It is not a secret that the USTA has been working on a replacement for the past couple years, there are mentions of a new Tennis Event Product or Serve Tennis around and it appears Club Spark is the company working on it. But I've recently heard that players will see it first as Tennis Management Tools (TMT) targeting USTA tournaments and likely launch in 2021.
Now, some information I've seen indicated it was supposed to launch in 2020, perhaps some pieces even in 2019, so 2021 is certainly no guarantee, but I'm sure COVID-19 and other events have contributed to the slip to 2021.
Features I believe are planned include:
- Facility Management
- Social Leagues
- Drop-in Events
- Tennis on Campus
- Net Generation Events
- Sanctioned and Non-Sanctioned Tournaments
You will notice I don't include USTA Leagues, but I'm sure it is on the roadmap and just wasn't in the near term goals I saw, although my guess is not until 2022 or later. So I expect we'll be using TennisLink for at least another full year+ for leagues.
By starting with tournaments, the USTA may be trying to go head to head with UTR and their platform for tournaments. It will be interesting to see how they compare and if tournament directors choose one or the other to setup and manage their tournaments.
Note that part of what is coming is already here to some degree. See https://playtennis.usta.com/ where organizations and individual providers can setup accounts and seemingly have a web-site and manage contacts and interacting with them. Nothing really on leagues and tournaments and some of the other items above, nor anything for players, but I'm sure it is in the works.
It is encouraging to see some progress being made, although it appears it is still early and resources for tournament and league players are still a little ways off. Stay tuned as I learn more.
No comments:
Post a Comment