One of Mom’s and my favorite tennis players, Las Vegas native Andre Agassi, has written an autobiography called Open, due in stores Nov 9. I grew up watching Agassi. I wore his shoes. I liked him with long hair. I liked him bald. Mom and I flew up to New York in 2006 to see his final US Open. So when we heard he was writing a book, we knew we had to read it.

As you might have read, the media buzz around the book has begun. Much of the buzz, and certainly the headlines, focus on one fact: in the book Agassi admits to using crystal meth in the late 1990s, around the time he won his only French Open. After failing a drug test, he lied about it to the tennis officials and cleared his record. Am I disappointed that a man I greatly admire both used illegal drugs and lied about it? Sure. But I’m much more disappointed in the media, and in ourselves as consumers of media, for choosing to obsess yet again over celebrity dirt. It’s not that we expect our celebrities to be perfect, because I don’t think we do. It’s that we relish the mistakes they make, talk about them, embellish them, print and share photos of them. Their mistakes sell magazines and newspapers. Their mistakes boost online ad revenue. Their mistakes make us feel smugly better about ourselves.

Finally I found an actual excerpt from the book on CNNSI.com. Yes, it includes a passage about the meth usage but also gives some of its context. To me, far more interesting is the fact that one of the greatest tennis players in history claims that he hated the game – not just at the end, when his weary body was breaking down, but from the very beginning, when his hot-tempered, demanding father forced him to start playing and refused to let him stop short of perfection. Open appears to be a surprisingly well-written, engaging, sad, and thought-provoking look at the real man behind the crazy hair and pink-and-black shoes, the little boy who could not lose because his father wouldn’t let him.

As you probably know, hotels, airlines, and car rental companies (among others, I’m sure) use sophisticated techniques to price their products according to changing market demands (read: the price people are willing to pay at the time of purchase). A hotel room in Vegas on New Year’s Eve is much more expensive than the same room on Tuesday night in September. Why? Demand is higher on the holiday, so the hotel can get away with charging more. For somewhat different reasons, a last-minute airline ticket from DFW to BOS is probably much more expensive than the same seat purchased three months in advance. Why? Anyone buying a last-minute ticket is somewhat desparate to fly and willing to pay more, much more so than a price-sensitive vacation traveler who buys theirs months ahead. It’s no fun for the customer, but it makes the business a lot more money and allows them to sell lower-demand products at a discount (think $49 rooms at Monte Carlo on Tuesday night).

The Dallas Stars are trying this concept with hockey tickets. I never considered the possibility, but now I’m wondering why no one tried it before. My friend Colin is SVP of marketing for the Stars and gave one journalist an interesting interview on the new plan. In a nutshell, tickets to the Saturday night Red Wings game will be more expensive than tickets to the Monday night Kings game. The Kings game might actually cost below average since demand for those tickets is lower than average. As conditions change (teams get hot or cold, opponents’ star players get hurt or return, etc.), ticket prices adjust accordingly. The new plan should produce more revenue overall and fuller seats for the Stars, good bargains on some games, and a diminished market for scalpers.

What do you guys think? To me, it seems like a good idea. As Colin says in the article, it’s a way to better match the demand to the available seats. The fans get more of a say regarding how much they are willing to pay. They can get better seats for a less popular game. They also have a better shot at actually getting tickets to a highly popular game since the higher prices will convince some of the fans to watch from home instead. If this scheme works for the Stars, it’s highly possible that other hockey organizations and other sports will follow suit.

For American tennis fans, this is one of the best times of the year, the two weeks of the US Open. The other majors are fun to watch, but watching them is more difficult due to the time change. Mom and I are happily watching this year’s tournament live from New York. It’s gotten me thinking about some ways to make professional tennis, specifically the four majors, even better.

• Replace all line judges with ShotSpot (Hawkeye) – I love ShotSpot, the system of cameras and computers that can tell whether a shot is in. Currently the tour only uses it when a player challenges a call made by a line judge or chair umpire. On numerous occasions ShotSpot has overturned a bad call made by the line judge. The players love it because it gives them a chance for justice instead of cussing out the judge and chair umpire with zero chance of getting the call changed (see Johnny Mac). I don’t fault the line judges at all. Tennis balls travel so fast that accurate calls can be very difficult. When I played competitively in high school, calling shots was by far the most stressful and unpleasant part of the game for me. My teammates used to get mad at me for calling shots in that were actually out. The bottom line is that ShotSpot can call the lines better than the judges. If ShotSpot can run fast enough to call the game in real time, replacing the people with the cameras would make the game more fair. Each match would still need a chair umpire to handle disputes and other questions, but ShotSpot needs to call the lines. Currently, every major except the French uses ShotSpot on its main courts. Controversially, the French doesn’t use ShotSpot because the ball usually leaves a mark on the clay courts.
• No More “Quiet Please” – In America, people care about three main sports: football, baseball, and basketball. Outside America, people care about one sport: soccer. These sports have two things in common: each uses a ball, and each encourages its fans to SCREAM THEIR HEADS OFF. Part of the fun of watching these sports and others like hockey in person is feeling the energy of the crowd. The players adjust to the screaming and even the heckling. Tennis, due to its roots in civilized British and French nobility, requires its fans to sit silently during each point, as if they were watching a librarian shelve books instead of two world-class athletes fighting a war. The US Open allows its fans to be rowdiest compared to the other majors, which the American fans appreciate, but the umpires still request quiet before the beginning of each point. The quiet helps the line judges to be heard, but if ShotSpot makes all the calls, all you need is a horn to signal that a shot is out. Let’s treat tennis like a real sport and its fans like real spectators. Save the “Quiet Please” requests for school.
• Add Night Play to the Other Majors – One of the features that make the US Open special is its night matches. Unlike the other majors, the US Open uses a day session and an evening session to fit in all the matches. Two separate tickets are required. Daytime tennis is fun to watch, but nighttime tennis is even better. I think it’s the lights. The tennis court transforms from a painted slab of concrete into a stage. The heat and sun of the afternoon are gone, making life easier for the players. More people in the area are at home in the evening to watch the matches live, so the ratings should be higher. I don’t know why the other majors haven’t followed the US Open’s example.
• Change the Ranking System to Favor the Majors More – I don’t know the exact formula for the men’s and women’s ranking systems. I just know that the current women’s rankings are generating some controversy. The current #1 player, Dinara Safina, has never won a major. All of her ranking points come from playing and winning smaller, less prestigious events which attract fewer players, plus her consistently mediocre performance at the majors. I don’t think she is mentally strong enough to win a major and predict that she never will. Meanwhile, the #2 player, Serena Williams, has won three of the last four majors plus several more earlier in her career. However, she limits her appearances in the smaller events to focus on the majors. When she does compete in the smaller events, she hasn’t done very well for some reason. To me, since the majors attract all the best players who are healthy enough to play, the majors should count much more heavily in the ranking system. If you were to ask me to name the best female player in the world, I would say Serena with no hesitation. If you were to ask most tennis fans and experts which player they predict will win the US Open, I guarantee the vast majority would pick Serena over Safina. The ranking system should reflect that perspective. Sure, if Serena would do better at the other tour events, we wouldn’t even be having this conversation, but still…
• Quit Bothering the Players with Silly Interviews – For the showcase matches, ESPN is sending an interviewer down to the tunnel under Arthur Ashe Stadium to interview each player as they walk to the court. Broadcast for the entire stadium, the interviewer generally asks two or three silly questions that solicit a canned response from a player who is trying to get and stay mentally focused on the upcoming match. Then after the match, an interviewer shows up again to ask the winner more silly questions that solicit more canned responses. Yes, I enjoy hearing from the players, but I want to hear real answers from a relaxed player who has had a chance to decompress from the match, change, shower, and reflect a bit.
• Let the Women Play Best of Five Sets at the Majors – Somehow, somewhere, the tennis officials decided that since women aren’t as physically strong as men, they must also lack the endurance of men. Although all men’s singles matches at the majors are played best three sets out of five, the women’s singles matches are played best two out of three. (All other tournaments and all doubles matches at the majors are best two of three.) At the majors, the men face the extra challenge of playing up to two extra sets. Since they are the most prestigious tournaments in the game, I love this tradition because it makes them even more special and gives the players extra incentive to improve their endurance. But I see no justification for limiting the women to three sets. In track and field, for example, all running events use the same distances for men and women, including the marathon. If top female runners can run a marathon in under 2.5 hours, I guarantee that with proper conditioning, the top female tennis players could last five sets. Some of the best matches in history were men’s five-setters at the majors. The women’s matches, even the most dramatic ones, seem to end too quickly. Serena, for one, says she’s ready for go five. Rafa says if women’s prize money at the Slams is going to be equal to the men’s (now it is), they should play the same number of sets as the men.

Thoughts? Any other changes you want to see? Do you disagree with any of these ideas?

For the record, I’m pulling for Roddick and Serena.