At a time when other organizations are walking back or abandoning their DEI initiatives to comply with federal government policies and/or contracts, the US Open – in play through Sept. 7 at the USTA Billie Jean King National Tennis Center in Flushing Meadows-Corona Park, Queens – is doubling down.
On the Tennis Channel Sunday, Aug. 24, tournament director Stacey Allaster said the White Plains-based United States Tennis Association (USTA) has added two million tennis enthusiasts, of whom 43% are “diverse people of color, Asian and Indian.” (The USTA’s goal is to get “35 million Americans playing tennis by 2035.”) Allaster, who’ll be moving to a special advisory role, said that she will be working on her twin passions – seeing that kids, particularly girls, have an opportunity to play sports and helping diverse young leaders rise to the C suite.
The US Open aims to foster such goals through its “Be Open” initiative of arts and events designed to engage women, minorities and the underserved. This year it is celebrating the 75th anniversary of Althea Gibson (1927-2003) breaking the color barrier at the 1950 U.S. National Championships (the forerunner of the US Open), three years after Jackie Robinson broke the color barrier in Major League Baseball.
The “75 Years of Breaking Barriers” theme features art by Melissa Koby, the first Black theme artist in tournament history, with a silhouette profile portrait of Gibson containing a tennis court and ball and a silhouette of the player serving. The artwork permeates the center, gracing the cover of the $25 program book as well as souvenir cups and other items. Meanwhile, flowers and lights enhance her sculpted bust outside Arthur Ashe Stadium and tributes were scheduled for Sunday, Aug. 24, and Monday, Aug. 25, what would’ve been Gibson’s 98th birthday. The USTA and Marvel also collaborated on a comic book featuring Gibson and the Fantastic Four, more than 40,000 copies of which were given out to fans during the free Fan Week/Qualifying Tournament (Aug. 18 through 23).
Over its three-week run, the Open will spotlight musicians and sports teams from Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCU); LGBTQ+ Pride; U.S. Navy Lt. Joe Hunt, who won the U.S. Nationals, then died in a flight training mission in 1945; Hispanics and Latin Americans; Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders; and wheelchair and adaptive players.
For some, such emphasis on DEI (Diversity, Equity and Inclusion) is part of a “woke” culture that is tantamount to a form of reverse racism, denying qualified Whites admission to elite colleges and universities and job/career opportunities. For others like the USTA, DEI is about leveling a playing field that has been one-sided for far too long. The organization also sees DEI as making common as well as socioeconomic sense. The tennis center sits on the site of the 1939-40 and 1964-65 World’s Fairs in the shadow of the Unisphere and the New York State Pavilion, holdovers from the ’64 fair, with the pavilion undergoing a $24 million-plus renovation. (The site was once the Corona Ash Dump, made famous in the denouement of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s iconic 1925 novel, “The Great Gatsby.”) The site’s borough, Queens, is one of the most diverse on earth, with more than 200 languages spoken.
During Media Day, always the Friday of Fan Week, we encountered some of that diversity, from rabid country club players to people in motorized wheelchairs, young parents with double strollers and tiny fans for whom the Open was a first-time experience that they were just eager to soak up. The USTA is betting on all of these demographic groups to help it continue breaking the million mark in attendance, which it did for the first time last year with 1,048,669 at the event, and to create lifelong, multigenerational players and fans.
The financial stakes are certainly high. Tickets can range from under $100 (for a grounds pass to a session early in the tournament) to hundreds of dollars for good seat to four-, five- and even six-figures for a courtside or suite seat later on. A lobster roll will set you back $39; a soda in a souvenir cup and an ice cream cone, about $11 each. (The prices are often a hot topic of conversation, along with which stars to see and the biggest star of all, literally, the sun, the only star that everyone tries to avoid.) This year’s prize money is a record $90 million, with the men’s singles and women’s singles champions each getting $5 million. (The Open was the first of the four slams — which include the Australian and French Opens and Wimbledon — to award men and women the same prize money.)
Driven by increased ticket sales, sponsorships and corporate hospitality, the 2024 US Open generated about $559.7 million in operating revenue, a record, which is roughly 90% of the USTA’s total revenue. (Operating expenses were $282 million. The tennis center is in the midst of a three-year, $800 million renovation that is entirely self-funded. So diversity helps feed the Open’s economic engine, which in turn enables it to reach out to more groups that might think tennis and the Open are beyond them.
In contrast, Target – with 13 stores in Westchester, Rockland and Fairfield counties – is discovering the cost of rescinding DEI initiatives. It’s the subject of a Black boycott led by Pastor Jamal Bryant of the New Birth Missionary Baptist Church in Georgia, who told “PBS NewsHour” that African Americans spend upward of $12 million a day in Target stores nationwide and that a $2 billion investment that the big-box retailer has made in the Black community has produced no specific recipients. (We were in the White Plains Target recently, where the back-to-school shoppers were out, although perhaps not as strongly as they were in other years.)
With sales falling under 1% in the most recent quarter, profits off 19% year to year and the stock price (NYSE: TGT) dropping 31% since the January DEI rollback, CEO Brian Cornell will step sideways in February to become executive chair as COO Michael Fiddelke replaces him. It’s just the latest corporate drama as companies as wide-ranging – dare we say as diverse? – as Gannett Inc., IBM, JPMorgan Chase Co. PepsiCo, UnitedHealth Group and even PBS itself recast or shutter their DEI programs. According to the “NewsHour,” only 34% of S&P 500 companies mentioned “DEI” in their filings this year, down 90% from last year.
But corporations like Apple and Costco are holding the line on DEI. Citrin Cooperman, the professional services firm with offices in White Plains, Norwalk and Woodbridge, Connecticut, still has its CC Edge, “Empowering Diversity and Gender Equality.” https://www.citrincooperman.com/CC-Edge Or as the company says on its website, “Count us in.”
The women’s clothing store Talbots, with a workforce that is 76.5% female and 35.8% ethnic minorities and six stores in Westchester and Fairfield counties, posts signs in its entrances saying all are welcome.
These companies, like the USTA, might say that they have retained their commitment to being “Open.”
