TENNIS, REINVENTED: HOW INTENNSE IS CHANGING THE GAME || MARCEL0 FERREIRA & OLIVER BELL || EPISODE 088

The Code To Winning

Marcelo Ferreira and Oliver Bell join the show to detail INTENNSE, a new professional co-ed tennis league based in Atlanta designed to modernize the sport through faster matches, guaranteed player pay, and

Key takeaways

• INTENNSE replaces traditional tennis matches with 90-minute 'ARCs' consisting of seven 10-minute timed segments called 'BOLTs' to maintain pace and fan engagement.
• Players receive guaranteed base salaries based on draft round, with top athletes earning up to $70,000 for the summer season without travel costs.

Main topics

• INTENNSE match format and rules
• Player compensation and economic barriers in traditional tennis

Notable quotes

"The reality is... players that are playing intense now, having to travel the entire world to play tournaments that after they win, they make $1,200."

Conclusion

The episode provides a clear blueprint for how INTENNSE aims to solve long-standing structural and

Transcript preview

Speaker 3 (0:00) Like what you hear? Turn into USL All Access Live every Tuesday at 8 p.m. Eastern on Sirius XM FC channel 188 for exclusive interviews and the latest from around the USL. The exclusive satellite radio home of the USL, Sirius XM FC is North America's only 24-7 source for engaging soccer talk and live matches from the USL, Premier League, and more. All on Sirius XM FC. Channel 188 and the Sirius XM app. Speaker 2 (0:32) One problem that we see in tennis is the pathway for players, which is for most players, very difficult to find a career, to make it on tour, to make the kind of earnings that you can do to fulfill a lifestyle. Speaker 5 (0:44) What makes intense structurally different? And what's the thing that could still kill it if you're not careful? The Speaker 1 (0:51) meaning behind how intense was we was. what can we do for an industry that has become a little bit stuck? So I think if we stay attached to our values, we don't take a step bigger than our legs, and we just do it together, understanding that the main goal, the foundation of the league, was to grow the game, was to bring fans, was to get little kids to come watch intensive, fall in love with tennis and be able to retain them. I think the likelihood that we're going to be successful is really, really high. The Speaker 5 (1:23) code to... winning insights you need today to seize the world tomorrow. This has been amazing just learning about different industries and, you know, variety of different entrepreneurs in this beautiful state, the peach state of Georgia. We're in Atlanta and we're going to be learning a bit more about something very, very unique actually. Ever heard of something called Intense Tennis? It is a professional co-ed tennis league based in Atlanta, Georgia designed to make the sport faster, louder, and more fan-friendly matches as well. So we're going to learn a bit more about what intense tennis is, the league as well. So we have two people in the studio. We're going to have Marcelo and also CFO as well. So without further ado, the gentlemen have joined us today. So welcome very much to the studio, guys. Thanks Speaker 1 (2:14) so much for having us. Speaker 5 (2:15) Awesome stuff. I want to just kind of get into it. I was very curious. I heard about intense tennis. The reason why, I like tennis. I'm a big Wimbledon's happening right now. And I've always been a big Roger Federer fan, mainly because he's mother South African. And so like we had a good South African player as well. Was it Kevin? Speaker 1 (2:33) Kevin Anderson. Kevin Anderson. Speaker 2 (2:36) He's Speaker 1 (2:36) actually involved with Speaker 2 (2:37) us. Is he? Yes, absolutely. No Speaker 5 (2:39) way. Are you serious? But that's interesting. Yeah. Kevin Anderson. So I've always been a big tennis fan. Like our family, we love sports. I don't want to get into what happened yesterday. Speaker 1 (2:53) So Speaker 5 (2:54) I want to know from you guys, how did this all start? Speaker 2 (3:02) Yeah, sure. Yeah, absolutely. So there's three founders that started Intense. And I think it came out of a lot of conversations that we're having around the sport. We looked around and looked at other sports and the way that it was being modernized. We thought there was a big opportunity in tennis to do the same. So one problem that we see in tennis is the pathway for players, which is for most players, it's very difficult to find a career, to make it on tour, to make the kind of earnings. that you can do to fulfill a lifestyle. Speaker 4 (3:32) So Speaker 2 (3:33) we've changed that and created a community for players to earn money, to have a team-based approach, and be part of a community locally here in Atlanta. But also from the fan side. So we see the World Cup is happening right now. We can see how sport can do so much for communities and bring them together. For fans, we feel tennis in particular has been underserved, underutilized in terms of how they connect with fans. And so we've created a new format. in tennis, to connect directly with fans. We built an arena with fans right on top of the court. They can interact with the players, and it's a faster sport. So it's built for the modern age, the modern fan, where attention spans are all over the place, and now they can be at an event where they know exactly when it starts and ends and start to build connections with the players. Speaker 1 (4:25) Just, you know, I believe tennis got really stuck in time a little bit compared to other sports. And that's where intense comes in to really fill all the gaps. Now, Oliver mentioned a lot of the things, but it's the possibility to give a chance for professional tennis players to actually stay as professional tennis players instead of retiring too early. They don't have the opportunity to make enough money. It's the most underpaid professional sport there is. So a lot of players have the potential to become... top players and actually be on TV watching Wimbledon, just like you mentioned, they end up having to quit halfway through because they don't have the financial means. Intense gives them that. It gives them the possibility to have a guaranteed salary, a possibility to have a base, and even after the intense season is done, maybe still be able to focus on playing on the tour for a little bit. But one thing that I fell in love with when I first heard about Intense was the fact that... fan engagement was highly encouraged. Speaker 3 (5:22) It Speaker 1 (5:22) was just always something I felt like missed big time in tennis. And one thing that actually kept new fans from coming to a tennis match, not being able to be loud and engaged when every other sport you're encouraged to do so. Speaker 5 (5:37) And Speaker 1 (5:38) now I'm seeing more and more known tennis fans come to the arena, watch the first tennis match that they've ever watched, and just fall in love right away. Speaker 5 (5:46) No, and I know you when you guys spoke about the attention span and just making like you're just more like fan involvement I think that also happened with a different sport correct me if I'm wrong But I mean I was a big cricket fan and it used to be 50 overs Yeah, you just sitting there and you're like whoa and then teach when he happened And then it's like 20 overs. It's super quick. There's nothing of this strategic, just hit the ball there and just wait another over. But it's 20 and just like get the thing and just like whack the ball, whack the ball. So yes, the World Cup is still, it's 50 overs and stuff. But like, I don't know how familiar you guys are with cricket, but when they did T20 down in like India and like South Africa and stuff like that, it became... way more like engaging because now it's not like you're revolutionizing the game a bit would you say that yeah Speaker 2 (6:31) absolutely we get compared to the that that cricket league that you mentioned king king's league and soccer as well we've seen it work in other sports we know it can work in tennis just hasn't been done in the way that we're trying to evolve the sport and i think um and it's not just about fan engagement we're also building an ecosystem so we're building communities out in our in atlanta for this season so we're building communities out into clubs that are local and so the teams are training out in the clubs and they're then bringing their their coaches and players into the arena for us so we're building this connective tissue and on the business side we're also building a layer of of data so we're trying to modernize the sport and collect the stats that you would in normal sports as well all around the players and so it gives fans a new way to connect to engage and modernize it for the way that young fans would engage with the sport today and Speaker 5 (7:21) just to add on that i know when you guys mentioned early on you said um when like people like um professionals end up like quitting wimbledon they don't have the financial backing of that i wasn't even aware you have to pay to play those like those sports. So people actually like pay. It's like a Formula One kind of thing. You have to have big sponsorship ahead of time to have like millions to put into that. How does that work? Speaker 1 (7:43) You know, with tennis, you know, the amount of money that you need to put in to be able to get anything back is just upside down. It's very tough. You invest hundreds of thousands of dollars and the prize money that you get is so low. I think all the professional leagues, professional players are the ones that get the lowest percentage. out of the total revenue of the main league. When you look at NFL and NBA, I believe they're like at 50-50. And when it comes to ATP and WTA, I believe it's 70 to the league, 30 to the players. Speaker 2 (8:17) So Speaker 1 (8:17) they're very underpaid. And what we see on TV, that is not realistic. Those guys are making a lot of money. If you're watching players playing Wimbledon, the French Open, but that's not the reality of the sport. The reality is... players that are playing intense now, having to travel the entire world to play tournaments that after they win, they make $1,200. Speaker 5 (8:38) Ridiculous. And Speaker 1 (8:39) I'm not kidding. Winning those tournaments doesn't even pay for the trip. They're traveling without coaches, without a physio, without the ability to have the support on site. So it's really tough. It's a very tough sport for you to grow. And that's why, unfortunately, people end up quitting. And again, I go back to what I just said earlier. Intense is really coming in to fill a need in the tennis industry that nobody else has ever tried. Speaker 5 (9:10) Interesting. Interesting. And obviously the format is built around seven bolts per match, each lasting 10 minutes with 14 seconds between points and 120 seconds between bolts. Who designed that structure and how many iterations did it take before it felt right? Speaker 2 (9:25) Yeah, I think the founders experimented early on. I think the concept of making it in a time-based format with teams was one of the foundation models. So from there, we experimented with the amount of time between bolts, as you said, how many bolts. And I think we landed on the right framework, which is 90-minute arc, which we call a match, 90-minute arc. We felt like that was the right amount of time. Obviously, the players are working very hard throughout the points. We have to make sure that they're able to finish the arc in a high capacity as well. So we experimented a bit, but after we had our season one last summer, we felt like that was the right amount for both the players and the fans alike, and it seemed to work. Speaker 1 (10:10) It's extremely engaging and dynamic. And if you think about this, it's 90 minutes. total for the arc but but seven minutes of play right and regular tennis has a lot of that time you know you have players they play the point they go towel off they bounce the ball so within tense we're playing about 60 percent more points within the seven minutes than a regular match that sometimes you go watch at Wimbledon and you're sitting there for four or five hours. And they're playing 60 % more points because it's so fast-paced. There's no stop. That 10-minute bolt, you're just playing, playing, playing, other than the 14 seconds. between serves. So it keeps players mentally, physically and emotionally fit. You have to because the time is ticking. So there's that pressure. The fans are super engaged. So it makes players better for even regular tennis. Speaker 5 (11:08) And who came up with the name Intense? Speaker 2 (11:12) Yeah, it was also their original founders and a play on a few different themes, right? Because you've got the word intense, you've got in tennis, intense is sort of like inside the arena as well. So it's a play on a lot of different concepts that we're trying to facilitate. Speaker 5 (11:28) Are you guys only based in Georgia? For now. Okay. Speaker 2 (11:31) Yeah, I can speak to that a little bit. So season two, we're here in Georgia, actually in a place called Assembly Studios, which is where we built a... bespoke arena inside a soundstage in a movie studio lot. And so for this season, we've got 10 teams based all here in Atlanta. And like I said, throughout the week, they're spread out throughout the greater Atlanta region in different clubs where they train. And then we bring those communities in and they all play all their arcs Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday is when we run throughout the summer, all based in Atlanta. But going forward, we see intense. Certainly being able to scale out certainly starting with the US but in different cities, right? There's no reason why we can't bring intense to different communities club cities alike and create a community of intense in a city with local sponsors local fans And that's really what we're planning to do in the coming years. You Speaker 5 (12:27) know, it's crazy. We've spoken to two different people that we we also interviewed today and both are familiar with intense and from different parts of Atlanta as well. So I feel like it's really becoming like a household name, considering the short space of time. Because matter of fact, the family before the ones you guys spoke to and met. Speaker 3 (12:49) Don't miss the USL Championship Final on CBS, November 21st at noon Eastern. Will the Pittsburgh Riverhounds retain their crown? Or will a new title winner emerge? Don't miss the conclusion to the 2026 season, Saturday. November 21st at noon Eastern on CBS. They actually said Speaker 5 (13:07) they joined a club. I thought it was just for professionals. Is it also for non-professionals as well? Speaker 1 (13:14) Well, the league itself is for mainly professional players. Division I, college superstars, players that are trying to play on the tour. But ultimately, our goal is to create, like Oliver said, this ecosystem, right? So it started with the pros, but now we have a pathway for juniors and we're creating more events for adults. And using that community that he just talked about, that's going to be the very foundation of the whole thing. Speaker 5 (13:40) Getting Speaker 1 (13:41) the community of Atlanta, which like... The tennis community here is huge. Atlanta is crazy for sports. So it is the perfect city to start the league in. But as we get these people engaged, fall in love with the sport, because they'll fall in love with the intense as they play intense. Speaker 2 (13:59) So Speaker 1 (14:00) the more events that we do, which we've done a lot this first half of the season, taking advantage of having 10 clubs with major communities, we've been doing a lot of clinics, and people are just falling in love with it. Speaker 2 (14:11) Wow. Speaker 1 (14:12) That's why more and more people are hearing about it. Speaker 5 (14:14) Yeah. And I know you guys mentioned the 90 minutes. Obviously, it's been under two hours. So from like a business standpoint, how important has that been, time constraint in making it attractive for like sponsors, venues, casual fans who wouldn't sit through a three-hour traditional match? Speaker 2 (14:29) Yeah, I think it's very much that on what we're trying to do. I think that 90-minute approach is great for... for streaming right it's great for clips and content that we create off of that uh certainly we talked about the fan side of things uh but but sponsors as well because it's a innovative new league it allows sponsors to come in at kind of the ground level and then because of intense in the way that we've built we own the entire soup to nuts of the ecosystem like we have the players who you know work for intense we have the coaches we have we'll talk about our our pulse partners our celebrity ambassadors that are part of that league as well But we own all the production side of it as well. And so we're able to customize for sponsors, for other people who want to be involved in the project, different ways that they can get involved in the league. And so there's lots of different exposure in a sports league, whether it's through the players, the uniforms, how we broadcast, that we can really add a lot of value for corporate sponsors, particularly as they bet on us at an early stage. Speaker 5 (15:30) And then just to follow up on that, obviously when you guys started off with us about three teams, that started to the point of 2016 having about 10 teams. Do you often feel there's a bit of a fear, I think this could also be like a CFO question, that it could be growing a little too fast? Speaker 2 (15:47) Yeah, I think there's always a healthy tension of cost and going too fast versus proving the model. I think we felt very strongly that after our season one with three teams and Marcelo winning the championship last season, we felt like our model was working. And we felt the desire and actually, frankly, from our fans and our players alike, the push to expand. And so when we did our draft back in March, when we drafted for this season, we had over 400 players that applied to be part of the intense draft. So there was a lot of demand. And so we felt like we had the we had the model to justify the 10 teams. But there's still, of course, a lot of upfront expense that we