARELL: Some of the best matches were there. RAYMOND MOORE: I mean, you're like breathing down the necks of the players. That's very attractive. So Stadium 2, and then hopefully one day there will be a need to begin selling tickets in advance for Stadium 3. So that's where we want to go. Now comes the second part of that equation, which is providing parking for all of those people. I am very confident that we're going to have a lot of parking next year, more parking, because we have three options, and we're down the road with all three. Hopefully one will come to a conclusion soon and we will have more parking. Q. So right now when people walked up to buy a ticket, they had a choice of buying one in the Stadium, buying one in Stadium 2, or buying a ground pass? RAYMOND MOORE: Right. CHARLIE PASARELL: That's correct. Q. What does a ground pass cost? RAYMOND MOORE: I don't know what it is now. What is it? CHARLIE PASARELL: I don't know. RAYMOND MOORE: We sell a ticket -- I think a ticket to the stadium where you don't have a reserved seat, the upper loge, I think that ticket is 45 bucks. That allows you to go to the loge and Stadium 2 and Stadium 3. We'd have to ask Steve, but it's a moving target what the ground pass is, but obviously it's something like 15 bucks, something like that. Q. And if you buy a ticket for Stadium 2, can you go up to the top? You can't go up to the top of the Stadium, can you? RAYMOND MOORE: No, you have to buy a stadium ticket. That's the upper loge. We stopped -- we wanted people to come in and walk the grounds but also have access to the stadium, and those are called upper loge seats. So right at the top of the stadium, those people have that kind of ticket. CHARLIE PASARELL: I didn't quite -- you said if you bought a ground pass you don't have access to? Q. No, I said if you bought a Stadium 2 ticket you don't have access to Stadium 1. CHARLIE PASARELL: Oh, yes, you do. Into the upstairs, up above. Q. How many times have you been called by the cops and said, That's it; shut it off; we can't park anymore? How many times has that happened? RAYMOND MOORE: Well, it happened last year in the middle weekend, and I don't recall whether the cops did it this weekend. But we preempted them, because we know what's going to happen. The main thing is we don't want to upset our boxholders. Someone that buys a box or a series ticket and they bought it in advance and they don't happen to come at 11:00 and they're coming at 3:00, we want them to have a parking spot somewhere. And so Steve Simon, as you know, sits and governs that and is on top of it every hour of the day. He's the guy who makes the call finally whether, All right, we have to stop selling tickets, as Charlie said. You know, we don't say we we're sold out. There are always tickets for sale. But sometimes we just run out of parking. Q. So are you guys the second-largest attendance in the United States after the US Open? RAYMOND MOORE: Yes, by a long way. CHARLIE PASARELL: Yes. Q. That's what I thought. RAYMOND MOORE: We will have 50,000 more people than Miami. You know, Miami is just a very small, constricted site. They can't expand because they have the ocean there. Q. But it gets me that they call themselves the fifth Grand Slam. It's so pretentious. RAYMOND MOORE: Well, Charlie and I talked about -- everybody can call yourselves whatever you like, but until the players and the press confirm it, that's when it happens. Our goal was always to be the fifth largest tournament in the world. Q. And now you are. RAYMOND MOORE: And what we said, Charlie and I privately, we said, Let's just do it. We have been larger than Miami for several years. Q. That's what I thought. RAYMOND MOORE: It's not just something that's happened now. And finally I think with the improvements we've made here with Hawk-Eye and all that, suddenly the players now are saying we are the fifth most important tournament in the world. Now, some of the press are confirming that. CHARLIE PASARELL: It's a wonderful contest, as I call it. The real beneficiary of all of that is the game of tennis. Q. It has happened a couple of times also because of the type of doubles draw that you had that the Stadium Court was actually, there was matches being played on Stadium Court that was basically being played in front of a few thousand people, and Stadium 2 was full to capacity, people lined up for hours who couldn't get in. Is it in the drawing board to try to have kind of a bigger facility or a more permanent facility? CHARLIE PASARELL: Yes, that's also on our drawing board. We had about 7,000 season that Stadium 2 court. I think we're going to get it to about 9,000 next year. Ultimately we really want to build - hopefully - a permanent Stadium Court 2 that would seat between 10,000 and 12,000 people. I don't know. That's still really our vision. It's not something that we have any kind of commitment, but that's what I would ultimately like to see. RAYMOND MOORE: We have had it on the drawing board for a few years. We have the space. We know exactly where the stadium will go. That's one of our advantages is, you know, we have 55 acres; we have room to expand. Q. Like everyone who wants to expand, it's kind of expanding but not losing the charm. I think as you said, Charlie, on that Stadium 2 you can actually reach out and almost touch the players. I think that kind of feeling... CHARLIE PASARELL: It's a wonderful atmosphere. Q. I think some of the building that's gone on tennis, they have built them almost for the sake of building and they've lost that sense of magic. RAYMOND MOORE: I think that's a good point. We will bear that in mind. CHARLIE PASARELL: We don't want to lose that. But I think your question was: Why do we have 3, 4,000? You know, it's always based on commitments that we have to make to the ATP and to the WTA and to television. We have to obviously stage certain matches on the main courts and everything. We just don't have, you know, the freedom and flexibility to really put on the matches that we would like to see on the Stadium Court sometimes. So we need to expand Stadium 2. RAYMOND MOORE: An example, the tours, the men and the ladies, and the supervisors and the television govern the schedule. But we sometimes strongly suggest a different schedule, and we did it earlier. They wanted to play the Nadal/Federer doubles match on an outside-court because of the schedule the next day. We strongly suggested that they don't do that, and we ended up with obviously that semifinal on Friday night. But that happens, you know, because there are other forces and powers in the sport that, you know, they've all got their own agendas. Q. Considering that you probably don't have the budget to build a roof here because you don't really need it, what kind of time frame are you looking for the permanent Stadium 2? CHARLIE PASARELL: Don't know. I think time will tell, but hopefully in our lifetime. (Laughter.) Q. What happened the other day when Azarenka defaulted at 3-0, and right after that we got word that Robredo had defaulted; those were two stadium courts in a row. Were you guys involved in trying to get more matches out there or what happened? RAYMOND MOORE: Sure. We then went to the doubles that was at 3:00, which Federer was involved in, and we asked if they would play earlier to substitute the Robredo match; he had played the night before till late. They declined. There was nothing -- it was just very unfortunate. We have never had two defaults in a row on Stadium Court. CHARLIE PASARELL: We actually had three defaults, because Azarenka defaulted the singles and the doubles. RAYMOND MOORE: So there was Ana attractive match that we could have put on there, but, you know... CHARLIE PASARELL: We had no matches, nothing. RAYMOND MOORE: You have to take into consideration the players' schedule. Federer played late the night before, and so they declined. They just weren't ready. They also were blindsided by it. Players get ready. The match said, Not before 3:00, and Sharapova came on at 3:00, and the doubles match, I think, went outside. Q. Do you hear from ticket holders on a situation like that? CHARLIE PASARELL: Of course. RAYMOND MOORE: We had some people who were unhappy, as we were. CHARLIE PASARELL: We can't solve all the problems, but we try. Q. I've always teased you about having more events here, and I know you're looking into boxing. How did you wind up becoming a jail in December, and who approached you from the county on that? That had to be one of the most bizarre requests you've ever gotten. RAYMOND MOORE: No, we had that before. Q. You have been a jail here before? RAYMOND MOORE: No, not a jail. Just for the people who don't know, we had a sting operation with the FBI, and they took down a whole bunch of people drug running here in the Valley. They set up shop here at Indian Wells Tennis Garden, and, so you know, I think it stretches it saying it was a jail. It was a two-day event, and the FBI... CHARLIE PASARELL: We sold tickets, too. Just kidding. (Laughter.) Q. How many of them later played in the tournament? (Laughter.) But was that an unusual request? RAYMOND MOORE: No, no, no. It's the second time it happened. It's the second time it happened. It happened two years ago, and then it happened then, and it was unbelievable. The FBI -- everybody had FBI on them. There were tents out there. It was a mini city. It was the largest sting operation in the Valley. And you'd know, being a local journalist. I don't know how many people were arrested. Q. 178. RAYMOND MOORE: 178? Yeah, so that's what happened. Q. Was it due to code violation? (Laughter.) Are you looking at bringing boxing out here if you can? RAYMOND MOORE: We would love to bring boxing out here. I've talked with our local hero. Q. Tim Bradley. RAYMOND MOORE: Then we'd have to bring Mr. Dwyer back, because he loves boxing. I think our arena is perfect for boxing. So, yeah. We are looking. We have a half marathon starting on December 31st this year, so that's a new event we're going in. We are expecting over 10,000 entrants. We will then end up morphing into a full marathon. The company that we're dealing with called The Competitor Group, they have a brand called the Rock 'n Roll Marathon. They now run 17 of those nationwide, and we're one. So, yeah, we're looking at other events. Q. What about the concerts? You haven't had a concert for a while. RAYMOND MOORE: We want to have concerts. We really do. And we have met with AEG who put on the Coachella Music Festival. We have a good relationship with them. We're actually do the parking for the Coachella Music Festival. The problem is that we're in a niche market, as Neil would say - but most of the others call it a niche market, bastardizing our English language - but our niche market is we can only do superstars. We can do Elton John or Neil Diamond or Eric Clapton, because if we go below that it doesn't pencil, and we cannot compete with the casinos. The casinos are playing to rooms that house 2,500 people. We need to sell 5,000 to 6,000 tickets to break even here in our stadium. So it lends itself only to superstars. Q. Is that the same formula for the boxing? RAYMOND MOORE: No, no, boxing will be different. Boxing will be very different. We'd love to have a boxing here, Leighton. CHARLIE PASARELL: The infrastructure you would need for boxing, I don't think it has to be as big as what you need for concerts. RAYMOND MOORE: The problem you have, it's an economic one with concerts. I don't want to disparage any superstar so I won't mention the name, because we have had several negotiations. You go to them they negotiate a fee which is exorbitant, but they get half their fee up front, and you've got to pay it six months in advance of the concert, right? And then what most superstars do, it's their fee against 90% at the gate, whichever is larger. So you as the promoter take all the risk, you're out the money six months in advance, and they allow you to make 10%. So, you know, it's not a great business. CHARLIE PASARELL: Which you have to cover... Q. You had a change of heart with the city council, and the mayor has even called and tried to set up a meeting with you guys about the boxing. They realize the money is green now. RAYMOND MOORE: We have a lot of things, arts festival, car shows. Now we have a marathon. We have a basketball event every year. CHARLIE PASARELL: May not have one. Doesn't look like it. Not our fault. RAYMOND MOORE: Player lockout. Q. This probably violates 10 different rules of journalism, but congrats to you guys over the years. You've done a great job to make this happen. CHARLIE PASARELL: Thank you so much. RAYMOND MOORE: Thank you. Q. You said in this lifetime earlier, let's say in this lifetime you're up at Heaven's Gate and Saint Peter says, I'm a real fan of Indian Wells, but all the tournaments you've had, which, Charlie, is your one favorite one, if you had to pick one? CHARLIE PASARELL: Thank you for sending me to Heaven. (Laughter.) Q. If you don't give me a good answer... You're going to... CHARLIE PASARELL: Obviously I still think that the aura and the prestige of Wimbledon... Q. I'm talking about of your tournaments here. That was a very good answer, actually. (Laughter.) CHARLIE PASARELL: It's hard to match, but I clearly -- obviously Raymond and I clearly believe Indian Wells, outside of the four majors, we're by far the best and the biggest and the most important tournament. Obviously that's our perspective on it. But also, you know, when he and I play tennis, we play to come in first place, not in second place. I think we carry that same attitude towards doing events. You know, maybe, you know, some day, with the right kind of things, we can approach even some of those four, you know, and get close to them. You know, competition breeds excellence, and the fact that we have done Hawk-Eye, the fact that we're doing all this internal entertainment network that no other tournament - not Wimbledon, not the US Open, none of those tournaments are doing - I think we've raised the bar. I think they're going to have to do it. I hope they do it, because the great beneficiary of all of that is the game of tennis. So that's our attitude. We like to compete. As I said, competition breeds excellence. That's really our attitude about this event. Q. I actually didn't ask my question very well. It was of the tournaments, of the years that you... RAYMOND MOORE: Which is the best one? Q. Which one would you choose as your favorite? CHARLIE PASARELL: It's the one that I'm going to do the following year. Q. But of the ones... CHARLIE PASARELL: That have occurred? Well, this one. I mean, we have had so many great memories. I mean, I remember the Sampras/Agassi final. I mean, that year we were Monday night. That took the air of heavyweight championship fight. That was an incredible -- the match was okay. The match was not one of their best, but it was okay. Just the whole thing around it was incredible. But I think, you know, this year's event, and it's only I think since 2005 - I think that's correct - the four guys that we've had in the semifinals here have won all the majors, all the Grand Slams. I think that's a pretty incredible. There are a lot of things that are out of our control, players' results and all that, and the doubles competition this year I think was incredible. So all those things. I think of the tournaments that have occurred, I put this one No. 1. Q. What are your thoughts on the adding mixed doubles? CHARLIE PASARELL: Mixed doubles? Q. Yeah. CHARLIE PASARELL: We're about it. It's one of the considerations we'll have. You know, I guess my only question would be I don't think we' going to have any of the top players, singles players, stars, all the top stars, playing mixed doubles. I think the fact that they're playing doubles and singles is pretty good. Now if we throw mixed doubles in, I just don't think they're going to do it. Yeah, mixed doubles competition is great, but you're not going to see any of the big stars playing on the men's side. On the women's side probably you'll get some. That's the only, I guess, negative why not to do it. Q. Does the tournament get revenue from paid Internet streaming? If so, are you seeing over time that amount of money beginning to approach what you get from selling broadcasting rights? RAYMOND MOORE: Well, the paid Internet streaming, part of our contract with ESPN and ABC this year, the hook is the Internet streaming, because ESPN wanted to eventually put it on ESPN 3. There will be revenue in the future from that. But revenues that are derived from that go to ATP media, which is our company based in London that produce and sell the entire television package. CHARLIE PASARELL: For all The Masters Series and some other tournaments. RAYMOND MOORE: So down the road, that will, we hope, become a revenue source. It's not today, but we've provided for it, and we're looking down the road at that event. CHARLIE PASARELL: And in terms of revenues regarding television, we are experiencing some terrific increases in revenues and coverage of television, mostly from international coverage. But, you know, we're back -- I still think tennis is far below -- I mean, tennis, in my opinion, is one of the biggest sports in the world. And when you compare what tennis does in television revenues to compare to some sports that are not as big as tennis internationally, I mean, we're really just not even meeting our expectations. But I think we're on the right track. I think if, you know, we got together somehow, there would be more of a centralized sort of clearinghouse of selling tennis on television around the world, and that would include some of the Grand Slams. I think tennis would do significantly better. Q. All of us are going to have to write today the woman's final, whoever wins wins $700,000. Then we're going to have to write that the men's winner win $611,000, and people are going to read that and say, What the hell is going on? Could you explain how that breakdown comes and why it's like that? RAYMOND MOORE: Yeah. Well, you know, we argued vehemently about that with the ATP, because, you know, we have equal prize money, everything. We just didn't think it, you know, correct that the women's winner gets more than the men's winner. The total prize money is identical, but the WTA have a different percentage breakdown. CHARLIE PASARELL: Their distribution is different. RAYMOND MOORE: So we went to the ATP and asked them to change it, but they wouldn't. Q. So the distribution is determined by the WTA and the ATP? CHARLIE PASARELL: Yes. Here's the prize money: Four and a half for the women, four and a half for the men. WTA works out their distribution. ATP also works out the distribution. It's out of our control. RAYMOND MOORE: So, for example, you know, the ATP, there's a percentage, and I don't know exactly what it was. In fact, at one time Charlie and I actually dictated that percentage when we were part of the ATP. The percentages haven't changed that much, but there's the percentage for the winner, and it used to be 19% of the men's singles prize money would go to the winner. So it's that kind of formula that they have, and the ATP wouldn't change it. Q. Doesn't that kind of put a tournament, because people don't understand that, they think the tournament is dividing up its pots? CHARLIE PASARELL: Agreed. Q. Puts the tournament in a bad light, doesn't it? RAYMOND MOORE: Well, I don't think it puts the tournament in a bad light. It just shows where the power is. The power in politics on the men's side is with the players' council, and I would have thought that the top players would have complained, but they don't. You know, they're in the locker room with the lower-ranked players and there is camaraderie, and top players make so much money. I mean, I'm not excusing it. I'm just trying to explain it. That's all. The top players say, Yeah, fine, you know. $611,000 is enough for us. CHARLIE PASARELL: The answer is we don't like it. We would prefer that it would be equal distribution. Q. Why don't the WTA change theirs, drop theirs, instead of the ATP? RAYMOND MOORE: It's the same thing. They wouldn't. Q. It's a silly thing. It's so stupid when you're trying to project a unified tour or circuit and they keep on talking about equal prize money and all this sort of stuff, and while it might be equal, it might be a 50/50 split on the total prize money, the public doesn't understand that. CHARLIE PASARELL: You're preaching to the choir. Q. True? RAYMOND MOORE: I mean, you have to talk to the ATP and WTA. We've done it till we were blue in the face. We lost that battle. Believe you me, we really complained about it. It was 2010 or 2009 when it first happened. It was like, you know, a dialogue with the deaf. Q. Are you happy with the slot with the calendar? Are you happy with the two weeks in the calendar? CHARLIE PASARELL: Yes. RAYMOND MOORE: We love them. We love them. CHARLIE PASARELL: March Madness needs to change their dates. (Laughter.) Q. Could you talk for a moment about a player named Federer? I mean, he's had such a dominant run over the years, but obviously dipping to No. 3, has had some losses. What's your feeling about his game, his level? CHARLIE PASARELL: Well, I don't think Roger is playing now like he used to. The question is can he, you know, get back to the same level that... I still think he's one of the most talented tennis players. The game is so easy for him. I mean, he can do so many unbelievable things. Sometimes it can work against you, because maybe to just -- it's not that you don't work as hard, but you take it for granted that you can do all the stuff. You know, sometimes it just doesn't happen that way. I mean, you know, obviously I thought he mishit an awful lot of shots. I thought his serve was very sporadic. He served well at times, and then he would serve badly. I mean, he double faulted, you know. Yesterday's match was a particularly interesting match. He loses the first set. Djokovic dominated. Now Djokovic has him down a break. Comes back, breaks back, plays brilliant tennis. It's the old Roger Federer, okay? Gets up to 40-15 on his serve, and then he makes what, seven consecutive errors. RAYMOND MOORE: 2-All in the third, 40-15. CHARLIE PASARELL: Yeah, he lost 11 points in a row. You're sitting there frustrated because he's such a great player, and you say, How does he do that? I don't understand anyway... RAYMOND MOORE: I think that's what happens in life, and that is, you know, when you're a -- for tennis players, when you're younger, you're single minded and you're focused on something. I think he has other things in his life now that are a little more important to him. He's got family and kids. It kind of just takes your focus away a little. I mean, that's what I see. Because as Charlie said, in the second set, in the beginning of the third set, it was the old Roger, and he was playing great. CHARLIE PASARELL: And he was rattling Novak. I mean, Novak was starting to doubt himself. RAYMOND MOORE: I think in order to be at the top, you have to be single minded and focused. And Nadal is. And there is nothing -- I mean, Nadal gives 100% every single point. Q. So you think there is just a slight... RAYMOND MOORE: I think there is a slight edge that's gone off his game. Can he get it back? Absolutely. He is so talented. He can get it back. I still think he's going to win one or two more majors. I think he will. I think particularly Wimbledon. But certainly he's got the skill, and I think it's just the application and focus. To be a top player, if you go right through history, look at Jimmy Connors, who was more focused than him? When McEnroe finally lost his mantle of No. 1, he was getting distracted and he was doing other things. You know, to be the No. 1 player in the world, you have to be totally focused, single minded in your purpose. Q. And 25 years old. RAYMOND MOORE: I think Federer is 29. I think he still has the skills, the physical skills. I don't see him... CHARLIE PASARELL: There have been some players, Connors, perfect example. My buddy Arthur Ashe won Wimbledon at age 33. Q. Something like that. RAYMOND MOORE: I personally think Federer will win one or two more majors, I really do. CHARLIE PASARELL: Sampras, you know, perfect example. He went through almost two years of just getting slaughtered, and he still had one purpose: I got to get one more. He got it, and then he said, That's it. I've had enough. Q. You've been kind of masters of innovation, you talked about having Hawk-Eye on so many courts now. We were having a debate the other day about the speed and pace of the game, and I'm sure it's something you guys have talked about many times on the ATP. Do you think there's going to come a time when we will have to tell players to get a bit of a move on? I think some of the things that turn people off is that their mind would wander. If you're watching tennis on television, a lot of players take an awful lot of time doing a lot of things, and I think it would help to speed it up. Have you considered that? RAYMOND MOORE: I actually think the speed of play is not bad right now. I think it was much slower when Lendl and Vilas were playing. They would take forever between points. I was in the men's council at the time, as was Charlie, and we had to draft a rule that you had to play within 30 seconds. But Lendl and Vilas, they would take forever. Q. I don't think Nadal and Djokovic are in that... RAYMOND MOORE: Personally, I think Djokovic bounces the ball too much, but, I mean, when you look at it, I think it's kind of a rhythm that he has. He doesn't take that long, and he's within the rule of playing within 30 seconds. CHARLIE PASARELL: He's got it down from about 23 bounces to about 13, so he's improved. Q. When you talk about the Hawk-Eye, and then you see - and this has happened throughout the tournament - the guy hits the ball, it's a close call, and he makes the dramatic walk up to the net to look where the ball landed and then doesn't challenge. That does kill about 30 seconds and it looks kind of dumb. Would you like to see if they walk up they got to challenge? CHARLIE PASARELL: I don't think we have a problem. To be honest, I think you guys are making mountains out of molehills. I really don't think, and that's a very British type of attitude. You know, you're not in a race out there. Q. I'm just thinking about keeping people's attention. If you're sitting at home watching tennis and it's taking -- I mean, no one admires Nadal more than I do, but I just think, you know he's sitting there -- it got to a stage where Karlovic actually stood there waiting, and then went and sat down just to take the Mickey out of Nadal because he was taking so long. And if an umpire actually says, Come on, we have to play. We have had 25 seconds. Let's go. I think you'd actually get the thing moving along. CHARLIE PASARELL: Again, I think it's not that bad, to be honest. Somebody who was a great player once told me, When you're the best player, you always make the other guy wait. Okay? You show who's the champ. But anyway, to your point, talking about sitting home and watching it, television dictates a lot of that. They run graphics, they run instant replays. So all of that is part of the entertainment. Personally, I mean, that's my personal opinion. I don't think it's bad at all. Q. We did BNP tournament and did all the averages on time between hits. For men it was 2.2 seconds. Women now have closed in to 2.5 seconds. When I was running the pro tour with Kramer, it was 4.0 seconds between hits. So it is faster, and injuries have increased as a result of fast... CHARLIE PASARELL: Here is the man who keeps track of all this stuff. I had no idea. Q. If we could get back to the organizers, I think you guys are stars. I live here locally, and I will thank you for what you've done. I enjoyed the Hyatt Grand Champion days, and I love these days. Given the transaction last year with Larry Ellison, what keeps you so motivate? You guys have seven, eight, nine things. You're always doing something more to motivate. What keeps you hungry? CHARLIE PASARELL: It's still our baby. RAYMOND MOORE: We love tennis. It's what we do. Charlie and I both said we like to do other things. Charlie now plays more golf than any other player in the world other than Butch Buchholz. You know, bottom line is we love the game. It's what we do. Q. Speaking of other people, in terms of the organizers, put you on the spot of other tournaments, obviously Wimbledon does a fabulous job. The Open is an incredible happening; French, good job. Who do you think the best one tournament is in terms of organization, promotion? RAYMOND MOORE: I think all the tournaments have improved. It's like everything, and they've had to. I haven't been to the Canadian Open, but I understand that they do a phenomenal job up there. I think that all the tournaments -- it's like Charlie said earlier, we've raised the bar with some of the things we've done here. I think in two or three years, a lot of other tournaments -- we won't be the only one who has Hawk-Eye on every court. And that keeps happening. I think just the organization's become more professional; it's gotten better. I think there are a host of tournaments around the world... CHARLIE PASARELL: We learn from each other. One tournament that I think -- you know, I mean, if you go back 25, 30 years that has now become a phenomenal tournament is the Australian Open. I mean, that tournament really was almost going to disappear at one time. I mean, maybe it was longer than that. And the improvements they have made and obviously facilities has a lot to do with it, but it's a great happening. You know, Roland Garros is still phenomenal. I mean, that also has increased. I mean, there were times, and it wasn't that far along. I mean, even the days of Pete Sampras, okay, which is not that far back, he missed the Australian Open. He didn't think it was that such a big deal. RAYMOND MOORE: Hardly anyone played -- I mean, top players, they missed the Australian Open throughout the '80s. I think Borg played it once. McEnroe maybe, I don't know, maybe once or twice. Not too many times. CHARLIE PASARELL: So I remember, you know, Pete Sampras, playing golf with him during the Australian Open here in Indian Wells. Pete, why aren't you... Nah, I didn't feel like going there this year. So that's not the case anymore. I think we've sort of, you know, our tournament here has really -- Miami has also done a terrific job. We've sort of tried to catch up with Miami, and now Raymond and I both believe that we've surpassed Miami. Hopefully Miami will try to surpass us. That's what's great about it. Q. Any more talk about week 2? Any more competitions? Anything new to talk about in the last few years? Masters? Juniors? College? RAYMOND MOORE: We've got a lot of stuff. Not college, but we've talked about the first three days, you know, two weeks, of having a senior tournament. We'd like to. We've been talking to the USTA about having a top-line junior tournament. So, yeah, we're looking at ways to do that. CHARLIE PASARELL: We have a lot of events going on right now as we are sitting here in this room. We have a tri-level competition, 16 sections of the USTA, and next year, the one that's missing is Puerto Rico. I'm going to make sure we have a Puerto Rican team coming here. We have I think over 200 tennis players from all over the country. 300. Sorry, 300 tennis players. RAYMOND MOORE: We run the Senior Cup, which starts tomorrow. We have 700 entries in the BNP Senior Cup that we've taken over. CHARLIE PASARELL: We have the CaP CURE (Prostate Cancer Foundation) event going on, as well, and at the club here we have the National 55 and Over Championships. We have run the collegiate event for -- which conference? I'm trying to think now. One of the conferences. We run the final -- we run 15, 20 other kinds of events throughout the year here. Tennis events obviously feature on it. We're trying to figure out how to enrich this two weeks we have here, and as Raymond pointed out, one of the things we're considering is doing... Q. Charles, I know I'm preaching to the choir here, but marketing the American stars, like the match that Isner was in in Wimbledon, years ago he would have been on the Johnny Carson show. He would have been on every show here in the country. He wasn't on anything. He was on Jimmy Kimmel, I think. But they don't market it for American audiences as much. You guys do. You ask half the sporting public if Pete Sampras and Agassi were still playing, they would say, Yeah. How can they market it better with the American kids? CHARLIE PASARELL: Good question, and I don't think we have enough time here to explain. Obviously we all have lots of ideas of how it could be done. You know, at the end of the day, you have to win. And an interesting thing, yes, we may not have, you know, Andy -- and hopefully Andy will still stay in there, and Isner and Querrey and Harrison, you know, I think Harrison has a good future, and if we can adopt Raonic from Canada, I think he has an unbelievable future. One specific point, I said, I think that the American public has embraced Nadal and Federer as if they were our own. I'm telling you right now, you ask almost anybody, Who would you rather see playing in the finals here in a tournament in United States, and they'll probably tell you Nadal and Federer. Q. When you were talking about parking capacity, what is capacity now? And with your three plans, what would that get the parking capacity to? RAYMOND MOORE: Well, our conditional use permit that we have from the City allows for us to have 25,000 people on-site, so we would have to have parking for 25,000 people. There's a formula for that. I think it's 2.5 people per car, so that's 10,000 cars we have to have now. We're pretty close to that right now. Q. But then with the expansion... RAYMOND MOORE: We'd have to go back to the City and apply to alter that CUP and to get it to 30,000 or whatever the figure that we will need. But that's what it is. It's a technical thing. There won't be a problem with it, the City, obviously, as they get 8% admission, tickets, on everything we sell. I don't think it's going to be a hard fight to get them to expand our CUP. CHARLIE PASARELL: And obviously we had to present an organized plan. Q. Going back on the speed of the game, just on a slightly different perspective, I was speaking to some of the players, especially some of the girls, and they were saying that the courts are pretty slow and the balls tend to get pretty heavy and fuzzy after the first few games. Was it a deliberate choice? Are you trying to keep the courts slow? It just happened? Combination between the balls and the courts? How do you see it? CHARLIE PASARELL: You mean specifically for this tournament? Q. Yeah. CHARLIE PASARELL: We always have believed that our surfaces, the speed of the surface has got to be a medium-paced surface so a guy with a big serve, serve and volley player, can win the tournament. We have had many, from Sampras to -- RAYMOND MOORE: Sampras. CHARLIE PASARELL: Sampras to Sampras. Philippoussis and a number of other guys like that. RAYMOND MOORE: Edberg. CHARLIE PASARELL: Edberg. Becker. So we've, you know, they win, and then we've have also had retrievers from even a José Higueras back then who basically played from the back, or Agassi who basically played from the back. Or Nadal, you know. So we feel that's a fair surface. We also feel it presents the best quality of tennis, you know. We have interesting tennis. I believe, you know, some of the other tournaments -- you know, I'll be very specific. I think the US Open surfaces are a little bit too fast. They still get great matches, but, you know, I think if they would be a little slower I think it would be better. So in terms of the balls, I mean, it's the evolution of the balls. You know, when we used to play after about four or five games - I know many of you will remember this, not all of you - but the ball used to get about that big. All of the fuzz of the ball would go out, and we were playing with golf balls. It was hard to spin the ball and control the ball. We had to block it gently. The strings also, you're able to impart more spin on the ball, and power comes a lot easier. So technology has changed the game, and it's changed the game how it's played. I think it's changed it for the better. Criticism that I sometimes hear from a lot of people is, Oh, yeah, I like to watch women's tennis because men's tennis doesn't have any rallies. I say, I don't know which matches you've been watching. There are some unbelievable rallies. Del Potro/Nadal yesterday? Give me a break. They were incredible. They were hitting the ball hard and the rallies were incredible. Q. Men's doubles tournament, why do you think the top players play this and maybe not a lot of the other tournaments? And also, is there something you're going to do to encourage them to play doubles here? CHARLIE PASARELL: We are the world's championship for doubles. Just kidding. I think the schedule makes it very good, you know, for the players to be able to play, because they have to -- it's going to be about four or five days for the top players sort of before they get to Miami and start playing in Miami. So I think that they enjoy playing doubles. I think players do enjoy playing doubles. I mean, in spite of... I think the fact we have two weeks and we're able to schedule doubles one day for the top players and singles the next day, most of the time, you know, I think the schedule allows the players to enter the doubles, and we're very happy about that. Q. You were talking about Rafa and his popularity. It's just my observation on the outside - and it may not matter so much to have big American stars, because Nadal Federer and Sharapova have largely been adopted by the public - but in your experience as tournament directors, have you ever seen with just like Nadal and Federer the public respond so positively to two players who maybe they don't think they're their own, but they are the ones they want to go see play and practice? CHARLIE PASARELL: The bottom line is the American public wants to see the best. If they're from Spain, from Switzerland, or from China, it doesn't matter. They like to see the best. Yes, we want to have the Americans become the best, and so of course, you know, they basically -- the American public likes to see the best and they'll adopt them. Borg, they adopted Borg, and the Borg/Connors and Borg/McEnroe rivalries were incredible. So it's just the way we are. They like to see the best. RAYMOND MOORE: I also think that Nadal and Federer have really set the standard in skill, athleticism, and sportsmanship, and I think that's admired and respected universally throughout the world. I think, for me, I mean, it's almost like, you know, Rosewall and Laver are back, and Emerson, because those three Australians had the same kind of ethics, sportsmanship, and I think Nadal and Federer have done that. Q. Do you know the gate breakdown in terms of local residents, in-state, out of state, international, and if there are a lot of local residents? Have looked at any way to move people from Palm Springs and here without having to drive and park? RAYMOND MOORE: We have a shuttle service that costs us a lot of money. We do shuttles from all over the Valley. Q. Not just from hotels? RAYMOND MOORE: Nearly all the hotels, and local people can go to the hotel and get on the shuttle, as well. We don't go as far afield as Palm Springs, yeah. You know, demand may make it so. If it does, we'll do it. Q. Do you know the percentages of attendees? CHARLIE PASARELL: Yes, 81% of the attending public that comes here comes from 100 miles and over, and almost close to 5% come from outside the United States. We've got boxholder, series ticket holders from every state of the union. It is truly a destination tournament, and that's what makes it special. People are here on their vacation to watch tennis. It's not a tournament like, you know, I think I'll leave the office at 3:00 today and I'll go watch some tennis. They're here to watch tennis. They're here for eight to ten hours a day. We recognize that and that's what we've adopted, so we're privileged to have that. I mean, it is a great asset for us. RAYMOND MOORE: But also just to add to that, we do have the night sessions, and actually, we created the night sessions a long time ago because of the demand from the local population, because they're working. We can't get to the tennis. We'd like to get to the tennis. That's when we started to introduce night sessions. So we do want the locals to attend the tournament, and they do. In droves. We even have an Indian Wells Day on the first Thursday of the two weeks. So we cater for all of it. We sell packages now. We sell night packages only, weekend packages only, day packages only, or a series if you want to come to all 21 sessions. MATT VAN TUINEN: Thanks, everybody. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports |
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