USTA Southern California in financial trouble?

I can see our readers looking at this headline in disbelief. Wait, what? Tennis is big in Southern California. Business is booming. When we learned last month that the Section office had decided not to send their San Diego District the agreed-upon (and much-needed) annual grant of $40,000 I knew something was going on because that has never happened before. And then the rumors of “bleeding cash” came to my attention./

I want to address their current situation and debunk a common misconception by presenting several key points.

MYTH: Yes, Southern California has for the most part great tennis weather but tennis is not growing here. To put size in perspective for you: The Greater Atlanta area in Georgia has more league players than all of SoCal cities together. Let that sink in.

Also, Gary Horvath posted a 11.1% decline in SoCal tennis participation between 2019 and 2022 in his February 2024 article SUNSHINE AND IN-MIGRATION - SECRETS TO GROWING THE GAME.

MISSION STATEMENT: USTA SoCal (used to be called Southern California Tennis Association) doesn’t use the word growth in their mission statement at all. I’m quoting from their Form 990 filing for 2022:

'Briefly describe the organization’s mission or most significant activities: SCTA IS A NON-PROFIT ORGANIZATION, COMPOSED OF MEMBER CLUBS, THAT GETS AND KEEPS SOUTHERN CALIFORNIANS ENGAGED IN TENNIS.’ That’s it. No one can blame them for not growing tennis. It’s not their mission!

MANAGEMENT: Without going into details, I only want to refer here to numerous articles over the last 5-6 months where we reported the CEO’s celebrating 16 local tennis courts being bulldozed in favor of football fields and basketball courts just to gain an advantage for their league players at a different site. The CEO and the Board do not see the need to explain their action which adds to the negative sentiments about this formerly outstanding USTA section.

SPENDING: Not only has the number of staff substantially increased in recent years and with it the payroll demands, but two projects probably put a big burden on their budget.

- Lulu’s Place. A mega-sports center near LAX airport which has caused public protests, and environmental and wildlife protection concerns.

- Dominguez Hill. Not much is known about that project because the USTA SoCal section has a policy of not informing its members about ongoing concerns. The Dominguez Hill College has 8 tennis courts in disrepair and I can only imagine the section has agreed to resurface those and use them for adult leagues.

INVESTMENTS: I’m no expert but the above-mentioned 990 filing also reveals some investment moves that caused significant losses. My source tells me it looks like they needed cash badly for those moves to make sense.

There likely is more and we just haven’t found out about this yet. Something so bad, that they can’t even afford to pay $40,000 to the busiest tennis hotspot of Southern California: San Diego. So, maybe the rumors are true?

We’ll keep you posted, folks.

If you have some information about what’s going on at the USTA Southern California, please put it in the comments or email me.