Craig O’Donoghue: A vocal and passionate crowd is a key part of sport which tennis players fail to understand

Athletes need to stop treating their customers like second class citizens and start remembering that sport isn’t the same without a vocal and passionate crowd. You’ll notice I used the word customers. That’s the reality that many athletes have failed to grasp. People pay plenty of money to attend sporting events when they could easily sit on their couch at home and watch on TV. The carry-on from tennis players this week has been absolutely ludicrous. They’ve whinged and whined about the change of rules which allows people to enter Australian Open stadiums after the completion of every service game instead of waiting for the break during the change of ends, which is after every second game. They’re upset that people are still finding their seats when they’re playing. They’re upset that people are talking when they’re playing. Too much movement. Too much noise. Don’t they realise people have spent too much money to be stuck outside? The issue angered Australian Jordan Thompson so much he said this after his first round win: “I just don’t understand why we would do that,” he said. “We are out there working. That’s our job. We’re tennis players. We don’t come in and storm into an office while someone is in a meeting. “Like someone is just barging through the door, making a nuisance. Even though it doesn’t seem that way, but it is. It’s very off-putting. That’s one thing you can compare it to.” Thompson, who was guaranteed to receive $120,000 even if he lost that match, thinks that the people paid their own money to help the Australian Open to pay his prize money are a nuisance. The majority of those fans wouldn’t be earning $120,000 per year. Barely any would have earned the $180,000 he was guaranteed for winning that match. A lot of the fans would have been students. Others would have taken the day off work to attend. The Australian Open is expensive. You’ll pay nearly $300 to sit in the upper decks of Rod Laver Arena on Saturday night. If you want to be closer, you’ll be paying more than $500. Want to go to the final? You’ll shell out thousands. You can buy four Category One AFL Grand Final seats for the cost of sitting up the back in the Australian Open final. As for Thompson’s office comparison, he clearly doesn’t realise that nobody pays money to come into an office meeting. Staff may also find their job is in jeopardy if they publicly referred to customers as a nuisance. The Australian Open also introduced a party court this year which led to Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova describing people meowing at her during her match as “disturbing”. Why were they meowing? Because she has meow tattooed on her leg. That’s a pretty tame thing to worry about. Just get on with the job. Novak Djokovic was also furious with a heckler fan who he told to “come down here and say that to my face.” Djokovic later refused to reveal what the person actually said. But it wasn’t offensive enough to get kicked out. Being a spectator at the Australian Open isn’t like most sports. Unless you pay top dollar for a reserved seat at one of the large stadiums, you have to queue to get into other courts throughout the day. They’re long queues too. Opening the doors after every game reduces those queues and allows more people to get in and out. That’s better value for money for the tennis customer. It’s funny how players on outside courts never complain about the noise that wafts around the complex when people are cheering on the main courts. They just get on with it. It’s not noise. It’s atmosphere. Clearly, if you’re playing in a stadium with more than 10,000 people and everyone is quiet, you’re going to get distracted by one person yelling out as you try to serve. But that can be rectified by simply allowing the same noise that is seen as a positive in other sports. I don’t recall Dom Sheed turning to Collingwood fans who were berating him over the fence late in the 2018 grand final and asking them to be quiet because he was trying to concentrate. Basketballers don’t ask for less noise when shooting free throws at an away venue. The Matildas weren’t granted silence and stillness during their epic penalty shoot out during the World Cup. The noise added to the drama. Kangaroos have been known to bound onto the road during Bathurst. That’s genuinely dangerous and has cost people races. But the drivers just keep turning up. Cricketers have become way to precious too. Steve Smith stopped the game recently because there was a screwed up piece of black electrical tape on one of the white sheets which acts as a sight-screen. Smith also delayed the first ball of Australia’s first innings in Adelaide because of movement to the side of the sight-screen. The Test match in Adelaide stopped at one point to allow a security guard to pick up an empty chip bucket which had been blown onto the field by the wind. Those delays only deny the paying public the chance to get value for their money. Have we forgotten about the dullness of sport without crowds during COVID? We need crowds to be engaged. Tennis has been speaking about introducing noise for a long time. Back in 2014, Andy Murray was asked about whether he’d be receptive to the change and he replied: “I think to be honest, players would get used to it if it was kind of loud all of the time,” he said. “It’s just when it’s very quiet and then someone makes a noise, or when everyone is sitting down and someone stands up behind the court, then it’s off-putting. But if people were moving around all of the time and always making noise, then the players would adjust.” This is the chance to adjust, to make progress, to gain new fans and to improve the customer experience. The customer is always right.