Refreshing your knowledge with NIL, the art of commenting and more

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Jon, to an American fan this probably makes sense. But can you explain NIL and some of the discussion you and your readers have about it, especially as it relates to college tennis?

In a minute

• Bright.

Let’s try to keep this short: For over 100 years, college athletes were amateurs, unpaid for their work, regardless of how much revenue they generated for their school.

At first, it was a kind of fair exchange. Quid: Athletes received scholarships to college. Quo: They played sports for State U, which either generated income or enriched the school in some other way.

Then came the big money—mostly media rights—and the idea that athletes shouldn’t be paid for their work and revenue generation? Not only was that immoral (editorial), it created a distorted market. Because markets don’t like distortions, and because people tend to be rational, athletes sought payment in other ways—under the table, through untraceable buckets of casino chips, houses and vehicles for family members—and schools were often happy to oblige.

College sports were generating ever-increasing revenue, so much so that strength coaches could earn seven-figure salaries. Yet the NCAA and its member schools insisted that amateurism was the preferred model. Stories abounded of athletes earning millions for their schools while their parents couldn’t afford bus fare to watch them compete. Athletes became more active. And the situation became untenable.

A landmark 2021 Supreme Court case — decided unanimously — ruled that the appearance of amateurism in college sports violates antitrust laws and that athletes are entitled to damages based on their name, image, and likeness (NIL). An athlete could advertise for local car dealerships, for example, or monetize their image on Instagram.

Predictably, with warped speed, NIL ceased to be a name/image/likeness issue and became simply a pretext for paying college athletes. A bidding war for talent began. And not just in revenue sports.

If the benefactor of, say, Duke’s tennis program wanted to throw money at improving the roster by subsidizing six-figure “NIL” offers to recruits, well, he could do that. Welcome to college sports in 2024.

Pro: In this NIL universe, athletes are fairly compensated for their work. (Why should college sports be one of the few places where capital doesn’t have to pay its workers a fair wage?) Con? College sports have become a bidding war. Recruiting is complicated (corrupted?) by money. Team culture is damaged when some athletes are paid and others aren’t. There’s something wrong with that.

Jon, let me get this straight. You want (Nick) Kyrgios to be banned from tennis because he was/is a piece of shit who wasted his talent and posts vulgar things on social media, but you want to put Maria Sharapova in the pantheon of tennis greats at Newport even though she literally cheated?

Kyrgios is undoubtedly the worst of the two. But whose player’s legacy will be worse for tennis? The one who ducked? Or the champion who broke the actual rules designed to protect the integrity of the sport but still made it into the HoF?

Paul R.

• I do not want anyone to be excommunicated or annulled. We believe in a second (even third) chance to avoid today’s need to define people by their worst actions.

But I do argue that when prominent public figures behave abhorrently, we all have a responsibility to do so. don’t let it go unnoticed. Especially when said prominent public figures show no remorse and even redouble their efforts. Especially when the network — the same network that employs one of Kyrgios’ goals vitriol—is quiet. It’s no secret that the star system exists in media. But you can’t be a sports commentator and, as part of a continuing campaign of intimidation, use social media to suggest that you had previously had an affair with the subject’s girlfriend. This seems so obvious I can’t believe I just typed that sentence.

As for Sharapova… I was surprised to read Billie Jean King’s letter to the Hall of Fame committee defending Sharapova and urging Hall of Fame decision-makers to ignore the doping scandal. Billie Jean King uses her influence and moral capital to support Sharapova? It seemed unnecessary to me, a tennis version of the Streisand effect. But I was clearly wrong. I underestimated how many people considered that disqualifying.

Full disclosure: I voted for Sharapova — and the other three candidates — in the recent poll. While I don’t condone doping, I think we need to look at the facts. Meldonium hasn’t been on the banned substances list for years. Sharapova apologized. She appealed. (CAS noted: “Under no circumstances can a player be considered to have ‘intentionally doped.’”) She served her sentence. She also won five Grand Slams and otherwise conducted herself professionally and without incident.

Are we really so… what? … harsh? … fair? … unkind? … that we’re going to argue that this one bad act should erase all of Sharapova’s success and positive contributions and keep her out of the Hall of Fame? Some might. I can’t.

Jon, are there players who would make good commentators but aren’t hired because they don’t work well on the broadcast team? Despite their high tennis IQs, I don’t expect Marcelo Ríos or Evgeny Kafelnikov to be hired anytime soon.

Kevin Kane, Kingston, Ontario, Canada

• I think that the material of the interrogations of Yevgeny Kafelnikov is not used very often. Here is latest. Oh my. And while Marcelo Ríos is raised …I’m kidding… but he he’s really pumped up … comments like This perhaps disqualify.

Having had a tough time in the tennis television industry, here is my hot take on the former players in the broadcast complex. The best of them take the strengths of high-level tennis—problem-solving, self-sufficiency, curiosity, observation, worldliness, and adaptability—and use them for good. I don’t want to name names and leave people out. But I also think that people who excel at their jobs should be recognized. So a partial list would include Jim Courier, Lindsay Davenport, Andy Roddick, Andrea Petkovic, Chanda Rubin, Martina Navratilova, James Blake, Chris Eubanks, etc.

The former players who are struggling are the ones who are taking some of the necessary flaws of high-level tennis—self-centeredness, narcissism, paranoia, hypercompetitiveness, impulsiveness, and discomfort with team dynamics—and applying them to this new workplace. I suspect this isn’t unique to tennis, but there are plenty of highly skilled, insightful, astute players who aren’t getting work—or aren’t getting enough—because, no matter how well they’ve mastered X and O, they have trouble working politely with others.

Let me suggest that a documentary about Kyrgios has already been made, except that it is titled Charlie Hustle and the Pete Rose Case.

Skip, Philly

• Except that Pete Rose is — and probably always will be — baseball’s all-time hits leader. And Rose, for all his faults, was all about toil and trouble — he literally has the word “hustle” in his nickname. Kyrgios, on the other hand, is a talent minimizer whose career high is lower than, say, Joachim Johansson’s. (Look at the hard-hitting Swede who catches all sorts of stray balls!) The anti-Rose, Kyrgios takes pride in his lack of work ethic and the success he has achieved despite his commitment and professionalism. I got a B plus, man, and I didn’t even study!

But A) the Rose documentary is worth your time. B) To get back to Skip’s point, there are some similarities. The sycophantic membrane. The entitlement. The self-destructive tendencies. The complete lack of self-awareness. The unapologetic attitude in the face of indefensible actions. Rose is over 80 and still doesn’t get it. Maybe Kyrgios will one day.

I think so. Your answer in the case of signature shots it was a safeguard; now it’s quite clear that more than 90 percent of players have almost identical shots, serves etc., it’s just about power and powerful balls – there’s no point in denying it, fortunately we have (Carlos) Alcaraz and (Karolína) Muchova and Ons (Jabeur), maybe (Daria) Kasatkina, (Grigor) Dimitrov?

@tenns4ever

• I don’t know… I still see a ton of diversity. Even among many players whose games are based on “power and explosiveness,” isn’t there diversity? Aryna Sabalenka, Coco Gauff, and Iga Świątek… don’t they have distinct games, not to mention personalities, histories, and ways of being? If anything, I’d say there’s more diversity in tennis now than there was, say, 20 years ago, around the time the phrase “Big Babe tennis” was coined. (Source: Mary Carillo.)

Jon, it’s worth noting that Ines Ibbou won her first round doubles match at the WTA tournament in Tunisia last week. She’s played in a few WTA qualifiers in the Middle East in singles, but she’s never won a match. I’m pretty sure this makes her the first Algerian woman to win a match at WTA level. It may be a small thing, but it’s still a huge step forward. You’ve got to love the internationalism of this great sport.

Jim

• Great. Now maybe WTA can improve This organic?

Jon, you’ve been described to me as a really nice guy and a really bad tennis player. Care to comment?

George T.

• Can we just throw this out there and get rid of the “really” clauses? I’m not This nice. I’m not This bad player.

• Rest in peace, Robert Lansdorp..

• Congratulations to Joel Drucker and others Norcal Tennis Hall of Fame Members.

• 2024 US Open finalist, Olympian and top American Jessica Pegula joins 2025 tournament Credit One Charleston Openthe largest women’s tennis tournament in North America. The tournament begins March 29.

• Tennis journalist Paul Fein talks about his new tennis book Game Changers: How the Greatest Players, Matches and Controversies Changed Tennis you can order directly from Amazon or he, in [email protected].