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Daily Dispatch: WTA Fails in Marketing Its Stars with Celebrities

22 August, 2012

The WTA released a new “Strong is Beautiful” ad campaign today, igniting controversy by including the notoriously misogynistic Donald Trump as a spokesperson. On this site, I listed just a few anecdotes indicative of Trump’s past behavior regarding women. Deadspin and Jezebel were kind enough to pick up the story and add their thoughts.

Deadspin: “Today, the Women’s Tennis Association (WTA) released yet another ”Strong is Beautiful” video featuring several relatively famous people who have nothing whatsoever to do with tennis talking about tennis. One of those people just so happened to be Donald Trump, the reigning expert on which women are or aren’t beautiful. Women’s tennis players are beautiful, says Trump, who owns the Miss USA pageant. So now we can all safely watch women’s tennis without the risk of seeing an ugly (read: non-feminine, fat) woman. Whew.”

Jezebel: “What on Earth would compel the WTA to get Donald Trump — presumably on break from making racist comments about the president on the internet — to barf up choice soundbites like “Legends are made one shot at a time” and “That’s what champions are all about” alongside feminist heroes like Billie Jean King? As tennis site Drop Shot Dispatch has pointed out, the ‘Strong Is Beautiful’ campaign, with its emphasis on appearance and the need to be beautiful, is problematic in its own right, but surely the WTA ought to possess enough awareness to know that Trump (and Richard Branson, for that matter) is an unsuitable representative of both their brand and cause.”

“Trump doesn’t believe that strong is beautiful. In fact, Trump doesn’t believe that anything beyond his own narrow view of female attractiveness is beautiful and, worse still, he never misses an opportunity to shove that narrow view down our throats or shit all over those who choose to deviate from it. Is this really the man they want speaking for women’s athletics? Was Mel Gibson unavailable?”

Well said. Trump is the antithesis of what the women’s tennis brand should aspire to be.

US Open chair umpire Lois Goodman was arrested today. Police think she murdered her husband, apparently bludgeoning him to death with a coffee mug. In 1994, the LA Times published a profile of her umpiring career. She told them stories about Jim Courier, Pete Sampras, Andre Agassi, and more:

“Goodman won’t mention the name, but said a top male player once told her she should be ‘at home having babies.’”

“‘A lot of men players feel women should not be calling men’s matches,’ Goodman said. ‘Jim Courier has made no secret about the fact that he doesn’t like women umpires.’”

“‘He has said publicly that women should not call lines in men’s matches. Well, right after he said that he got almost all women umpires in one of his matches and he noticed it and said, “Look at all the lady umpires. This must be on my behalf.” That was fun.’”

American Mardy Fish took to Twitter to express his deep appreciation for Katy Perry’s music.

And our quote of the week comes from Roger Federer on his fellow players’ complaints about ball changes throughout the tennis season: “It’s not like we’re playing with stones one week and then with tennis balls the next.”

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