Tennis Utopia

A friend of mine tells the story about the day cable television was installed in his house. When would that have been? Maybe 1980 or so? He says that he got off his school bus and ran all the way home because he couldn’t wait to check it out. It opened up a whole new world to him—one that included televised MLB and NBA games. And of course, ESPN. What more could a guy want?

I know exactly how he felt. I had DirecTV installed a few months ago. One of the major reasons for the change was the Tennis Channel. Ever since I heard that it went on the air, I wanted access to it, but my local cable provider wouldn’t add it. So I switched.

As I was watching first round coverage of the French Open a couple of days ago, a little menu popped up on my screen. I clicked it and was stunned by what I saw—DirecTV was offering me the opportunity to choose one of five matches. Each match was being shown on a different station. So, in essence, during major tennis tournaments, there are five tennis channels.

I don’t know many tennis fans, but it made me want to run up to all of them and scream, “Have you seen what DirecTV is offering during the majors? Have you? Well, let me tell you!”