Ep. 53: Anastasia Folorunso - Ground Pass

Alvin Owusu (00:00.834)
and welcome to another edition of the best of three podcasts. I'm still Alvin, but this is not Tori. This is Anastasia from ground pass on. So how you doing?

Anastasia Folorunso (00:12.945)
I am well. How are you doing? Well, I'm sweating. Let's just start with that because it is hot in New York City. It is hot and humid and any second now the skies are going to open and there'll be a thunderstorm. So let's hope for the best.

Alvin Owusu (00:15.734)
Yeah. Yeah. It's hot everywhere. It's hot everywhere.

Alvin Owusu (00:28.812)
Yeah, I hear you. So you're in New York, I'm down here in Atlanta. And weather-wise, same. It's just like, it's hot all day right now. We're not even halfway through summer. It's humid, and then at some point it rains or threatens to rain. you know, it is what it is. What part of the city are you in? You're in Brooklyn. Okay, nice. Nice, 7 p.m. It's 2 p.m. in Brooklyn, that's awesome. So you know.

Anastasia Folorunso (00:47.531)
I'm in Brooklyn. Yes, I'm a Brooklynite. Yes. Love it here.

Alvin Owusu (00:57.782)
for, I guess for the listeners, like Anastasia has a, I'm gonna call it a podcast. You can also call it a movement. It's called Groundpass. So if you are, I imagine if you're in the tennis, you know, online sector and you found this podcast and you're probably familiar with her, with her brand, but on YouTube, on Instagram, on where else? TikTok, I don't even know where TikTok is. Jesus, Jesus.

Anastasia Folorunso (01:22.955)
TikTok, Blue Sky, threads, X. We have a sub stack. We have a website.

Alvin Owusu (01:28.352)
Everywhere. yeah, I saw that. I saw that. Yeah. Okay. Okay. You guys are, you guys are, as they say in the streets, not hard to find, right? Not hard to find. but so I, I found you guys. So like our, our podcast venture here has been going for about, I'd say nine months and pretty early on, even before that, actually, I was, you know, I found ground pass on Instagram and I, like right away I was like telling some of my friends, like, I just love how visually a

Anastasia Folorunso (01:36.991)
Not hard to

Alvin Owusu (01:57.135)
appealing everything is on Instagram, on Groundpass. No, fantastic, and it makes a lot of sense actually as we got to know each other here. But I kinda wanna go back a little bit, because you are the, you are most of the people behind Groundpass. I know there's two of you, but I would like to get kinda like your background, like how you came into tennis, how this all got started, and then we can talk about, and talk about Groundpass as well.

Anastasia Folorunso (01:59.145)
Yay!

Anastasia Folorunso (02:21.824)
Yeah, I think if you look like me, you mostly came into tennis through the Williams sisters, I believe. there's a correlation there for the most part. And they definitely got me into tennis. It was a big thing for me where, you know, I love sports. I was a track athlete. I did track and field. I threw a shot put. did a lot of...

Alvin Owusu (02:33.272)
Sure. Yeah. Yeah.

Anastasia Folorunso (02:50.62)
sports in school. And I liked to watch sports as well, specifically the Olympics, because that's when you got track and field. And I also got into tennis through there. But then the Williams sisters came up and I was like, my goodness, they look just like me. Because before then, there was no one to attach myself to coming up in tennis. And...

Alvin Owusu (02:59.756)
Right. Right.

Anastasia Folorunso (03:15.194)
They brought me in, started following it, and then I quickly became a Fiddle fan. Like, Nadal and Federer just took over my whole being as a tennis fan, so... Yeah. Yeah. Yup. I, you know...

Alvin Owusu (03:20.364)
Okay.

Alvin Owusu (03:25.646)
You, you, you, so you were a fan of both at the same time. Wow. That's a whole, that's a whole episode into itself. How, how does one do that?

Anastasia Folorunso (03:36.833)
because they created the best, I like competition. I don't think, and maybe we'll talk about it when we go into what I do for a living, but I'm not fan of people. I'm not a fan of people, of human beings. There are some great ones, there's some great human beings, but human beings are flawed. But sports in general, the sort of...

The basics of it is good. And I love sports. And I love people who try and achieve greatness in whatever sport they're doing. And they were both doing it at the same time. So for me, it was like, how couldn't you be a fan of both? I've actually never understood people who were.

a fan of one and not the other. was like, what is that? Like, how could you possibly be? Because without one, there isn't the other, in my opinion. So yes, I was a fan of both, loved watching their matches, and I definitely pivoted.

Alvin Owusu (04:25.259)
Yeah. Yep.

Anastasia Folorunso (04:36.242)
to I think mostly watching ATP. I started with the WTA but pivoted towards the ATP. I'm now coming back the other way around as things go. Things go round and round I think. But yes, that's how I got into the sport. I've always loved it. mean.

Alvin Owusu (04:43.788)
Hmm

Anastasia Folorunso (04:52.658)
And I've always loved also the cultural part of tennis. Like, I'll never forget when Britney Spears performed at Kids Day at the US Open. Like, that was a moment. Like, who doesn't remember that? Or Mandy Moore being in Andy Roddick's box. Who doesn't remember that? Like, those moments, the cultural moments of tennis as well.

Alvin Owusu (05:03.35)
Yeah.

Alvin Owusu (05:11.735)
That's throwback. That is throwback.

Anastasia Folorunso (05:18.14)
I love. So it's not just the sport for me, it's also the stuff around it as well.

Alvin Owusu (05:23.757)
I mean, let's talk about just a side note for the career arc of Mandy Moore. Like right now, she's probably best known for her role on This Is Us, right? But before that, from a sports standpoint, like she did date Andy Roddick, but before that, she was a full-on pop singer, right? So like, I mean, Mandy Moore has nothing to do with this podcast, but I can't let an opportunity go by without slightly dating myself. So let's go back to the...

Anastasia Folorunso (05:37.098)
Yup.

Yup.

Alvin Owusu (05:51.19)
I mean, I want to talk about this Fedder and Nadal thing. Actually, I want to support my stance on this unfettered Nadal, right? So I came up as a, when they both hit the scene, right, as top tennis players, I was, I think I was in college, right? Fed won his first Wimbledon in 03, so I was, yeah, I was still in school. So at that point, it was just like, you know, we are, we're not that far off in age, myself and those guys, so it's like, pick a side.

Right, everyone picked a side. But it wasn't like pick a side, like try to emulate them or pick a side or as a hardcore fan. It was just like when I think of tennis, the picture of tennis I see in my head looks like this guy and it would be Federer at that given point, which is asinine if you've ever seen me hit a tennis ball because I am left handed and I play with a Babylon racket. like it makes no sense whatsoever, right? No sense whatsoever. But then I came around.

Anastasia Folorunso (06:27.507)
Mm-hmm.

Anastasia Folorunso (06:40.329)
Yeah.

come on.

Alvin Owusu (06:49.815)
to as a full grown adult to appreciate Rafael Nadal and thus appreciating both of them at the same time. yeah, the Grand Slam title race was a thing that I got way too involved in, but I envy you. Yeah, you're better off.

Anastasia Folorunso (07:04.255)
which is again, something I did not involve myself with. I was just like, I don't know. You know, for me it was all about the moments and the matches. Like, because maybe also, I...

We didn't know the end goal. We didn't know it was going be 20 or 22 or 23 or 24. We didn't know. So for me, was all about the matches in the moment. But I also just saw them in different buckets. Federer was sort of the prince of tennis. He was just the perfect embodiment of what tennis, country club tennis.

Alvin Owusu (07:21.665)
Right.

Anastasia Folorunso (07:39.508)
looked like or wanted to be. And here comes a complete sort of outsider in those long shorts and the straggly hair and the cutoff shirts with the big muscles. And he's like, I'm gonna play tennis. And he was just not the embodiment of what someone would be like, a country club. He was not invited. So I...

Alvin Owusu (07:41.879)
Mm-hmm.

Alvin Owusu (07:55.373)
Yeah.

Alvin Owusu (08:04.15)
Right.

Anastasia Folorunso (08:08.841)
For them, that sort of fire and ice contrast, I kind of liked that. I just don't, I could not be a fan of one without the other. It would be boring, I don't know.

Alvin Owusu (08:17.323)
I hear you, I hear you. No, that's fair, that's fair. And the irony is that Nadal is equally as tennis upper crust as Federer was. Recently I finished Chris Clary's book, The Warrior, the Nadal French Open book effectively, but good read. I don't think it was as good as The Master, but there I go again with my preference for.

Anastasia Folorunso (08:20.798)
Hee hee.

Anastasia Folorunso (08:26.481)
Yeah, yeah, that's...

Anastasia Folorunso (08:44.191)
Yeah

Alvin Owusu (08:45.197)
for a veteran over and at all. You mentioned you started off as an ATP fan and then went over to it becoming more of a WTA fan and now you're probably.

Anastasia Folorunso (08:56.691)
Well, I started because the Williams sisters brought me in. So I would say I started with the WTA, know, Marysher Pova, mean, Anastasia, what was her name? I'm spacing right now. Married to Enrique Iglesias. Anna Konikova, loved her, loved Anna Konikova.

Alvin Owusu (09:02.558)
Gotcha, gotcha. Okay.

Alvin Owusu (09:15.285)
Anna Kornikova. Yeah. A lot better than people gave her credit for too. Like a lot better, a lot better.

Anastasia Folorunso (09:22.232)
so much. I didn't understand why she got so much hate. was like, but she's perfect.

Alvin Owusu (09:26.793)
She's she's I mean, I mean, she was a attractive tennis, attractive person and got a lot of attention for being attractive. But then like was also a really good tennis player, which. Yeah.

Anastasia Folorunso (09:32.232)
Right.

But she still played good tennis. But yeah, so that's how I got in. But then I pivoted to being an ATP fan, followed the ATP for a while. And it was only recently, I feel like even with starting ground pass that I've kind of, you know, I've always watched the WTA to some extent, but it was very much 80, 20, you know? But I feel like now I'm becoming more 50, 50.

even sometimes 60 WTA 40 ATP these days, but yeah.

Alvin Owusu (10:09.132)
Okay, let's pin that one right there because I wanna come back to that. I wanna come back to that. You mentioned ground pass. kind of, in your best words, like I think I know what ground pass is, but I wanna hear it directly from you. What is ground pass? Why did you start it? You go there.

Anastasia Folorunso (10:23.049)
Okay.

Anastasia Folorunso (10:32.049)
My friend recently was like, ground pass is like the gateway drug to tennis. And I was like, that's good. I like that. I mean, I don't know if I want to promote drug use, but I get it. I understand. I mean, I'm selling something. But our first kind of catchphrase, and my co-host is Nick.

Alvin Owusu (10:46.686)
If you're selling, mean, maybe you should. Yeah.

Anastasia Folorunso (10:58.981)
Nick Carter, he's on X. He's kind of like, think, a, you know, semi well-known person on tennis Twitter. Big WTA fan. So he's my co-host. And our first kind of idea was we are the tennis podcast for the casual fan. So we didn't want to speak jargon. We are expecting that the people who or we're

our understanding is that people who are listening to us might not understand the difference between backhand, forehand, serve percentages, you know, none of the technical stuff. So we wanted to promote the sport more as a cultural moment, a sport that you should experience in person.

versus only watching on television. And that's where we were coming from. So we wanted to sort of be away, hey, I watch challengers and I know nothing. What should I listen to? You should listen to Groundpass and we'll explain it to you. We'll tell you that they're not just four tennis tournaments in the year. They're actually a lot more. So our kind of listener is a person who thinks the US Open is the only tennis tournament ever. So.

Alvin Owusu (12:09.834)
Yeah.

Alvin Owusu (12:17.27)
Okay, so go backwards then. So first of all, how did you and Nick meet and then what was that moment that made you go, okay, we need to start something. I wanna do something in this space.

Anastasia Folorunso (12:27.228)
Yeah. Yeah. Well, Nick and I actually met on Twitter. That's how we met.

Alvin Owusu (12:33.068)
Okay, tennis Twitter is a place you can go. It's like a place that you get indoctrinated into just kind of like, and you don't even know how you got there. You're just like, oh, I'm on tennis Twitter.

Anastasia Folorunso (12:37.95)
I don't know how I got there. No, literally. All of a sudden you're just like, wait, how did I get here? What's happening? But in 20, I've always been a big Twitter person, but mostly for journalism. Like I used to follow a lot of journalists back in the day when Twitter was that sort of place. And in 2023, I found myself with a lot more

Alvin Owusu (12:46.804)
Yeah. Yeah.

Alvin Owusu (13:00.843)
Yeah.

Anastasia Folorunso (13:06.942)
time on my hand because my industry was on strike. So I was spending a lot of time on Twitter and watching tennis, more tennis than I ever had watched before because I just had the time for it all of a sudden. And so I'm talking back and forth with people and that's where I met Nick. We're talking back and forth and you know, you get to know people. I saw some streams that he did. He's a really great commentator and I was like, huh.

Alvin Owusu (13:24.705)
Okay.

Anastasia Folorunso (13:35.967)
we could start and I already have a podcasting background. So I've had a podcast before. So it wasn't a big jump for me to say, oh, I want to now start a podcast and it's a tennis podcast. was not my first podcast.

Alvin Owusu (13:41.448)
Interesting, okay.

Anastasia Folorunso (13:51.327)
But because at the time I was definitely 80-20 in terms of 80 % ATP, 20 % WTA, I was like, I cannot start a podcast and only talk about ATP. I need someone who can balance me out. And Nick was that person. Like Nick, for the most part, is like 100 % WTA. He does watch ATP matches, you know, but he's that person. He knows the players back and forth. So I thought, you know what?

Alvin Owusu (14:12.01)
Okay. Okay.

Anastasia Folorunso (14:21.28)
great partner to have, we already had a good rapport. And I asked him, I was like, do you wanna try this out? And he was like, my God, yes. And the name Groundpass actually came from Nick because back in the day, he had a blog called Groundpass that he was writing in to help.

Alvin Owusu (14:39.027)
Okay.

Anastasia Folorunso (14:43.142)
tennis fans get to know the sport. So when I came to him and said, hey, I want to start a podcast that we can help people get into the sport for more casual fans, he was like, I did a blog about that ages ago. It was called Groundpass. And I was like, we could call it Groundpass podcast.

Alvin Owusu (14:59.764)
Right, it works on so many different levels. Like so many different levels. I mean not only the actual, you you buy a ground space, but also you are on the ground floor of becoming a tennis fan. It's, it's chef's kiss.

Anastasia Folorunso (15:04.295)
Yeah.

Anastasia Folorunso (15:13.148)
Yeah, and that was actually the big twist because his podcast, his blog was called Grounds Pass with the S, but I thought, no, no, that's what it was called. But for the podcast, I was like, I don't know what we call it, Grounds Pass. So I was just like, Ground Pass. It just went better. So we took off the S.

Alvin Owusu (15:19.976)
Okay, thank you. Thank you.

Alvin Owusu (15:32.364)
Okay, I've often wondered why it's ground pass and not. I'm like, it's actually a grounds pass. Like I know that, I know they know this. Okay, that makes me feel better. I feel so much better, so much better now. Okay, so, okay, so 2023-ish you started Ground Pass, the podcast. Okay, we're now October, all right, almost two year anniversary here coming up, not too far from now.

Anastasia Folorunso (15:39.984)
It's a grounds pass.

Anastasia Folorunso (15:51.61)
October. Yeah, wow.

Alvin Owusu (15:56.94)
And so you start the podcast and then you branch into, I guess you all serve on social media at that time under the same moniker. Okay, so things are happening. You are putting out content for the not tennis fan or the new tennis fan to help them get a better lay of the land in tennis. Fair? That's fair. Okay. So now we're in 2025. So I guess for background, so.

Anastasia Folorunso (16:19.048)
Yeah, yeah.

Alvin Owusu (16:26.427)
you and I met in person not that long ago, probably three, four months ago in, Charleston. Yeah. April, April Charleston's April. I was just wandering around the stadium and during one of the matches and I run into you and I'm just like, around pass and your face was like, what in the, how do you know me? and I was like, no, you're famous. And so like fast forward from Charleston in April to DC.

Anastasia Folorunso (16:31.536)
Yeah, April. Yeah.

Anastasia Folorunso (16:42.098)
And I was like, whoa!

Alvin Owusu (16:55.369)
just last week, and apparently this now happens to you all the time. People run into you and go, your ground pass, right? So in the last 90 days, kind of tell me what has been happening for you and in the ground pass movement.

Anastasia Folorunso (17:00.646)
It's wild.

Anastasia Folorunso (17:10.694)
Yeah, I think it's almost been a solidifying of what we are. I think Nick and I, you know, I had my own sort of personal career. Nick has his job. We wanted to do this podcast together and we wanted to be one consistent.

So we didn't want to sort of like put out two episodes and then disappear for seven months or something. You know, we want it to be consistent, but we also didn't want to put any pressure on ourselves. You know, we were doing it at the time for fun, per se. And we were doing it every two weeks.

is how we started, we were a bi-weekly pod. And then slowly what we realized is that we were a bi-weekly pod and then every time we met up for two weeks, trying to catch up on two weeks of tennis is like a three hour episode. It's like, it's a lot. So we started doing, and we kind of still keep this loosely a little bit where we do a...

Alvin Owusu (18:01.963)
Yeah. Yeah, it's a lot.

Anastasia Folorunso (18:15.709)
a full podcast as we call it every two weeks and then in between we do what we call mini pods where either Nick or I on our own will come up and we'll do like a quick 30, it's anywhere from 15 minutes to 30 minute recap of what happened that week. What has happened obviously is because we've grown and.

we've just become more popular, we actually are more weekly than bi-weekly and our mini pods are not really that many anymore. They're not really, yeah, they're not really that many anymore. that's kind of, but we reserve the right to like still do the mini pods, especially once we start getting into the off season and there's like nothing happening, whatever. But yeah, so.

Alvin Owusu (18:46.835)
Right, yeah, let's see 30 minutes. That's not many. That's a full, that's a pod.

Anastasia Folorunso (19:05.017)
That's how we kind of slowly, no pressure.

grew. But I think also what happened was I started going to tournaments outside of New York. I am lucky that my home tournament is a Grand Slam. I've been going to a Grand Slam for 14 years like it's normal, you know. So I started going to tournaments outside of New York and I started going as media as well. And we would talk about it on the podcast and it kind of became a thing where

then we would randomly get an email and be like, what, you know, does this, where do I get tickets for this tournament? Or, you know, where are the bathrooms for, like, literally the most basic questions. And we kind of ran with it where we also love to talk about tournaments and give tournament guides, as we've called them. We also get a lot of entries now from people. So, for example, we had,

Alvin Owusu (20:01.332)
Mm-hmm.

Anastasia Folorunso (20:08.049)
There's this guy, Court Satisfaction is on Instagram.

And he lives in like Portugal, Spain. And he sent us a voice note about the Madrid Open, which was one of our best voice notes that we ever received. But we've received voice notes from Monte Carlo, from Billie Jean King Cup. We received it from the Malaga, the grass tournament in Malaga. We've received them. Where else did we get one from? But people send this to us and we incorporate it into the podcast so that it's kind of like for tournaments that we are not in, like

Alvin Owusu (20:26.295)
wow, okay.

Anastasia Folorunso (20:41.885)
They're sending their like, hey, this is what it's like. we got one from Korea from the Korean Open last year. That was good too. That was like a really good one as well. So we've kind of become that because we encourage people go to a tournament. You'll understand why this is the best sport ever. Once you see tennis live, I just feel like you're fan for life. And that's what we want to encourage. But we also want to encourage.

Alvin Owusu (20:50.292)
That's so cool. Yeah.

Anastasia Folorunso (21:11.165)
Or, you know, I think there is this myth, in my opinion. And tennis, there is a section of tennis that's like that, where it is an expensive sport to experience and go to. But you can go to tennis tournaments on the cheap. The US Open has kind of, you know, it's hard to do now, but then I always tell people, fan week, it's free.com.

Alvin Owusu (21:22.92)
Yeah,

Alvin Owusu (21:38.642)
Yeah, yeah, yeah, week is dope. Fan week is dope.

Anastasia Folorunso (21:41.137)
Go there. So, you know, that's kind of what we've become a little bit. And our content has now sort of, you know, grown around that, around that mission.

Alvin Owusu (21:55.721)
Okay, okay, so that's, like that it feels like when I go to ground pass on, now I feel really good calling it ground pass now because I feel like I understand and if anyone's been fighting this with me, this grounds pass versus ground pass silently in your head, now you can exhale and release that. I feel so much better saying ground pass now. Okay, so I think one of the coolest things about ground pass is like you mentioned.

Anastasia Folorunso (22:04.292)
Hey.

You know why.

Anastasia Folorunso (22:14.276)
Now you know.

Alvin Owusu (22:25.342)
tennis does have this kind of mystique around it. And most people, as we've, you you've probably seen it your content, like in your, in all of your metrics and stuff, most people are watching the last two days of any Grand Slam. Like around the Saturday, Sunday of a Grand Slam, like everything kind of goes haywire, unless a Filipino female is doing really well in tennis. That's the other thing that, that's the other time, yes. But you know, the information that you guys provide,

Anastasia Folorunso (22:43.13)
Sky Rock. Yep. Yeah.

Anastasia Folorunso (22:47.824)
That's the other time, yes.

Alvin Owusu (22:54.602)
around like what it's actually like to go to a tennis tournament that's not a grand slam, I think really remove some of that mystique and some of those barriers to entry that a lot of people might feel exist when they think about tennis. I think this particular podcast, our podcast, Best of Three, we live in a different space. It's a little, I admittedly will say it's a bit much. And the people who listen to this podcast,

Anastasia Folorunso (23:21.636)
Why is it a bit much?

Alvin Owusu (23:22.914)
It's it's tennis nerdy. It's like real tennis. We're real tennis nerdy, and that is like full, like I put my hand up, Tori, if you were here, he'd put his hand up. We've been in this thing for so long that the level of nerd we can get down to is not for everyone. And you should see the comments section. You guys are nerds too. And that's why we're here together. It's fine, it is fine. But I think the only way we're gonna get people in

Anastasia Folorunso (23:25.699)
Okay, okay. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Anastasia Folorunso (23:36.923)
Yeah.

Anastasia Folorunso (23:41.787)
Yeah.

Alvin Owusu (23:50.975)
to become tennis nerds is to come into tennis in the first place. And that's the coolest thing. Like I always tell people, like I started playing tennis when I was five years old, right? So, but I always tell people I am envious of the adults who find tennis because learning how to play tennis and getting involved in tennis, like from a fresh start is amazing. So I think what you're doing is not only awesome to watch, but it's like you're doing a service to the tennis community at large.

Anastasia Folorunso (23:54.672)
That part, that part, yep.

Anastasia Folorunso (24:19.238)
Well, thank you. We definitely enjoy it, but I feel like that for me has been the biggest thing is breaking down those barriers and just showing, I think I told you this story while we were at City Open, but one of my whole like ground pass moments was a girl came up to me from, she was from the Philly area and.

you know, she was hoping to go to the US Open this year. And obviously the prices came out and they were just out of her price range at the moment. And she had seen one of our videos talking about the city open and going to the city open and doing that. And she's in Philly, so she's like, you know what? The tickets are cheaper, let me just go and check it out. And she...

Alvin Owusu (24:45.514)
Mm-hmm.

Anastasia Folorunso (25:08.76)
had seen us while we were at, it was court five, there wasn't a match going on on court five that day and Naomi Osaka was practicing. And if you don't know the city open, court five is like one of their smallest courts. It's super tiny and there's only one side that's available for seating and it's like four rows of like, yeah, yeah.

Alvin Owusu (25:29.556)
That's like back where there's like three courts, like kind of back to back or side to side to side. Two of them have side by side and the other one is like a practice court kind of. Yeah.

Anastasia Folorunso (25:37.241)
Single, yeah, exactly. So, you know, she's like this close, very close to Naomi Osaka.

And she saw me and she came up and she was like, Hey, you're on Astasia. And I was like, yeah, I am like, thanks for listening. And she was like, I just wanted to say thank you because here I am so close to Naomi Osaka and I would never have gotten this experience at the US Open. I'm like, yeah, you would not have. Naomi Osaka would be on Ash or Louis Armstrong, nowhere near you. You know what I mean? And that just warmed my heart. For me, it was kind of like, if I'm doing this podcast for only this girl.

Alvin Owusu (25:59.848)
Right. Right.

Right. Yeah.

Anastasia Folorunso (26:12.836)
That is reward enough because here she is experiencing such a great tennis moment for much cheaper, closer to home than she would have trekking all the way to the US Open trying to find, you know, where to stay in New York for cheap. What? That's.

Alvin Owusu (26:31.113)
That doesn't, that's not New York, you can't do that. They'll charge you to sleep on the streets, yeah.

Anastasia Folorunso (26:35.004)
You can't do that. I mean, yeah. So yeah, like that's what we want to do. Like if we could just do that over and over again, that's the goal.

Alvin Owusu (26:46.185)
Okay, so this is my one, I got a two-parter for you. One, I told you this before, I don't like the US Open. I don't, I look, I went to the US Open in 2008. It's a full-on, full-body exercise, right? Like one, getting tickets was pretty easy back then. Like I bought like a five session, like five sessions, three days. It was like, oh, this is easy. No problem. I went.

Anastasia Folorunso (26:52.412)
How dare you. That is my home tournament.

Anastasia Folorunso (27:06.522)
Back then you could, I mean, yeah.

Anastasia Folorunso (27:11.758)
Nothing.

Alvin Owusu (27:14.633)
And like a day at the US Open is, I fell asleep, like I had to take naps like up under, yeah, like grandstand, like where the, like I think Louis Armstrong overhangs like up in the top row up there, just like, just full crash out, take a nap. And it's a lot, like it's a lot. The whole thing is a lot. It's a very, very large park. There's a lot of matches going on and you know, if you don't have a plan, you'll get ran over, right? Contrast that to, let's say,

Anastasia Folorunso (27:19.684)
It's not for the weak, okay?

Alvin Owusu (27:44.938)
Charleston and like you mentioned right if you're going to see Naomi Osaka at at the US Open like you know when you have to buy a stadium ticket Right to you're probably gonna be in the nosebleeds or somewhere nowhere close like watching tennis in a stadium is not fun personal opinion and You're so far away from the players that it doesn't really feel It doesn't offer you what tennis can offer you which is contrast that with Charleston I Took my buddy Matt to Charleston and he was just blown away like

Anastasia Folorunso (28:10.651)
Charleston,

Alvin Owusu (28:15.389)
we're walking around and like running to Jessica Pagula. Like she's walking her dog on the grounds. It's like we're at a public park more or less. This is just like junior tennis and players are just walking around. No one's bothering them. It's so personal. It's so personal. that it's one of the coolest things that you can get in sports. It's also very unique to our sport. And in my personal opinion, Jessica Pagula at the US Open.

Anastasia Folorunso (28:27.589)
Yeah.

Anastasia Folorunso (28:39.801)
Yeah.

Alvin Owusu (28:44.797)
doing her job versus Jessica Bulla at Charleston Open doing her job. There's no difference because one tennis players would play well every day of their life if they could. So you're never getting a tennis player who's just kind of mailing it in short of a obvious tanking situation because there's money involved in every single match they play. And so if you can get close in Charleston.

Anastasia Folorunso (29:00.634)
No.

Alvin Owusu (29:10.811)
It's the same as it's better than being further away at the US Open because you're getting the same actual product from the player. Okay off soapbox for Alvin. I'm done. I'm done. But that's how I feel. That's how I feel. Same thing in Cincinnati. I mean that's Cincinnati. Same thing in DC. Like it's fantastic to get out there and mix it up with the players. So that was just my diatribe. Question for you.

Anastasia Folorunso (29:27.848)
We accept. Yeah.

Alvin Owusu (29:39.975)
You just got back from DC. We were both in DC. So much fun. Good to see you again. What do you think now or how has your view on the tennis world changed prior to going to DC?

Because I imagine, I imagine, like every time I go to a tournament, something, I see something else or something else becomes more clear. I take them all as like, at this point tournaments are like, they're like conferences at this point. Like I don't really go to watch tennis per se. It's like, it's another thing when you're quote unquote in it, right? So like, what did you learn in DC? What did you take away? What changed your mind? Did you change your mind about anything while you were there?

Anastasia Folorunso (29:57.806)
in what

Anastasia Folorunso (30:09.411)
Yeah, yeah.

Anastasia Folorunso (30:24.111)
Yeah, and I think...

Anastasia Folorunso (30:28.121)
I think maybe going to DC, what it did was actually give me hope, if that's possible. Because, okay, so I definitely have been going to more tournaments now. Over the years, traveling the United States, going to tournaments. And what that does is it exposes you to a different crowd. And even starting at my very first tournament this year, I was almost scared.

Alvin Owusu (30:34.973)
Interesting.

Anastasia Folorunso (30:57.913)
I was like, yo, where are the young people at?

Alvin Owusu (31:01.865)
What was the event? Delray. yeah. Okay. Yeah.

Anastasia Folorunso (31:03.941)
Delray in Florida.

But that should be the perfect tournament where it's small, in a very contained area. You know, there are young people in Delray. I refuse to buy into the sort of like Florida retirement community thing. I just thought there would be more people. just, especially during the night sessions and stuff. And I was just like, where are the young people?

This is a little scary because I'm someone who loves the sport and wants to promote the sport. And if we do not get young people or people of, know, like a different sort of demographic of people into the sport, it's gonna die on the vine. It's just not, you know, you have to constantly get new people into it. And I was reading a

Alvin Owusu (31:49.033)
Mm-hmm.

Anastasia Folorunso (32:01.517)
like a, there was like a, how do you call it? A survey of fans of tennis and the...

Group of people who start to play tennis now, so casual rec tennis fans who go to the parks and play tennis, the age is going down. Super young people. Walking around Brooklyn, all I see are tennis people with their tennis rackets and their coffee heading to a court. You can't get a court in New York City. You cannot. To reserve a court,

Alvin Owusu (32:20.676)
huh. Yep.

That's a thing.

Alvin Owusu (32:34.866)
But it must be pretty early to reserve a cord to sign up.

Anastasia Folorunso (32:39.963)
I live next to a park here and at 5 a.m. in the morning there is a line of people waiting to get on the courts because it's a public park and you can get on a court for free.

Alvin Owusu (32:53.522)
Yeah, I saw Torrey do a video. I think he lives in Brooklyn, the writer Torrey. And he was like, yeah, come with me to go sign up for a court. And it was like dead ass 530 in the morning. He's on his bike to the courts to sign up and I guess sit there with a chair, wait for signups to open. Like someone from parks comes and puts up a signup board and then they sign. I was like, no wonder my friends who moved to New York just like stopped playing tennis because like, what is that? What is that about?

Anastasia Folorunso (32:57.871)
Mm-hmm.

Anastasia Folorunso (33:20.667)
Stop playing tennis. The hack that I do now is that I just play tennis in the winter when they put a bubble over the court. And just traditionally, think people, you know, it's winter, so they don't wanna really play tennis. That's when I play tennis because courts are easy to get. Nobody's playing, so I can play. Yeah. But once the spring hits, forget about it. They just opened some new courts on the East River and it was a secret for a week.

Alvin Owusu (33:36.424)
Okay. Okay.

Alvin Owusu (33:41.713)
Right.

Anastasia Folorunso (33:49.739)
Literally. Now, impossible to get court. There's a line out the wazoo. Like, it's just super tough because sports exploded. So the number of people who are young, want to play the sport, want to get into the culture of tennis, they want to wear the tennis skirts, they want to do the whole thing, it's getting younger and younger every year. The people who go to tennis tournaments and watch tennis as a sport,

The average age is still in the 50s. How do we?

Alvin Owusu (34:22.557)
I mean besides the obvious, why do you think that's the case? Like what do you, what have you, what have you?

Anastasia Folorunso (34:26.522)
Because, and I think that's the case because there is still sort of a myth around tennis as a sport that you go watch is a she-she, very expensive event. you can't, like I think with baseball, any other sport, you can just be like, yeah, let's go. Like grab five of your friends and you're like, let's go watch some baseball. Super chill.

Alvin Owusu (34:41.287)
Yes.

Alvin Owusu (34:50.482)
Well, you go to the baseball game, you don't necessarily have to watch baseball at the baseball game.

Anastasia Folorunso (34:54.614)
Exactly. Right. Whatever the baseball people do, I don't watch it, so I don't know.

Alvin Owusu (34:58.696)
Same, I don't even go to baseball games. They move the Braves from the city up to the Burbs and I'm like, okay, well, I wasn't your fan to begin with, but I'm not going.

Anastasia Folorunso (35:07.258)
I'm like whatever you guys do, but it's more of a just casual event I feel like when people say they're going to the tennis. It's like a whole McGill it's like we're going to the tennis and like it's a it's a once a year event and we're going to the tennis and and it doesn't need to be It it it can be more casual than that. There's so many tennis tournaments. You can see tennis every week if you wanted to you know

We have a sport like that where literally all we talk about is that there's so much tennis. And yet the people who are watching it, it's this small group of people. And I think it's because one, I think for people going to tournaments, there is this weird kind of mystique around it where it's kind of like a once a year event. Like, let's be real, the people who go to the city open, that's their one tennis, that's it.

Alvin Owusu (35:57.672)
Mm-hmm.

Alvin Owusu (36:03.269)
Yeah, yeah.

Anastasia Folorunso (36:03.662)
they're not doing tennis again until next year's city open. And you're like, that's a shame. Don't you want to know what Tiafoe's doing the rest of the year? Like, don't you want to know how he's progressing when he's playing European clay at the French Open? And I think that's changing. I do think that's changing, for sure. Thank you, TNT. But I think that is changing. It's just that it's slow to change. And that's what we're trying to help do. So.

That's part of it, I think. The other part of it is that we just shoot ourselves in the foot. We make tennis so hard to watch, but that is also changing, I think.

Alvin Owusu (36:40.975)
Yeah, okay, we'll get to the, I'm gonna get to the watching part in a little bit, but I'm gonna go back to tennis having, feels like tennis is having a moment right now. So I was in, well my first tournament this year was, I think it was Dallas. So I went to the Dallas Open, that would have been right after, right after I showed up in, yeah. All the US players came back, stayed on hard court for a bit, Dallas Open. And I was, that was my first,

first tournament as a quote unquote media member in tennis, which was also kind of weird. Yeah, I guess it was strange. It was just strange. But I did notice something. I always tell people like my favorite tennis tournament is the Australian Open. I've been like, I three times. I go to Australia. One of my best friends used to live in Australia, so was there not too frequently. But anytime you go to the Australian Open, it feels like a tennis festival.

Anastasia Folorunso (37:13.922)
Yay!

Alvin Owusu (37:36.402)
There's just a lot going on. It's also walkable from downtown like CBD, Melbourne. You are there. Whereas like, you go to the US Open, you're a little farther removed from the city. It's a little bit of a hike. Not a hike to get up there, but that happens in a lot of tennis tournaments, Fair, fair. I, know, like most people who do not live in New York City, I consider Manhattan to be the anchor of the city and you kind of go from there, but it's not. It's not. Yes, yes.

Anastasia Folorunso (37:51.45)
It depends on where you live.

Anastasia Folorunso (38:00.214)
It is not.

Welcome to Brooklyn.

Alvin Owusu (38:06.559)
I know that I don't think you want more people in Brooklyn. I've heard it's a problem. right. Don't. Yeah, there you go. There you go. But, you know, I, the thing that I picked up in Dallas was, and we, we had a, we did a podcast with Peter Lebanon's, the, the tournament director, for the Dallas open is that they were trying to create more of a, more of that festival feel there. So when you get there.

Anastasia Folorunso (38:09.601)
We do not actually, please, you guys go to Manhattan, it's fine, you go there.

Alvin Owusu (38:30.927)
as a fan and you come through the front entrance, like you have to go through the fan zone first, it's its own standalone building before, and then you walk out of it and into the Cowboys, the Cowboys practice facility that has turned into a tennis, that houses tennis courts during the tournament. But while I was, and I kind of experienced the tournament backwards, right? I was coming in through the media entrance in the back and I was on the courts all day and then I'd finally pop up and come outside and I see people like in the full tennis garb.

Anastasia Folorunso (38:48.142)
Yeah.

Alvin Owusu (39:00.293)
but like fanciful and they're dressed like young people and they're taking pictures with things and there's like a DJ and there are bars and all these activations and I was like, wow, okay, this is good. I think this is good. I don't want anything to do with it, but I think it's a good thing. And I don't know if these people are even coming in to watch tennis because what's happening out here in the fan zone is very, very different than what's happening in there. If I wanted to hang out, I'd want to hang out out here.

Like this seems like fun. And the tennis is on TV. Like they have it on the screens and stuff. Like you buy a ticket, you're in there, watch the tennis, hang out here if you want to. So is that what you've experienced outside of Delray? Are you starting to see that more and more at other tournaments?

Anastasia Folorunso (39:31.905)
yeah. yeah.

Anastasia Folorunso (39:47.042)
Yeah, totally, 100%. I think Delray was definitely, and maybe it was just because it was the start of the year, I was kind of like, ooh. And I loved Delray, my God, as a tournament. I love that tournament. And that's almost why I was like, I want more people to see this. Like, we're right by the beach. I was like, this could be the ultimate spring, and it was that time of year. I was like, this is the ultimate spring break weekend. You're at the beach, you come watch the tennis, you hang out.

Alvin Owusu (39:58.31)
Yeah, you were hyping it up.

Anastasia Folorunso (40:15.851)
Like it's a vibe and I wasn't getting that per se. So I was kind of like, I think they could do more for sure to kind of give it that vibe versus just have the people who have always gone to the Delaware Open like year after year after year. So there's that because again, I think it could, there are just so many young up and they all live there. All the tennis players live there. was like, guys, we can make this a whole thing. Like we could.

Alvin Owusu (40:41.754)
Yeah

Anastasia Folorunso (40:44.661)
Delray could be a thing. So there was definitely that. But then as I went on, because I did the Sunshine Double, second year now that I've done the double, and you definitely get that festival vibe, especially when you're in Indian Wells. It's like because of the remoteness of the tournament, I feel like the people are going there for the tennis. And so it just brings that vibe with it already, where it's kind of like

everyone's in it, the grounds are packed, everyone's in their best Instagram fit, ready to take the selfie and the sun is setting and you're like, yes, it's great. Miami Open this year, the Miami Open outdid itself. was like, I don't know, it just felt even more, the colors of the Miami Open are just so good. They nailed that court color and you just feel like you're in vacation.

Alvin Owusu (41:20.209)
Ha ha ha.

Alvin Owusu (41:36.835)
Yeah, yeah.

Anastasia Folorunso (41:43.512)
They had now, they didn't have this last year, but this year they had these like mini cabanas, like in front of the stadium with the screen. And I was like, this is a vibe. Again, you don't have to be in the stadium. You're just there with your five friends in your mini cabana and you're watching the tennis. Like, I like.

Alvin Owusu (41:50.949)
Yeah, yeah, I Yeah, I I went this year. Yeah.

Anastasia Folorunso (42:05.441)
And I know I'm probably not speaking to the tennis purist here who's like, I'm gonna sit through five hours and like watch every point. It's gonna be great. And I'm like, look, I understand you. I love tennis. I love watching every single point as well. But we also have to recognize the social nature of tennis as well. Like when you go out and you wanna play tennis with your friends in the park, that is a social...

event, you usually you take your rackets, maybe you make a little picnic, you hit some balls, maybe you have some beers and you sit and you hang, whatever. That's what people are trying to do at these tennis tournaments as well. you know, and not everybody who's attending a tennis tournament knows every single bear. Do you know how many times I go to US Open and I spend half the time explaining to my friends how it's scored? Like, that's all I do during the US Open.

Alvin Owusu (43:00.986)
Ha ha ha!

Anastasia Folorunso (43:03.425)
All I do during this US Open is someone takes me to the tournament, I'm like, okay, it's 40 love, not 40 zero. That's how you say it. So I think we need to embrace that part of the sport too. I think a sport that does it perfectly is F1, for example. Do you think everyone at the F1 track is out there being like, and then the car goes around again? No, they're in the lounge, they're in the thing, and they're watching cars go around on the TV.

Alvin Owusu (43:10.714)
Right, not 45 either.

Alvin Owusu (43:28.058)
Right. Right.

Alvin Owusu (43:32.955)
Yeah, and I'm gonna back you up on this one, but also kinda go a different direction. As a tennis, okay, I'll use the term tennis nerd again, or maybe a tennis purist, right? I don't want to watch five hours of tennis, right? Like, I would say the best way to watch tennis is either you're right behind the baseline or you're at home.

Anastasia Folorunso (43:44.024)
Yeah.

Anastasia Folorunso (43:57.409)
Yeah. Yes.

Alvin Owusu (43:59.175)
Like the further away you get from like right behind the player the worse it gets and once you get about You know 15 rows up. You might as well just go like watch it at home. It's better Because it is like I'm reminding I was running to this in DC like it's so hot it can be so hot and Maybe DC was abnormally hot, but I felt myself like this is I forgot how bad this is sitting at like for my coaching days Just like sitting watching tennis outside in the Sun in July. I this kind of sucks

I mean, this is cool. I was, I was talking to someone, I was like, you're better off playing. At least you're moving around. You're sweating on purpose. hate, I hate sweating in non, non sweat appropriate situations. Like as a spectator, spectator shouldn't be sweating, but, I think the beauty of going to tennis events is that tennis itself being around it, is its own vibe. I don't think you necessarily have to.

Anastasia Folorunso (44:29.62)
Imagine playing it.

Anastasia Folorunso (44:35.274)
Right, right, you get Breeze.

Anastasia Folorunso (44:42.402)
Right, right.

Alvin Owusu (44:58.31)
play tennis to be a fan of tennis. Although most people who I think are fans of tennis, a lot of them play. It's like one of those sports where you can actually play. But the beauty of it is like, it's a good hang. Like you can't go to a Hawks game for 10 hours. You can go to a tennis tournament for 10 hours though. Yeah, and just hang out. And hang out. So like to your point about Miami, I thought Miami, they're doing a bang up job.

Anastasia Folorunso (45:09.58)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Anastasia Folorunso (45:16.792)
10 hours. Yep.

Alvin Owusu (45:27.598)
with what they've got there, considering it's a tournament in a parking lot. and they're also constructing an F1 race in the middle of the tournament, right? but you get all the things. I think the best things that you would ask for it if it's in a tournament, like you, you have the practice courts right there where you can go see the players up close. you can easily, you know, great seating on all the courts outside of the stadium and even there's plenty of takes available in the stadium and they do a pretty good job of turning that monstrosity into.

Anastasia Folorunso (45:30.999)
Yeah.

Alvin Owusu (45:57.095)
you know, tennis-ish specific. It's a hard ask, it's a hard ask anyways. I hate stadiums for tennis. See, like, yeah, yeah. And I'm going to the US Open this year. I had to buy a ticket. I am, I am, I.

Anastasia Folorunso (46:01.312)
Yeah, I'm not a big fan of stadiums for tennis. I don't like ash at all.

Anastasia Folorunso (46:16.684)
Are you going to Ash? You know, the last time I bought a ticket to Ash was maybe 2018. Yeah, I don't buy tickets to Ash anymore. I just can't. It's just not, because again, I'm like, I might as well watch it on TV, because that's what it looks like. Yeah.

Alvin Owusu (46:31.088)
So here's my, here's my.

Right. Well, here's my logic and this is why it's different for you because you live there, right? Myself and three of my buddies were traveling to New York for the us open so We have like at that point like I can't like as much as I know that they all have fun and we would we all did they'll show it open together as well but like I know they'll have fun if we get a grounds pass and we've done it before at the ocean open but like if it rains like we don't We need so you need somewhere to go like we can't run the risk of like no tennis. So I was like, okay, well pony up. So we got Louie on

Anastasia Folorunso (46:42.272)
Right, exactly, and that's different, yeah.

Anastasia Folorunso (46:57.558)
You need somewhere to go. Yeah. Yeah.

Alvin Owusu (47:05.742)
I think day four, day session, Louis day five, or day session during day five, and then Arthur Ashe that night. So, I'm like, okay, you guys have seen Ashe on TV, US Open at night, we're gonna go do it. Like, we're gonna do it.

Anastasia Folorunso (47:21.216)
And I think it's definitely something if you've never been to the US Open, I always say it's just something you need to see. You need to see it and experience it. And then you also need to go all the way to the top. if you guys, don't know where you're sitting, but wherever you're sitting, just find some time to go all the way to the top. And then you can see Manhattan from Ash, especially if the sun's about to set. Like it's actually a gorgeous, gorgeous view and moment. And then you look down into Ash and you're like this.

Alvin Owusu (47:42.596)
Okay

Anastasia Folorunso (47:51.384)
is bananas. And I think that's why lot of tennis players are like, they just don't play anywhere like Ash on tour because it's just, it's an arena. That's an arena. You know, I don't know where else there's an arena, but Ash is an arena. Settling cup. But it's definitely somewhere, experience it once.

Alvin Owusu (48:05.657)
Yeah.

Alvin Owusu (48:11.653)
Yeah, that's good.

Anastasia Folorunso (48:21.164)
But in terms of tennis viewing, it's an experience for one time, but I would not recommend it for multiple days. Let's just say that.

Alvin Owusu (48:30.253)
Right, right. So like in 2008 when I went, we were up in the nosebleeds for both nights. And I think the first night we saw Fed and that was cool because I got to see, I got to be in the same general vicinity as Roger Federer as he was playing tennis, right? Okay, great. And then the next night we went and Donald Young was playing against James Blake and it got into a tussle of a match and they ended up bringing everyone down.

Anastasia Folorunso (48:35.874)
Mm.

Alvin Owusu (48:58.671)
to the lower bowl for the fifth set. like at that point I was like on the baseline, like baseline on the sideline, but near the baseline, maybe 10 rows back. And I was like, this is amazing. Like this is amazing.

Anastasia Folorunso (49:00.987)
nice.

Anastasia Folorunso (49:09.944)
Yeah. The Lower Bowl, I mean, I will have to say, and maybe this is why I haven't gone since 2018, because I just remember buying tickets for round one, Lower Bowl, I think it was like, and this was like, for me, this was like a treat. Like this was just the treat of treats. I think I got them for like 350 or something like that, but it was courtside on ash.

Alvin Owusu (49:38.499)
Yeah. Yeah.

Anastasia Folorunso (49:42.124)
$350 and that night I had bought my ticket sight unseen, because that's what tennis, that's what we have. We don't know who's playing. And what luck do I have but Serena and Roger are playing that night.

Alvin Owusu (49:55.191)
Ooh, that's tough. That's tough.

Anastasia Folorunso (49:58.616)
And I was just like, I have the best luck in the world and I'm courtside and it's 350. This is the best thing ever. 350 could not get you into the nosebleeds people. Okay, okay. I don't know if we're gonna talk price, but probably that is why I haven't bought tickets to Ash recently.

Alvin Owusu (50:11.065)
Yeah, it's that's that's.

Alvin Owusu (50:17.669)
Well, I mean, like now it's like you have to like get on like with an MX on pre-sale day. Yeah, it's obnoxious. Like I don't, I went through the process. Yeah, I didn't enjoy the process. I did it begrudgingly the whole time. But it's gonna be great. Yeah, it's gonna be, it's gonna be great. I, oh God.

Anastasia Folorunso (50:23.009)
You just need to sell a liver, that's all. It's fine. It's okay. Just sell a liver, maybe half of a kidney, and you'll be good. You'll be golden.

Anastasia Folorunso (50:40.137)
It's gonna be, you'll have the best time. You'll have like so many honey juices. It'll be so fun. It'll be so fun.

Alvin Owusu (50:48.003)
Yeah, I don't wanna go. I kinda wanna sell my ticket. By the time I get 10 days out, if the forecast is looking good, I might sell my ticket and try to get a grounds pass instead. Maybe, we shall see. okay. One thing I wanted to ask you about, well probably two more things. The WTA aspect. You mentioned that it's 60-40 for you.

Anastasia Folorunso (51:09.836)
Yes.

Alvin Owusu (51:15.057)
WT at ATP I'll give you my my my view and then I want to I want to get kind of what you're going through so a few years ago I met that I a buddy we were friends before but then he started playing tennis and Explained to me that he's like all in on the WTA and he was so because he watched the Serena documentary doc documentary documentary documentary my god read a book and then

Anastasia Folorunso (51:38.305)
to read.

Alvin Owusu (51:44.459)
A few months, I think months later, he and his wife went to the US Open and he was like, I'm all in. Like this is also my gateway drug. And I told him like, look, I've been in tennis for a long time. I don't watch much women's tennis for no reasons that are good. I just don't. And he got me into the WTA, like paying attention to the WTA. Fast forward, I don't know. It's been like probably five years now. And I...

Appreciate the WTA as a product more so than I do the ATP like I'm with you. I'm with you I feel like there's good stuff in the first two rounds There's always gonna be good stuff like really good tennis in the last two rounds I and then the personalities I think they're much more interesting than the male players at this current juncture So yeah, I am I'm probably 70 30 Paying attention to WTA over ATP right now

Anastasia Folorunso (52:18.038)
Mmm.

Anastasia Folorunso (52:42.966)
Yeah.

Alvin Owusu (52:43.726)
How did you get to where you are?

Anastasia Folorunso (52:45.623)
Well, for me, know, again, starting the podcast, I was still very much 80 20 and then Nick definitely started introducing me to more players and I get to know who the players are and their personalities and stuff. But I feel like the thing with the WTA is that their storylines are more fun. They're just more fun, like, and they're more personalities like the guys, they have their

20 or so players that are fun. But they don't meet up as normal, they don't meet up normally. Why? Because they're mostly all the top players. I don't know if you know it, because for example, let's just say one to 20. You're like, okay, cool, those are the fun personalities, those are the ones I know, great, great, And they don't really meet up. Sometimes they meet up at the end, sometimes they're upset, like.

Alvin Owusu (53:15.78)
Hmm

Anastasia Folorunso (53:41.909)
I'm not saying it's bad or good or anything, but the storyline sometimes you're just like, okay, well, call me when it's interesting kind of vibe. With the WTA, it's like Naomi Osaka is playing Emma Rouducano round two. And you're like, what? Who? Sign me up. Egos Fjartek is playing Naomi Osaka at the French Open round two? Let's go.

Alvin Owusu (53:56.525)
Right.

Alvin Owusu (53:59.993)
And like, there's also so many like active.

Alvin Owusu (54:06.616)
There are so many active WTA players who have randomly want either randomly want to grand slam or like, yeah, randomly want to grand slam who are all playing in the same tournament. Whereas the guys are like, I think I'm going to guess there are four active players who have won a grand slam. I don't know that that's true, but I'm not far off. I'm not far off. Okay. So yeah, so that's five that I think it's like Stan, obviously Yannick and Carlos, right? Stan, Chillich and Medvedev.

Anastasia Folorunso (54:16.416)
Yeah.

They're four. Yeah.

Anastasia Folorunso (54:24.884)
Right now, well, Rovrinka is still playing, so.

Anastasia Folorunso (54:32.936)
Yeah, Chilich Djokovic Medvedev. But again, those guys, if they play, they're meeting in the quarters. It's gonna take a minute, you know? And you're gonna have to hope they all get there because God knows someone's gonna be upset randomly in round one. And you're just gonna be like, really? You had one job, to get to that guy, and you did not. You're messing up my fun time. But with the women,

Alvin Owusu (54:36.837)
joke of it, shit, six, okay, maybe six.

Alvin Owusu (54:43.66)
Right. It's going to take a while and you need some help. Yeah.

Alvin Owusu (54:51.534)
Yep. Yep.

Alvin Owusu (54:59.468)
Yeah, yeah.

Anastasia Folorunso (55:02.58)
Because for whatever reason, injury, had to leave, take a break, they're coming back, they all have the different personalities and they're all spread out through the top 100. So you will randomly get a first round that you're like, how is that a first round match? But I'm ready. Let's sit down and watch that. And then you just have the characters. Like Sarah Cerebro's Torma.

You just know, you're like, we're about to have a five hour match. Let's go, let's go girl. how many? The score line will be like six, two, six, three. And it will be four hours. And you're just like, how did we get here girl? What happened? What did we do? But so there are those sort of personalities where I don't know who the guy version of her is, you know, or you'll get.

Alvin Owusu (55:41.348)
Yeah. Yeah.

Alvin Owusu (55:52.485)
Like Kortamute, probably. But like, to non-tennis people, like who the hell is he?

Anastasia Folorunso (55:59.519)
Yeah, but also to non-tennis people who's Sarah Sebers-Toma. So that's, I mean, that's really niche. But then at the same time, think that's fun. Like Laura Siegmund, you know? But also there's, and I don't know if it's just the draw gods are in their favor right now. But for example, Laura Siegmund beats Madison Keys at Wimbledon. Who does Madison Keys get next since Wimbledon? Laura Siegmund.

Alvin Owusu (56:02.809)
Fair.

Alvin Owusu (56:09.667)
Yeah.

Anastasia Folorunso (56:27.954)
Everyone wants to watch that because you want to know, my God. Yeah, they just played. She crushed her, crushed her. But that's the storyline. You're like, is it going to happen again? What's going to, you know, that's kind of that's what gets that, you know, excitement going. And I, but here's what I will say.

Alvin Owusu (56:29.825)
Didn't they play like earlier this week? Like they played in Toronto. yeah, she she didn't Madison beat her down Yeah, yeah, as she would as she would

Anastasia Folorunso (56:54.826)
We are talking as people who know tennis. As someone who comes across a lot of casual fans every single day, it is Carlos Ocaraz, Yannick Senar, Coco Goff, and Naomi Osaka. If you're not those four people, you do not exist. You just don't. Novak Djokovic obviously too because he's been around a while, but that's what I think

Alvin Owusu (57:13.54)
Mmm. Yeah.

Anastasia Folorunso (57:24.052)
And that's why we have like sort of episodes, because we have a YouTube now where we do things outside of the podcast and we have our YouTube where we create reels and stuff. And that's why we have stuff like Meet the Player. Because we just want to introduce these players to people because how can you go around the world and not know who Victoria Mboku is? Or you you don't know who Alex de Menor is. Like people don't know who Alex de Menor is. And for you and me,

Alvin Owusu (57:50.402)
And he's a top 10 person in the world at his job. At his job. Yeah.

Anastasia Folorunso (57:54.069)
at his job. For you and me, that's impossible. How can you not know who Diminor is? But person down the street who just got into tennis because they watched Challenger, and Challenger came out like last year or whatever, and they've been quote unquote paying attention to tennis since then, they still don't know who Alex Diminor is. They barely know who Medvedev is. So I think for us, we do live in a bubble a bit.

Alvin Owusu (58:13.421)
Wha- Yeah...

Anastasia Folorunso (58:23.342)
And it's almost why when someone was actually talking to me today, you know, it was yesterday asking me about something on tennis Twitter. And I was just like, my reply was tennis Twitter is not real life. Because I feel like there's this group of fans and we're all fans of tennis and you all live in this bubble and you just say things and you're like, it's true. You know, it's just like, everything's like a statement, you know? And I'm just like, just.

Go outside a little bit, people don't know this. They just don't.

Alvin Owusu (58:58.767)
Okay, so there's a lot to unpack there, right? Like, yes, we do live in a bubble. people, and it's not just people inside tennis, and I don't know if I consider myself to be inside tennis, but I'm not a casual, right, yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, don't know, actually, I don't know what you would consider inside tennis, but whatever it is, maybe we are both inside tennis. But not only are we in that bubble,

Anastasia Folorunso (59:11.958)
But you know who Alex de Menor is, you're inside tennis.

Anastasia Folorunso (59:19.796)
Right.

Alvin Owusu (59:26.189)
but we're also in the American bubble, right? So, and the American bubble is not necessarily just attuned to like American players, but you have the American way of following sports. And this is the one that gets really interesting for, I think for our intents and purposes and that like, we see the increase in activity in the last two days of Grand Slams, right? When most in the American market, people start paying attention, right?

Anastasia Folorunso (59:28.736)
Yeah. Yep. Yep.

Alvin Owusu (59:56.044)
One of the downsides about not downsides. One of the beautiful things about tennis is that it's a global sport, which means it's on all the time, but all during the day as well. Right. So, but our during the day is evening in Europe. Right. So European fans have a different view of tennis the same way. Australian fans have a different view of the NBA, right? Like the NBA is on like in the morning for them, which is a very, like when I used to work for the NBA, like that's a very, that is a thing you have to consider.

Anastasia Folorunso (01:00:01.661)
the time.

Anastasia Folorunso (01:00:17.012)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Alvin Owusu (01:00:25.283)
Like the way that they watch basketball. There's no going out to the bar at night and watching a game with your friends because it's happening at like nine o'clock in the morning. But in Europe, I think they're used to watching sports in a slightly different way than we are. Well, they see tennis. Tennis is, they see tennis the way that we watch basketball. It's at night so they can watch it all the time. And I do find that non tennis fans tend to be a little more open to

Anastasia Folorunso (01:00:43.957)
Mm.

Alvin Owusu (01:00:54.659)
players who are not from where they're from. Let's put it that way. So like in the United States, it seems like we are all very pro US tennis players. Your casual fan is like, if it's not center Alcaraes and Coco, it is.

Anastasia Folorunso (01:01:00.789)
Really?

Anastasia Folorunso (01:01:09.694)
you mean like for us we tend to be yes. Yes. Yes. Yeah Yeah, yep

Alvin Owusu (01:01:13.443)
Yes, as Americans, yes. Loosely, as we're both loosely, we are Americans, but we are lineage Americans. In Europe, they're a little more, even if it's European tennis players, there's a lot of European tennis players, right, to pull from. So I think the consumption habits globally for this global sport are just also very different here in the United States. We cover tennis in a weird way, and we...

Anastasia Folorunso (01:01:40.116)
Yeah.

Alvin Owusu (01:01:41.601)
And then our fans are used to following sports in a different way. That's just kind of my, as I skim the top of like how tennis gets covered here, I think that has a lot to do with it.

Anastasia Folorunso (01:01:46.132)
Yeah.

Anastasia Folorunso (01:01:52.614)
And to that respect, you know, it's kind of also something, you know, I think, especially when you're introducing a new sport to people, I feel like sometimes you can also try and introduce new habits to people. You know, we have a thing where I do my coffee catch ups. And the reason why I even created coffee catch up was because I like watching tennis and when tennis is in Europe.

tennis is on at 5 a.m. and that's when I'm getting up and having my coffee. it was, like, I remember I put a post out where, yeah, it was like, the only reason I could, it wasn't like a sort of like a, how do I sell, no, it was literally because that's what I did. I woke up, I made coffee, and I caught up with the tennis. That was all I did.

Alvin Owusu (01:02:17.527)
Yeah.

Alvin Owusu (01:02:24.739)
I love the coffee catch-ups by the way. was my first interaction with ground pass. I was like, oh, I love that aesthetic. That's good. That's so good.

Anastasia Folorunso (01:02:45.851)
But I remember coming back from City Open and the tours in Canada and I all of a sudden realized, I was like, wait, what do I do at 6 a.m.? What am I doing? What am I supposed to do right now? I have my coffee, but there's nothing to go with it. This is...

Alvin Owusu (01:02:56.201)
Right. Isn't it horrible? Isn't it horrible?

Alvin Owusu (01:03:02.539)
It's the worst. It's the worst.

Alvin Owusu (01:03:07.543)
You can go live a whole half day before tennis starts. It's bad. It's not good. No, no, no, it's not good.

Anastasia Folorunso (01:03:11.209)
Which is weird. It's not good. So it's kind of introducing, you I used to talk a lot on the podcast and these are like, guys, like, you know, what I do is I wake up and I, as I get ready, I put on the tennis, like it's a thing. So it's almost if you're gonna, if they're gonna be new fans and they're looking for a new way to like consume the sport and things, like, I feel like it's, it's my duty. Maybe duty is too big a word.

But to show them, hey, this is a way you can do it. Just like the Australians have their coffee and NBA, you can have your coffee and tennis. That sort of thing, so.

Alvin Owusu (01:03:47.383)
Yeah. Yeah. I think you're doing the right thing. You're a much more patient person than I am. What you're doing is, you're doing God's work. It's amazing. It's amazing.

Anastasia Folorunso (01:04:03.093)
I don't know, think for me, I feel lucky and privileged to even be able to do something that I love that it's not even, I don't know, it's not hard really. there's no, I wish there was strategy behind it. Like sometimes I'm like, maybe you should have a plan. But.

Alvin Owusu (01:04:24.546)
Mmm. Now, what's that? That's you don't need that

Anastasia Folorunso (01:04:26.675)
No, but a lot of the things that I think of, it's literally just because I already have the habits going. So I'm just like, let's do coffee catch up or the this week in tennis thing. You know how the this week in tennis thing came up? We were talking about our Filipino friend Alex Ayala. I got back from Miami Open this year and she had just won her match against Ega. Yes, I think it was the match against Ega. And I was just like,

Whoa, who's this, what? And it wasn't even like who's this girl. I knew who Alex Sayala was. I watched, unfortunately, because at the time, Alex Sayala had tried so many times to get into the main draw of Grand Slams and failed every time in the last round. And last year at the US Open, a friend of mine and I watched Alex Sayala.

Alvin Owusu (01:05:18.197)
Okay.

Anastasia Folorunso (01:05:24.157)
She was leading in the last match and she didn't get in and it was so painful and she's so popular. There were tons of Filipino fans there watching her and she didn't leave the court. She just stayed there in tears signing every single hat, every ball, every piece of paper. And I have a video of it still where I was just like, this is a lot.

Alvin Owusu (01:05:28.066)
Mm-hmm.

Alvin Owusu (01:05:36.032)
Yeah. Yep.

Alvin Owusu (01:05:48.066)
Wow.

Alvin Owusu (01:05:54.017)
Yeah.

Anastasia Folorunso (01:05:54.055)
Like this is, but she just, she just, know, they came to see her and she was going to take every selfie and I was, I was, I was literally taken by her. So when that happened, I was like, my God, look at her go. Like she's, you know, so I randomly made a video being like Alexialla, like here she goes. And I put it, and at the time I was like, this isn't really what we do on Groundpass and

Alvin Owusu (01:06:16.204)
Yeah.

Anastasia Folorunso (01:06:23.814)
I had a TikTok for Groundpass that a friend of mine had set up. So I put it on TikTok, because I was like, nobody watches that anyway. So I'll just put that video there. Blew up, exploded, exploded. And I was like, whoa, what is this? But what then happened was I just got so many questions. When is she playing next? What's happening? Who's going, what's going? And I was just like, how do I answer these questions?

Alvin Owusu (01:06:32.492)
Right. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah.

Anastasia Folorunso (01:06:53.012)
in a way that is still authentic to ground pass, because I can't individually be like, okay, so Alexia Yalda's playing here and here here. I was like, I can't do that. So then I was like, okay, I made a video and the first line I said in the video was, this week in tennis, blah, blah, blah, blah, and that was it. That's how this week in tennis started. And now it's a weekly thing that we do this week in tennis where we just talk about what's happening that week in tennis.

Alvin Owusu (01:07:00.694)
Yeah, yeah.

Alvin Owusu (01:07:14.262)
Gotcha.

It's a weak

Anastasia Folorunso (01:07:21.908)
And it was out of a random video that blew up because of Alex Ayala. So that's pretty much how everything in Groundpass has ever happened. I'm not even joking. The whole, you talked about our sub stack a little bit. Our sub stack is called Groundpass On Sight. And every time I'm on site at a tournament, I basically do.

Alvin Owusu (01:07:26.572)
Gotcha.

Alvin Owusu (01:07:30.474)
It makes a lot of...

Anastasia Folorunso (01:07:49.973)
maybe not vlog, because sometimes I am walking around and taking you through the day. Sometimes I just sit down and do the whole video in one. But basically what it is, is I talk through my day on site, talk about either what happened or if there are any tips and tricks. They're all random. But also then I give a write up. put sometimes, I'll put clips of interviews if I talk to players, in the write up section of it, in the video. And the reason that came about,

was because when I was, the year before when I went to Indian Wells in Miami, I did that for Groundpass. But I just put it on our podcast feed. And it was a bit weird because now all of a sudden you just had like six podcast episodes that were all like three to seven minutes long of just me at the end of the day talking about what happened that day.

Alvin Owusu (01:08:46.995)
Yeah, it's a little weird for audio. Yeah.

Anastasia Folorunso (01:08:49.032)
And it was just kind of weird to just put it on our regular feed and I was just like, what do I do with these? Because I liked the idea. I liked the idea of kind of like, hey, this is what it's like on the grounds and let me tell you about it. But I didn't know where to put it. And at the time, like every Tom, Dick and Harry had a sub stack. And I was like, you have a sub stack, everybody has a sub stack. I was like, okay. I was like, I guess ground pass should have a sub stack. But I was like, why?

Alvin Owusu (01:09:12.641)
It's the new podcast.

Anastasia Folorunso (01:09:17.044)
Why would we have a sub stack? What are we gonna put on the sub stack? And when it came time to travel this year, I was in Delray. I literally had already landed in Delray. And then I was like, okay, so now it's time to do this daily podcast thing that I put on the podcast feed. It's really strange. And I was like, I'll just put it on the sub stack, because it's a thing on its own. And that's where Ground Pass On Sight came about. I was just like, I'll put it on the sub stack. And it.

And it was perfect because as a platform, think Substack, it's interesting because, and I actually think I'm gonna do an explainer video because I think people don't even really understand what we do on there because we have the video. But then there's a write up and then there are audio clips and then there are photos and that's all in one package. And there isn't any platform that I know of that does that. And I kind of like it.

I've slowly, I was one of those people who was like, I don't get it. I don't get sub-stuck. And now I've slowly become like a person that I'm like, I get, I like it. interesting. Cause you can kind of make it what you want. Like you can just do the traditional newsletter where it's just like a write-up.

Alvin Owusu (01:10:21.482)
I'm that person.

Alvin Owusu (01:10:27.905)
Okay, okay.

Alvin Owusu (01:10:35.401)
Yeah, because that's where a lot of writers have left publications and started their own thing on Substack. So in my head, Substack is a place where writers go to write things.

Anastasia Folorunso (01:10:38.034)
Wait!

Anastasia Folorunso (01:10:43.859)
to just write things, but then you can actually, it's a collage of stuff. You can make it whatever you want it to be, and I find that interesting and weirdly creative. I'm just like, oh, okay, I'll put a clip of this and then a video attached, and then, you know, it's fun almost. I don't know, it's cool.

Alvin Owusu (01:11:05.633)
All right, well, okay, you mentioned your Alex Ayala situation going ham, right? And we were a little earlier in our podcast journey and I did also notice on our side, it went a little ham. And I didn't even make a video about it. We were just talking about the Miami Open and talked about her for like a few minutes. And yeah, that was cool. It's good to see representation matters, Filipino woman. The Filipinos absolutely support Alex.

Anastasia Folorunso (01:11:11.143)
Yeah.

Alvin Owusu (01:11:35.124)
Alex and her journey. But a thing that went viral in my world, Sally Jenkins wrote this piece recently about her current displeasure with how American Tennis is broadcast in America, primarily throwing huge amounts of shade at John and Patrick McEnroe. I re-shared this on Instagram and holy moly.

Anastasia Folorunso (01:11:36.968)
Yeah.

Anastasia Folorunso (01:11:42.291)
Mmm. Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes.

Anastasia Folorunso (01:11:57.693)
Mm-hmm.

Alvin Owusu (01:12:04.757)
Holy moly, the people, the keyboard heroes just coming out of the woodworks. I mean, I didn't make the content, I didn't make it, I just reshared it. It picked up a lot of followers though, so that's cool. But the gist of her argument, and this is actually something that I do share her opinion, is that the McEnroe, John McEnroe specifically,

is probably a little out of touch with.

tennis for tennis fans, right? He's very much so speaking to the people. He's talking about the top players, which as we've talked about today, a lot of casual tennis fans know the top two men, Koko Goff plus one or two women. And it seems that he is part of either following the same narrative or is part of creating that narrative. I don't know. Where do you...

Anastasia Folorunso (01:13:02.429)
Yeah.

Alvin Owusu (01:13:05.761)
I don't want your opinion necessarily on how the Mac and Rose cover tennis, but where do you think this next generation of...

tennis media, this tennis media 2.0 I will call it, how can they, we change the way that tennis is covered? What would you like to see?

Anastasia Folorunso (01:13:31.592)
Yeah, I would say we, obviously. Because I think if you're going to cover anything, anything at all, you cover jam. I don't know. Whatever it is. I think you have a responsibility to give a full picture of something. And you do a disservice to your audience if you only

Alvin Owusu (01:13:33.802)
Eheh

Anastasia Folorunso (01:14:00.766)
give them the bare minimum or even less. And there is a train of thought where, well, this is what the people want. Dude, if we only did what the people wanted, well, we know how that went. So.

Alvin Owusu (01:14:17.502)
Right. Is it or is going? A lot of overlap, by the way. A lot of overlap in that space.

Anastasia Folorunso (01:14:26.575)
So I just think we can't just stick to, well, you know, we're just gonna talk about Serena and Venus and Roger and Nadal and Djokovic and that's it. That's tennis guys, that's tennis, done. There's more than that.

than tennis. Do you know about Thomas Mahak and how short his shorts are? know, do you know about Quentin Moutet and how he's a little crazy? And remember when he asked about coffee in the middle of a match in Madrid? Do you know about Sarah Cerubis Tomo and how she can play a best out of three match and it's still four hours and she's breaking records? You know, do you know about

Beatrice Haddad-Maya and her also three set records because she just can't play a straight set in her life. These are stories too. And they're actually some of the best stories. And as I think we are all storytellers in our lives, I think that's, I don't know, that's how as a culture we grow and we're better is because we tell stories about the past and the present.

I think we owe it to ourselves to tell good stories and not just regurgitate the same old same old every single grand slam. Remember when I was a dinner splitter? No. Think of something new. What? And here's the thing. What TNT did for the French Open Roland Garros. Put everyone to shame. Everybody.

Alvin Owusu (01:16:08.416)
Mm-hmm.

Anastasia Folorunso (01:16:13.2)
Because if they could do that, how in the world does ESPN come out and do what they did at Wimbledon? Again. And I, know, naively, because I always just, I always try and start, you know, from a place of, you know, let me see first, you know? TNT, and if anyone listening doesn't know, but I feel like everyone knows because they watched it, because TNT just, broke the mold.

They introduced people who had never covered the sport before, but had the respect to learn about the sport and show that yes, they don't know about the sport, but they're willing to try. You know, they had a...

roundtable show that I'd never seen of before where they would like take you around the grounds during the early rounds to wherever the action was happening. When I first heard of that concept, I was like, I don't know about that. The way they did it was awesome. It was so good. The banter between the commentators who did it, was Mark Petchy, Coco Vande Wey, and Chris Eubanks was awesome. And here's the thing, it wasn't for everybody.

There are lot of tennis people who are like, I can't listen to them talk over and over again. I was like, you know what, my guy, there's this part of the system, it's just, you can click on only the match you wanna watch, go do that. You don't have to listen to them. There was option. There was option for, you could watch on demand, you could pick a specific match and watch that, or you could do their morning show kind of round table vibe. They had all the, they brought the players to this desk where they would ask them

Alvin Owusu (01:17:38.654)
Yeah. Yeah.

Anastasia Folorunso (01:17:56.151)
fun questions, like it was just different and fun and engaging. There were a lot of social media clips that were going around in different social platforms and just tennis channel, tennis TV, ATPWTA, was everywhere. was Bleacher Report, was House of Highlights, it was everywhere. And so I thought, okay, ESPN's gonna see this and be like, watch us work.

They didn't do anything. It was just the same old, same old, and it was dull. It wasn't fun.

Alvin Owusu (01:18:27.081)
Right.

It's, so I, it's really, really good to, one, I agree with you. I think TNT Sports did a fantastic job with Roland Garros, like fantastic job, and I was skeptical that they would. I guess full disclosure, I've spent a lot of my professional career working for TNT Sports. I don't work there now, but it's a thing that I'm very well versed in, right?

Anastasia Folorunso (01:18:57.841)
Mm-hmm.

Alvin Owusu (01:18:59.654)
So with that being one, two, it's hard for, like it took them a year, almost a year to plan that, right? To really nail it. And they also had the benefit of seeing how everyone else does it and knew that they wanted to do it differently. And I say everyone else here in the United States, there are only two entities that cover tennis. ESPN covers the other three Grand Slams, right?

with the same, more or less the same crew and then tennis channel, right? Who covers everything else besides the grand slams for the American audience. So I didn't think that whatever TNT Sports did at Roland Garros was going to be able, ESPN was going to be able to adjust quick enough and do something at Wimbledon. I am curious to see, like it's all, it's not, it's too, it's, that stuff's already baked. Like that stuff's already baked. Like the amount of

Anastasia Folorunso (01:19:31.026)
and then Teta shell. Yep.

Anastasia Folorunso (01:19:49.606)
That's...

Anastasia Folorunso (01:19:56.1)
As someone who, and I think I haven't said this yet on the podcast, but I work in film and television production, it can be done, okay? If you try hard enough, and if you care hard enough, it can be, is it easy? No. And yes, I know what you're gonna be asked, have you worked in live TV before? Okay, what were you gonna ask?

Alvin Owusu (01:20:07.7)
Have you?

Alvin Owusu (01:20:13.311)
Nope, that's not what I was gonna ask. I was gonna ask about Wimbledon. Have you been to the All England Club? Okay, it's, one, it's super tight, it's small. They couldn't, I mean it's smaller footprint-wise, it's smaller than Roll of Garos, and Roll of Garos is tight. I don't know if they could pull it off there. And Wimbledon doesn't really allow you, yeah, yeah, and they wouldn't let,

Anastasia Folorunso (01:20:19.996)
no, I haven't been to Wimbledon before. No.

Anastasia Folorunso (01:20:33.746)
You mean in terms of putting up a stage and like doing see here's the thing

Alvin Owusu (01:20:39.305)
They wouldn't let them do it either. That's the other thing. Like the All England Club is very, no, you think they would be, they don't even let people, they don't even let sponsors put up logos there. Like there's three sponsors that can put up logos at Wimbledon.

Anastasia Folorunso (01:20:48.274)
Here's the thing, everything, okay. And because this is my thing where a lot of, because a lot of the commentary I've heard about this is similar to what you're saying in the sense that, they couldn't do that. Like, you know, where would they put the stage and like all this stuff? like, the tennis podcast broadcasts live.

Alvin Owusu (01:21:12.958)
Yeah. Yes. Yep. Yep. Yep. They're on a stage now. have a desk now. They have a desk now.

Anastasia Folorunso (01:21:15.096)
at the end of the day from a bench, thousands, thousands of people watch it on YouTube live every evening. They can't do that? Because I think there's this thought, you know, think that, and this is where, this is where my nerdy media brain is gonna come in now. But there's,

Alvin Owusu (01:21:25.663)
I watch it. I'm with you.

Alvin Owusu (01:21:32.753)
F-

Alvin Owusu (01:21:42.419)
Let's do it. Let's do it.

Anastasia Folorunso (01:21:44.364)
But there's this thought I feel that everything has to be NBC, CBS, morning show, desk. Nobody watches TV like that anymore. People would rather watch you sit on a bench and talk honestly and from the heart than watch you at a desk with lights and makeup and whatever. If ESPN set up a little bench, had a

had freaking Chris Eubanks and two of his friends every night talk about the tennis of the day. Man, I just sold a show. Come on. I just sold that show. I just sold that show. You know what I mean? Yeah. Exactly. doesn't have to be Eubanks. It could be literally both of us. But that's a show. And you know, I know there are all these rights issues and stuff or whatever for Wimbledon.

Alvin Owusu (01:22:21.225)
Yeah, two of his friends, maybe it should be us. Maybe it should be us. Eubanks is an Atlanta guy, maybe it could be us, I don't know.

Alvin Owusu (01:22:33.791)
We'll bring Chris.

Anastasia Folorunso (01:22:41.677)
ESPN has rights. They can do this. They just didn't. Why? Because they're sitting in a booth with the commentators that they've had for 20 years saying the same thing they've been saying for 20 years. And by the way, ESPN does have a desk. It's just inside.

Alvin Owusu (01:22:56.625)
It's, it is an inside desk and.

Anastasia Folorunso (01:22:58.585)
It's an inside desk and they have their own morning show. Why don't they have, well, I feel like once or twice they had players in there. But usually all they have is like they bring Cahill, they bring Gilbert and that's it. And I'm like, you've done that for 20 years.

Alvin Owusu (01:23:09.155)
Yep. Everett and they do the thing. Mary Jo. Yeah. They're talking to an audience that you mentioned House of Highlights and Bleacher Report like covering, covering Roland Garros. They're also owned by TNT Sports. it's really just the same. It's the same people cutting content for the same, like just for different public, like for different outlets. it's, but it's all coming from the same people.

Anastasia Folorunso (01:23:31.964)
for the same, right, right. But again, I just think they could have done more interesting things. Because they did, for example, they did have a desk. They had the typical sort of like morning show, you know, desk. They had it inside with the Wimbledon colors. They had this silly like, it almost looked like a weather wall that Brad Gilbert will go to sometimes and be like.

Alvin Owusu (01:23:40.829)
Yeah, I mean.

Alvin Owusu (01:23:48.755)
Yeah.

Alvin Owusu (01:23:53.885)
Yeah, yeah, was, remember, yeah, I remember that, was like, what is that? Why are they doing that?

Anastasia Folorunso (01:23:58.322)
you know, like it would show stats and things. like, do you think I want to be, I don't care about the stats right now, but what is this pasta with the strawberries and how do I make it? Like, what is that? Like, why is Ega stealing the towels? Like, what's that? That's what people were, that's what people were, you know, following. Like all of a sudden strawberry pasta became a thing.

Alvin Owusu (01:24:06.342)
Yeah. Right. Yeah.

Alvin Owusu (01:24:16.69)
Yeah.

Alvin Owusu (01:24:22.152)
And this is.

Also, this is why Grand Slam tennis is like my least favorite. Like the tennis I don't pay attention to as much is because it's, it is packaged for the masses, right? And we don't have time or space to get into that stuff. The interesting tennis stuff, because we're so used to like, there's a lot of ESPN is going to be very risk averse of changing anything when it comes to the amount of money they've invested in the rights for I'm going down the wrong path. I don't really want to talk about rights.

Anastasia Folorunso (01:24:29.882)
Right.

Anastasia Folorunso (01:24:40.781)
I do.

Alvin Owusu (01:24:53.627)
I don't want talk about it.

Anastasia Folorunso (01:24:53.841)
All I will say is this package is stale and the masses don't actually want that anymore. I'm sorry, I do not know what masses wanted to watch Brad Gilbert point at a weather-like screen telling me about...

Alvin Owusu (01:24:58.96)
Yes.

Anastasia Folorunso (01:25:11.831)
some percentage or not percentage. They all wanted to know what was in the damn strawberry pasta and is, you mash the strawberries or do you just cut them in there or how does that work now? Like what are we doing? Like ego-scientic, tell me, is this real? Okay, that's what people wanna know along with the tennis, obviously, because it's still a tennis tournament, but.

Alvin Owusu (01:25:14.715)
I

Anastasia Folorunso (01:25:37.475)
you just have to get people in in a different way. You can't sort of, and yes, hey, they hit all their numbers, they exceeded all their numbers that they did last year, and it's mostly because of those names that they now have. Like, everyone's gonna watch Karl Zacher as a Yannick sitter, you know? So, I just feel like they can do better.

Alvin Owusu (01:25:54.207)
Yeah, yeah. And maybe that's task for tennis 2.0 then from a media standpoint is like tennis 1.0 is the people who watch John McEnroe play and maybe he got them to pick up a tennis racket and now they are older than us and like listening to McEnroe. Okay, fine. What about, I mean, yeah, Agassiz is nice start.

Anastasia Folorunso (01:26:19.15)
get him younger buddy sidekick.

Anastasia Folorunso (01:26:24.194)
He was so good. I literally, I heard he was on and I turned my VPN on and I switched that thing to BBC So Fast. he was so good. So good.

Alvin Owusu (01:26:25.028)
He was, he was, he was good.

Alvin Owusu (01:26:32.764)
Yeah, yeah, it's, yeah, that's, think that's, that's where we are now. Like these are our, you know, our heroes. It's their turn to kind of take that mantle. But you know, that's, I think that's, that's probably a good place to leave it, I think for today. that was fun. I think everyone who follows this podcast should be following Groundpass as well. a lot of fun stuff over there. Listen, like, subscribe to one or both are all.

Anastasia Folorunso (01:26:41.87)
Yeah.

Alvin Owusu (01:27:01.672)
places you can find it. Wherever you need us to be. That's well put. Where are you gonna be next? What's your next event where you'll be on the grounds?

Anastasia Folorunso (01:27:03.554)
or wherever you need us to be. Let's just say that.

Anastasia Folorunso (01:27:12.194)
We are off to Cincinnati and I cannot believe that's next week already. Tennis, man. They start on Tuesday. Qualifying starts on Tuesday and if you know Groundpass, we're all about the qualifiers because we like to promote the future of the sport.

Alvin Owusu (01:27:17.042)
Yeah, yeah, that's next Wednesday probably or no, no, they start they start early. They're like right after. Yeah. Okay. This is where the schedule gets a little strange.

Alvin Owusu (01:27:28.85)
Love the qualities.

Yeah.

Anastasia Folorunso (01:27:34.156)
So yeah, that is next week already. Like it only hit me yesterday, because I came back from DC and I thought, okay, I have time. And then I was like, I have to be in Cincinnati next week. And I was like, God.

Alvin Owusu (01:27:41.724)
You don't have time. You never have time.

Alvin Owusu (01:27:48.998)
Yeah, I mean you have time like in October, maybe, for a little bit.

Anastasia Folorunso (01:27:52.824)
Yes, that's what I'm saying. I'm sort of like, you know, this is when we power through. We're gonna power through, through the US Open. This is our busy time. And in October, when they're in Asia and matches start at 10 p.m., I will be, that's when I'll take my break.

Alvin Owusu (01:28:09.791)
Yeah, I hear you. It's I mean, that's it's I call it the hundred days of summer, right? We have a hundred days between French open and us open ending. It's like that's it's that's it. That's it's a lot. It's all happening in this window. Yeah, cool. All right. Well, let's you I'll let you get out of here during your busy time. Um, I'm sorry. Thank you so much for coming on. Um, best of three podcasts. We are out

Anastasia Folorunso (01:28:19.322)
This is the busy time.