When he isn't busy answering questions about whether the Western & Southern Open will move to Charlotte, N.C., President of Beemok Sports and Entertainment Bob Moran is hyping up this year's Mason tournament.
The two-week event begins Aug. 12 at the Linder Family Tennis Center with the world's best players, including Carlos Alcaraz, Novak Djokovic and Iga Swiatek, as well as Cincinnatians J.J. Wolf and Caty McNally.
The tournament is expecting to sell 200,000 tickets. New this year is an algorithm that can help fans pick who they might want to see. They answer three questions and they'll get a response with options.
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"...For your price, where you want to sit, your experience on site," says Moran. "You answer all of those things and they will come back to you, which is really unique, really different; I haven’t heard of that in tennis before."
Moran credits the ticketing team with developing it.
Also this year, players will have RFID tags in their name tags. That triggers a video board as fans wait to get autographs.
"We want to wow the players, but we also know we need to educate the fans, so where there's a player entrance where they drop their car off and come in to the main player building, and when they hit that point on the video boards going in will be their photos and some information about the players," he explains.
Players will notice upgrades this year to their lounges, dining rooms and locker rooms. Moran says the number of people traveling with each player has expanded with nutritionists, massage therapists, hitting partners and more. That, in part, has prompted the expansion.
There's even a new outdoor terrace where players who don't like air conditioning can work out.
Moran says any decision about a move to North Carolina will be made after the tournament. "We're running dual pads in both Charlotte and Cincinnati to make the best possible decision for ownership," he previously told WVXU.
Beemok is planning to build a $400 million, 50-acre tennis complex in Charlotte. It has asked the city and county government in North Carolina for hundreds of millions of dollars to build the facility.
