SPORTS AND THE DOLLAR

The recent flap in the tennis world about Serena Williams at the U.S. Open and her barrage of "F-bombs", as the British press dubbed them, is getting ridiculous and hypocritical. In almost every sport in the world, athletes have bad moments and ""lose it". Tiger Woods recently threw his club and frequently curses; N.B.A. players trash each other with obscenities on a regular basis; baseball teams are involved in mass fights; British football (soccer) players tramp, kick or gouge each other, as do N.F.L. players, etc., etc.

O.K., give Serena a stiffer fine if that bobs your cork, but with her money, that becomes symbolic. Or ban her from a few matches, which is meaningless as she really only cares about majors. But the recent posturing of some tennis officials to ban her from tennis is an empty threat and stupid.

What really concerns me much more is the power of the dollar and commercialism on the length of championship sporting events. Remember the famous "Heidi" incident some years ago when a key N.F.L. game at the most crucial moment was replaced on the air by the prescheduled program of the children's classic? Or, in the case of the U.S. Tennis Open, because of "time considerations" (translate that, money), any five set match must be settled by a tiebreaker. That is ridiculous. Can you imagine the classic confrontations of Federer and Nadal and Federer and Roddick in Wimbledon finals being shortened for commercial considerations? You let first-class athletes fight it out to the end in such situations. It should be part of the contract between the network and the sponsor that all championship matches should be allowed, in the case of five setters, to reach their natural, not a forced, conclusion. The sponsors want their products shown to a mass audience, like the U.S. Open, so do you really think they would refuse to sponsor an event if this rule were in effect?

The networks need to show some guts. The public would back them up.