TOPIC:

very sad news and terrible for the city and state, massive loss for tourism, and the arena.

mc gowans tourism push is tanking badly.

Yeah not great news although to be honest it has been on life support for a number of years when it became clear that Tennis Australia were not really enthusiastic about the tournament as a warm up for the Australian Open. All the players seemed to enjoy the unique format and it produced some great tennis. Really sad to see it go

Makes my blood boil, we think of a good idea and make it work (and it has been working, don't worry about what was happening years ago) and the wise men from the east kill it off. Makes you want to secede.

Stand the Test wrote: Makes my blood boil, we think of a good idea and make it work (and it has been working, don't worry about what was happening years ago) and the wise men from the east kill it off. Makes you want to secede.

Yep, seemed to be getting even bigger names of recent times. Great venue as well..

The down scale replacement will be pretty dull...

This story seems to put a more realistic perspective on the decision:

www.abc.net.au/news/2019-03-28/hopman-cu...t-for-women/10949964

It is set up to consistently bring elite tennis to Perth and is arguably a better system than negotiating appearance money for players on a year-to-year basis, as was the case with the Hopman Cup.

Before Federer started making annual trips to WA, which were heavily funded by the State Government, the mixed team tournament was just ambling along, so it could be argued Perth is now better off.

Tennis Australia has signed a 30-year contract with the ATP to host the tournament and Western Australia has an initial six-year deal with Tennis Australia.

...And what people forget is nowadays sport is no longer sport. It is simply big business. The participants and the and the 'events' is just like a by-product. Sadly almost everyone get's sucked up in the hype and bright lights. Of course when big business fail to meet a predetermined profit, they pull the rug from underneath you and it's all over baby blue! It's no big surprise.

The ATP Cup will be marred in controversy with 22 million up for grabs and it doesn't include the women. What are they thinking? Maybe Perth could hold a "women's only" tournament?

DD wrote: The ATP Cup will be marred in controversy with 22 million up for grabs and it doesn't include the women. What are they thinking? Maybe Perth could hold a "women's only" tournament?

Yeah it will be a shadow of the Hopman, no women and no finals, just a few rounds played here, Piss weak.

westaussieguy wrote: ...And what people forget is nowadays sport is no longer sport. It is simply big business. The participants and the and the 'events' is just like a by-product. Sadly almost everyone get's sucked up in the hype and bright lights. Of course when big business fail to meet a predetermined profit, they pull the rug from underneath you and it's all over baby blue! It's no big surprise.

So spot on. One only has to look at the AFL and its handling of the fixtures and timing of who plays when to realise its ll a business, purely to make money

What gets me is that much bigger comps around the world that are far more geared to making money stay truer to their roots than our game under the management of the AFL. NFL is huge but still has fixturing down pat and much less on field, on uniform advertising. Imagine a version of AFLX being tested by EPL or La Liga or Bundesliga. The AFL's fixturing is a bad joke - just look at what an advantage it is to be an MCG based side and the AFL has weird priorities. It just lacks a bit of integrity if you look at it closely.