From the e-mail:
Starting now, you can become a USTA Junior member at no cost. Juniors can now sign up to play in a USTA sanctioned tournament or league without first having to purchase a USTA membership.
So Juniors no longer have to be members to play in tournaments or leagues.
Continuing:
USTA Adult and Senior membership will still come at the same standard cost, but we are working on enhanced benefits, better discounts and more value with your membership.
So no change for Adults, but more value to be coming.
Continuing:
If you deliver tennis, USTA Organization Membership will be at no cost starting in early 2021. Similar to our customer membership, we will be consolidating benefits you can access at no cost, as well as incentives and rewards that you get simply for growing the game.
So organization membership is no-cost as well.
Something many of you are probably also wondering is if anything will be done regarding a credit for membership for 2020 since in all areas leagues and tournaments were suspended for several months, and some play has still not restarted. I have not heard one way or another on that subject.
Where is the love for the Adults that play leagues and tournaments? Enhanced benefits sounds nice, but those are often benefits that many players don't find that valuable. But perhaps we'll be surprised.
I think it is great that juniors can play in leagues and tournaments without being a member, eliminating that barrier makes sense especially right now as parents may be struggling financially if they have been impacted by COVID-19.
It also makes sense that organizations can be members at no-cost as the USTA wants facilities to be affiliated and offer USTA programs.
But I'd think something is appropriate for Adult members too, at least rolling over the 2020 membership to 2021 as a good faith gesture to encourage players to come back as leagues and tournaments get going again.
What do you think?
It's great some of the things they've done with memberships recently, and I was able to get 50% off of a 1-year renewal. However, they did away with the 3 and 5-year, and lifetime membership deals I noticed. So really, it's worse in the long run for adult memberships if they keep it this way if you're someone who purchased multi-year memberships, which could save you around $10/year in the past. But maybe better additional discounts are still to come.
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