Did the USTA find a way to kill USTA League growth in a growing area? Another look at the effect of 4-court format for 40 & Over in 2020 USTA Leagues

The format for the USTA League 40 & Over division has changed in most sections to a 4-court format with 1 singles and 3 doubles courts being played.  This results in just 7 playing spots per team instead of 8 with t he 2 singles / 3 doubles format.

I wrote earlier about the potential effects of this and looked at the 40 & Over division in my area to see how team and player counts had changed.  I did that right at the start of the season, and so the player counts may have been low as some players procrastinate signing up.

Well, we are several weeks in to the season so I thought I'd update the stats.  Here is the same table as before with current information.

Champ Year	Teams	Total Rostered	Unique Rostered
2016	207	3,369	3,071
2017	230 (+11%)	3,661 (+8.7%)	3,301 (+7.5%)
2018	247 (+7.4%)	3,948 (+7.8%)	3,502 (+6.1%)
2019	257 (+4.1%)	4,131 (+4.6%)	3,697 (+5.6%)
2020	277 (+7.8%)	4,030 (-2.4%)	3,620 (-2.1%)

We see that the player counts have gone up from the earlier analysis, but the total and unique rostered counts are still down, both just over 2%.  This compared with the consistent growth the past three years.  And this despite there being nearly 8% more teams.

Sure, the league is not over, more players may sign-up and perhaps get the counts back to even with 2019.  But it appears the growth we'd seen in Seattle 40 & Over may have been stunted by the change to a 4-court format.

There were players who were very upset by the change, particularly the loss of playing opportunities for singles players, and vowed to not play.  It appears that might have come to fruition.

Was this what the USTA was hoping for?  I'd think not, but you never know.