No, I'm sorry, I have been around all the major American sports and they have a very different culture than tennis - in some ways better, in some ways worse. On the good side, tennis is more of a cultivated game. On the bad side, it tends to be somewhat effeminate and wussy in the case of most American contestants.
Jeepers, the things you come up with. I agree with you in general that tennis still tends to be seen as an elite sport, and it does nothing to dispel the notion. Other sports embrace trash-talk, and tennis clutches at its pearls, for example. I get that other sports in the US can be seen as more butch, but I still think you stretch a notion a bit too far. For example, perhaps the fans of tennis are a bit more cultivated, but the game isn't necessarily, and the players just really aren't. There are athletes in all sports who are cultured and curious beyond their own sport, but they tend to be rarer than hens' teeth, including in tennis.
Lol.....I'm afraid you have not been around or followed U.S. male athletes much. They don't even give a thought to tennis because they don't really know about it or like it or care about it. It is not a financial calculation. It's just not a part of American sports culture - white or black. Baseball is mostly a white game (and of course Latinos, especially in the Caribbean, love it and excel at it). Basketball is mostly a black game. And football is a black/white mix. Neither white males nor black males in America generally give a damn about tennis.
Also, when it comes to being lucrative? Don't get ahead of yourself. Most pro basketball players have very transient lives and nowhere near the earnings possibilities of ATP professionals. Players in the NBA D-League make basically nothing. Also, most minor league players for the MLB are not compensated as well as ATP players. And NFL players have very short careers with non-guaranteed contracts.
Money (along with the opportunity to travel the world) would actually be a huge reason for going into tennis, not avoiding it.
You love to pretend that I don't really know anything about sports or male athletes, whereas you are the expert in all. You know nothing about me, and I don't owe you my life story, but you're just wrong about that. I grew up with all sports, surrounded by athletes, and count an ex-NFL player, an MLB player and an Olympian amongst my exes. It's just that not everyone feels the neurotic need to declare themselves an expert in all things and to tear down others.
I'm not clear why you felt it necessary to give a breakdown of the ethnic make-up of other sports, as it is deeply irrelevant to this conversation. I do understand that there are a lot of people/men who don't have much exposure to tennis, but I disagree with you that there is no financial calculation to how a gifted young athlete chooses a sport. This is a reverse example but: Kyrgios wanted to play basketball, but his father said that there was no money in it in Oz, so he'd have to go with tennis. Likewise, Safin's mother forced him into tennis over soccer, because she could coach him in tennis and figured he'd have a better career that way. I absolutely know that a lot of lesser players in the more popular sports can have very short careers and don't really make the big bucks. The average length of an NFL career is 3 years, for example.
One of the failings of the USTA is in outreach. Not every kid is going to make it to the NBA/NFL/NHL/MLB, and if they could excel in tennis, they might have a better niche for themselves. Other countries do better in part because they have robust federations to back up their young tennis players.
And part of the reason U.S. women have a large talent pool when it comes to tennis is that American women, on average, consider tennis as an option more often. And that itself is partially due to the reality that no one cares about women's pro sports other than tennis. The revenue stream for women's basketball and soccer is utterly pathetic. Hardly anyone watches because it is so boring.
I believe that's what I said about women in US tennis, as it's well-renumerated. I would have to disagree that no one watches US women's soccer. (WTF? I guess you missed the recent World Cup.) And they're fighting on the pay. Basketball has a small and loyal following, especially at the college level. But, I don't want to start a world war on women's sports. Golf, though, is another one where women make money.
Those practical realities are part of the equation but I still maintain that tennis does not connect well with American culture generally. It's hard to see how a bunch of suburban whites in America whose female kids play softball can connect much with tennis. And I am not saying that as a baseball hater (I used to watch it a lot, a while back), but simply because it is just very different.
This is where your generalities lose me. I don't see that tennis doesn't "connect well" with American culture, especially if you're going to use suburban whites as an example. Or what it has to do with your not liking baseball anymore. "Doesn't connect well" with our culture is a meaningless statement. Why, because tennis is some sport of kings, or liberal chardonnay drinking intellectual coastal dwellers, and we're too red-meat/anti-intellectual for that? That's silly...it's a sport. It's true that tennis is down the list (6th,) but it is very popular with female consumers of sport in the US. And, btw, basketball, track and volleyball rank higher with HS girls than softball.
