Comment by ceejayoz
2 days ago
Honest question: Why?
There's a free court near me, and both balls and racquets can be gotten for peanuts.
2 days ago
Honest question: Why?
There's a free court near me, and both balls and racquets can be gotten for peanuts.
They're talking from a North American perspective (probably). In most of Europe, there are plenty of outdoor and other free exercise opportunity. Another downside of the incorrect build environment (poor city planning) is that Americans simply don't have built-in ways to move their bodies. When I spent time in Eastern Europe, there was literally a free tennis/basketball court across the street. And a variety of other courts, including outdoor gym. And when house sitting around, there was nearly always an outdoor park with greenspace for strolling, exercise. All free.
At least in all of the US suburbs I've lived, there's been free tennis courts and a variety of other courts all over the city. The high school down the street from me has 4 tennis courts. I hear them being used all the time when I'm on a walk (incidentally, along a greenway with a shared use walking/bike trail that wraps around the school grounds and connects via a tunnel under a highway to the rest of the city bike trail system).
Chicago has over 100 free tennis courts across the city.
https://www.chicagoparkdistrict.com/facilities/tennis-courts
Seriously, tennis courts are one of the most popular facilities to include in an urban/suburban public park.
Well, while we're talking about anecdotes, my neighborhood in a poor Texas town also had a free tennis court. There were a couple more down the road. My in-laws suburb has walking trails end basketball courts.
Grew up in a very poor town in Arkansas. Had a public tennis court literally next door. In the 80s, the tennis court saw frequent use. People would get mad when they lost a match or whatever and hit the balls into our yard.
My grandmother would go collect them, and we always had a basket full of balls by the door.
By the early 2000s, people stopped using the tennis court very often, and the city tore down the chain link fence around the court to use as overflow parking for the adjacent little league fields.
I think the catch is, Americans have to spend so much time driving for ADLs (activities of daily living) that there is no time to walk over to the local court (if there is one, usually there is not). This is due to the sprawl Ponzi scheme (which spreads everything out). It's also the primary cause behind America's mental health crises (lack of 3rd places, everyone is isolated). And yeah, I'm not talking SF or NYC, but 90% of the rest of the country.
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If you live in a place with inexpensive land, tennis infrastructure is relatively cheap. If you live in a dense city where space is at a premium, that’s when it gets relatively expensive.
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Are they used though?
The poor town that I spent time in has 4 tennis courts in great condition that are almost never used.
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Tennis is very difficult though. One of the highest barrier to entry sports skill-wise.
Non-athletic adult people can't step onto a tennis court and consistently get the ball back to you, even if you hit it to them.
I thought Padel was easy, but when I organized a Padel after-work I saw that that was not reality, and Padel is much easier than tennis.
Non-athletic adults can't do anything consistently. Which sports do you think are easier? Certainly not baseball or American football. Perhaps soccer, but only because soccer is more generous about inconsistency: play doesn't stop if you lose the ball or kick it inaccurately, as long as it doesn't go out of bounds. On the other hand, non-athletic adults are going to tire very quickly constantly running around the field with no stoppage.
Soccer you play even if you badly, because the ball is on the ground, but playing soccer well is very hard.
Tennis you can't play truly badly since the ball is in the air, so there's a skill floor, probably not too dissimilar from the skill floor required to play baseball.
Some sports that have a lower skill floor than tennis are table tennis, pickeball, badminton, association football and ice hockey. The thing to understand is that it's not about fitness, it's the skill floor. It's that the beginner will miss the ball or not be able to control it.
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That’s why people are gravitating towards Pickleball. It has a lower barrier to entry
It's very sad though. Much better to practice so you can play tennis or padel.
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It depends. In suburban areas there are free courts generally available at parks and schools. Rural areas don't have many options. Urban areas have fewer free options that tend to be crowded. Balls are the next largest cost since they are expendable - get lost, go dead, etc. Historically these were much larger costs due to manufacturing and construction differences. My guess is that a lot of this is generational carryover as the free courts are generally newer (1980s+) and the carryrover where well of players from prior generations mostly inspired their kids to follow suit.
Tradition, mostly. Tennis is seen as an upper class sport and prices will be set accordingly, it is not the case everywhere though.
Another reason is that a tennis court takes significant space for just 2 (or 4) people. So unless it is subsidized, when land is at a premium like in a large city, it is going to be expensive.
Tennis requires a certain proficiency to have fun with. Beginners tend to have trouble getting the ball reliably across the net onto the other player. This proficiency takes time to build. Thus, unless one makes a big up-front time investment, tennis is not particularly good exercise. Up-front time investments are expensive.
Also one cannot tennis alone. Anything one must practise with a partner is more expensive due to scheduling requirements.
The OP was talking about monetary wealth. Here you're redefining "expensive" to mean something other than wealth, i.e., time.
Also, the whole point of the submitted article is that the investment of time into exercise is totally worth it.
Yes, there's a learning curve to tennis, as with any sport. You could just go jogging/running by yourself, but the advantage of sports, including tennis, is that they're usually a more fun and less boring form of exercise than jogging/running by yourself. If exercise is fun, then you're more likely to stick to it rather than skipping it.
> "expensive" to mean something other than wealth, i.e., time.
I don't think they did say that. They just said wealthy people have more freedom on schedule that non wealthy people.
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