College tennis in the United States has become a prevalent path for junior tennis players from Australia after graduating high school. The highly lucrative and long-established NCAA, NAIA, and NJCAA institutions have attracted high-level players from all over the world, especially Australia, to play for their respective colleges.
The incentives include university tuition, scholarships as well as full-time training and competition schedules, and the pathway to professional tennis.
Since we have so much home-grown talent, incredible universities, and top-tier facilities, why do we not have college tennis at home here in Australia?
Whilst Australian Universities offer some of the best educational opportunities for Australian students, the US offers athletes a chance to both be a student and a high-quality tennis player who does not need to sacrifice one over the other.
The only opportunities for Australian players in our universities at home include clubs offered by the university and a week-long event annual event called The Australian University National Championships.
But this is nothing compared to the daily training and fitness and competition level offered by US colleges. Not to mention the financial incentive of having your education training and competition schedule taken care of as well as living expenses in many top colleges.
This is simply not the case in Australian universities where not only the scholarships are not as lucrative but many top players become recreational players as the opportunity to keep playing at a high level while being in university is not there.
My suggestion is to take the formula from US college tennis and implement it in universities right here at home. There are an incredibly large amount of universities with incredible tennis facilities across Australia that have established tennis clubs with great players.
By creating a national organization similar to the NCAA Australia can create college tennis at home. Universities could get major sports sponsors on board and similarly recruit players to play for their teams.
The incentive would have to mimic the US, however, with scholarships being awards that cover the player's schooling and expenses in return for representing the universities. Then conferences and regions would be selected and similar competitions where schools play each other in leagues would be implemented.
With Australia being one of the world's centers and leaders for tennis across the globe, why shouldn't we give our home players the stage to be able to keep playing high-level tennis and
continue their education right here at home? So many of our players have to travel halfway across the globe to the US to be able to juggle both and be able to essentially earn their diplomas through playing tennis.
I am a collegiate tennis player myself, in my senior year here at Georgia Gwinnett College. I am incredibly homesick, and have always wondered to myself, if the US can do it why can’t we? I know that many players would pounce on the opportunity to be able to stay home and be student-athletes.
I understand that the US collegiate system has been run for many years and is already established as the best way for players to continue their schooling and education in an environment that fosters their continuance into professional tennis.
However, if it could be implemented in the US it certainly can be here in Australia too. The business side would be an investment by sponsors and universities at first but would bring in an incredible amount of revenue and business in the long run. According to collegeraptor.com, the top US programs are earning over $3 million* dollars per college in revenue generated by their tennis programs.
This shows a huge amount of opportunity in the sector of student-athletes. The money is created not only through corporate sponsors, but social media/media, brands, and fan support.
So what do you think? Do you agree that we should have college tennis here at home?
*Derived from:
Comments