Her Message: Tennis Tourney On!

Anne Worcester was on the highway up to Albany, working two pitches at once.

Worcester was preparing a pitch to a large insurer to sign on beginning in 2011 as name sponsor of the New Haven tennis tournament she runs—and rescue professional tennis in town.

Meanwhile, she fielded (from the passenger seat of the car) seven phone calls from reporters to spread news about this year’s very-much-alive tournament. The world’s number-two women’s tennis star, Caroline Wozniacki, had just agreed to return to New Haven this August to play the tournament, which she has won twice in the past. Worcester was working the story hard in order to get the word out that the tournament indeed is taking place.

“The sales pitch was all about 2011. The interviews were about 2010,” she said.

Worcester took that car ride on Monday. It reflected the tricky terrain she is navigating these days.

Worcester has been racing to find a new sponsor for the 19-year-old annual USTA tournament at the 13,000-seat Connecticut Tennis Stadium next to the Yale Bowl. Pilot Pen, the tournament’s name sponsor for the last 15 years, notified Worcester last November that it will drop out after the 2010 tournament. If Worcester can’t find a new name sponsor—generally responsible for a third to a half of the tournament’s $4.5 million annual cost—this will be the tournament’s last year. New Haven will lose one of its showcase annual events, a major regional draw.

Meanwhile, ticket sales for this year’s Aug. 20-28 tournament are down 25 percent. That’s partly because of the down economy. (During the recession more fans have tended to wait until the last minute to purchase seats.) It’s partly because Pilot Pen had to eat $186,000 worth of ticket sales when it gave refunds from matches canceled last year during Hurricane Danny.

But a third factor has eaten into sales: confusion. Pilot Pen’s announcement last November left many people thinking the sponsor was pulling out right away, not in 2011. They didn’t realize that tournament sponsorships are lined up 18 to 36 months in advance.

“We called box holders and said, ‘You missed the deadline for renewal.’ They said, ‘We don’t want to renew until we know there’s a tournament,’” an exasperated Worcester said in an interview over a house salad with feta and tabouli at Claire’s Thursday.

So Worcester’s staff has had to work doubly hard not only to convince people to come to New Haven for tennis this year, but also just to know the tournament exists. For instance, it’s asking some of its larger sponsors, such as AT&T and Webster and NewAlliance banks, to email-blast tournament promotional messages to their customers. And they’re pumping major news about the tournament as it breaks, such as the Wozniak return, an example of how Pilot Pen offers fans the chance to discover once-unknown “rising stars” on their path to the big time.

A “Love” Crusade

Meanwhile, Worcester is scrambling to corporate offices of larger financial companies, insurers, and consumer products makers to try to land a replacement for Pilot Pen. (Monday’s meeting in Albany was promising, she reported, fingers crossed.)

Worcester joins a growing list of execs in this recession who are chasing receding private and public dollars in order to save valued local industries, from homeless shelters and print newspapers to tourism and the summer arts festival.

Worcester was CEO of the Women’s Tennis Association before taking over Pilot Pen 13 years ago (and subsequently taking on a second simultaneous gig as chief of Market New Haven). She sees rescuing the tennis tournament as not just a business proposition. It’s a cause.

She doesn’t argue that it’s a more important cause than, say, feeding hungry families or housing evicted families. She doesn’t make an either-or pitch. ​“I sit in on these public finance meetings. I hear firsthand how people don’t have money to put on their families’ plates. This is hard; I totally respect that that has to come first,” she said

Leveraging corporate money that wouldn’t otherwise come here, she sees the tournament as supporting the local economy, building community, giving young people opportunities, and making New Haven a fun destination. Feeding the city’s soul.

“Pilot Pen makes New Haven a more interesting place to live, work and play,” she said.

The nine-day men’s and women’s tournaments pump $26 million into the local economy, including business for hotels and restaurants, she claimed. She has helped boost that number by creating a players’ dining program. The tournament also puts the city in the national media spotlight, she said.

When she first came to town some politicians told her, ​“Tennis is an elite sport. It has no place in New Haven.”

“Thank you for letting me know,” Worcester remembers responding. ​“I’m going to change your minds. I’m going to break down the barriers.”

Since then, Worcester has made it a personal mission to use the tournament to help spawn community tennis programs in New Haven. Her now year-round programs have introduced tennis to 4,000 city kids since 2004. She raised part of the money to fix up public courts in Westville and the East Shore.

“The Pilot Pen has been good for the city. It’s been good to introduce tennis to inner-city kids who would not have been exposed to it,” said Hill Alderman Jorge Perez. ​“As a banker downtown, I hear it from the business community. I have a lot of customers who own restaurants who say to me how great Pilot Pen is for business; it brings people to the city. People do see it as a benefit.”

Worcester worked with the school system to get the first girls’ tennis team started this year, at Career High. The team includes graduates of the Pilot Pen programs.

“We should have a girls team at Wilbur Cross and Hillhouse,” too, she said. ​“A goal for next year.”

Make that one more pitch.