Latest / Bloomberg Intelligence / USTA's Zausner: New Retractable Roof Used For First Time(Audio)

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USTA's Zausner: New Retractable Roof Used For First Time(Audio) · Bloomberg Intelligence

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  Speaker 1: Global business news twenty four hours a day at Bloomberg
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  Speaker 1: of one percent. I'm Charlie Paloton. That's a Bloomberg Business Flash.
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  Speaker 1: You're listening to Taking Stock with Kathleen Hayes and Pim
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  Speaker 1: Box on Bloomberg Radio. Very special edition of Taking Stock
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  Speaker 1: Live from the twenties sixteen US Tennis Open, Flushing Meadow,
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  Speaker 1: Queen's is where we are. We're very happy to be
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  Speaker 1: here as we are this year. And in fact it's
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  Speaker 1: an historic here. And it's not historic yet because of
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  Speaker 1: the matches or who leaves at the end holding that big,
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  Speaker 1: beautiful silver cup over their head, it's because of the roof.
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  Speaker 1: The roof FW is t A bought so hard, worked
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  Speaker 1: so hard to get built operated. Last night as Roth
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  Speaker 1: and Nadal played a very exciting match, he beat Andreas
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  Speaker 1: Seppi of Italy, but I think he seemed happy at
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  Speaker 1: about the fact he was the first player to win
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  Speaker 1: on center court with that roof closed over his head.
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  Speaker 1: Danny's Housner back, Chief Operating Officer of US Tennis is Association,
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  Speaker 1: one of the really important forces behind this happening. Danny,
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  Speaker 1: Welcome and congratulations. Thank you so much. Great to have
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  Speaker 1: you back. Wow, so here we are. Are. Just remind
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  Speaker 1: our listeners you know money had to be raised. This
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  Speaker 1: was a really big deal and it was It was
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  Speaker 1: a debated for so long whether or not the U
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  Speaker 1: s t A, whether this this expense should be made here. Well,
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  Speaker 1: I could bore you with weather data from over a
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  Speaker 1: hundred years. That week before and after Labor Day. It's
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  Speaker 1: relatively dry period of time. But as you know, we
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  Speaker 1: had men's finals moved to Monday five years in a row.
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  Speaker 1: It hadn't happened in thirty years. It was the right
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  Speaker 1: thing to do for the players, the fans, and all
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  Speaker 1: of our partners. It just took a long time to
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  Speaker 1: find the engineering results that would give us this spectacular
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  Speaker 1: roof that we have on the building. So tell us
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  Speaker 1: what was so hard about the engineering? What? What does
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  Speaker 1: this embody now in terms of engineering? Because other you know,
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  Speaker 1: like that, they don't doesn't the Australia has a retract
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  Speaker 1: where other places do as well. What is the engineering
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  Speaker 1: feat here? So first and foremost, this is the first
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  Speaker 1: time in the United States that we're actually building our
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  Speaker 1: attractive the roof over an existing stadium. If it was
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  Speaker 1: part of the original design, it would have been done
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  Speaker 1: at one time. But Fleshy Meadows Corona Park, where we're
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  Speaker 1: housed was an ash dump in the twenties and thirties,
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  Speaker 1: So the land conditions here are a less than ideal.
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  Speaker 1: If you put a roof on this existing structure, everything
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  Speaker 1: would sink into the ground, not fun for the fans
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  Speaker 1: or the layers, I WoT making a lot more challenge
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  Speaker 1: is so what about the financing in terms of what
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  Speaker 1: it took to get the money together to build this
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  Speaker 1: incredible roof. In total, we're gonna be spending in extus
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  Speaker 1: of six hundred million dollars on all the upgrades, and
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  Speaker 1: we did a couple of bond offerings and that stuff
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  Speaker 1: got gobbled up in a second. We're a really good
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  Speaker 1: risk for a lot of people out there. And so
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  Speaker 1: the way we go, we're about two thirds of the
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  Speaker 1: way done with all the construction. What's and there's more construction,
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  Speaker 1: not just the roof. But I mean, I I must
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  Speaker 1: say I love the old Grandstand stadium. Um, I'm gonna
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  Speaker 1: beat have the treat though. Seeing the new one, which
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  Speaker 1: as i've read, haven't seen it yet, just got out
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  Speaker 1: here this morning, is pretty spectacular as well. I think
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  Speaker 1: you're gonna come back and tell me that you think
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  Speaker 1: it's a pretty special place, just like the old one was.
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  Speaker 1: And that's what we did. We try to model it
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  Speaker 1: after the old one, just slightly larger but still intimate.
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  Speaker 1: We rebuilt the entire South campus, all new courts out
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  Speaker 1: there in this fall, we're gonna tear down Louis Armstrong,
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  Speaker 1: which has a lot of history too, and we'll build
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  Speaker 1: a new Louis Armstrong that will open eighteen. It's currently
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  Speaker 1: ten thousand, five hundred seats and new one will be
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  Speaker 1: four very special place. Uh. In terms of again paying
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  Speaker 1: for all of this construction and all this growth, how
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  Speaker 1: much do you just mentioned that you had about six
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  Speaker 1: million dollar bond offering to help finance How much does
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  Speaker 1: the attendance affect that in terms of what what part
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  Speaker 1: of the total do you get from the people who
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  Speaker 1: actually come out and pay them for their tickets? So
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  Speaker 1: are are big numbers that generate The bulk of our
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  Speaker 1: revenues is coming from ticket sales, broadcast revenue, and sponsorship sales,
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  Speaker 1: and they're all pretty evenly divided. Food and beverage and
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  Speaker 1: merchandise is an incredibly large part of the experience here,
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  Speaker 1: but it's not a big driver for revenue. How how
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  Speaker 1: is How does it look this year in terms of
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  Speaker 1: the crowds you're drawing and the tickets you've already sold.
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  Speaker 1: The ticket sale numbers are really strong. We're looking like
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  Speaker 1: we're on pace too for the eighth year in a row.
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  Speaker 1: View over seven hundred thousand people. Now we are actually
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  Speaker 1: doing much like last year to less sessions than we've
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  Speaker 1: done historically, so we're down too session tournament and we're
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  Speaker 1: still driving eight hundred million dollars of economic impact for
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  Speaker 1: the city of New York. So it's pretty special event
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  Speaker 1: for the city. People come from all over the world,
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  Speaker 1: all over the country, it's and so obviously tell us
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  Speaker 1: a bit more about that, because it's not just the
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  Speaker 1: people got a crop and make that claim about an
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  Speaker 1: event in their city, but for it's got from New
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  Speaker 1: York City. In the entire area. There are so many
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  Speaker 1: tennis fans who show up. That's why this economic data
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  Speaker 1: is so relevant for the city because over sixteen percent
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  Speaker 1: of the fans are international, over come from outside the
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  Speaker 1: Tristate area. So no one's that's that seven hundred thousand people.
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  Speaker 1: They're not just driving from New York City, They're they're
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  Speaker 1: coming from all over the world. They're staying in the
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  Speaker 1: local hotels, they're eating in the local restaurants through out
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  Speaker 1: here for three, five seven a lot of them for
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  Speaker 1: full fourteen days of the tournament. Tell us a little
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  Speaker 1: bit about technology because that obviously fans uh and you
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  Speaker 1: want the fans to do that. You want them betweening
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  Speaker 1: and self eating and all the rest of it. So
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  Speaker 1: what is there anything new this year, anything that you
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  Speaker 1: really want to let us know is happening. Absolutely, listen,
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  Speaker 1: we want to be leaders in that for sporting events
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  Speaker 1: in general. We've we've done several new deals. We have
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  Speaker 1: some incredible cameras inside Arthur are Stadium, so you can
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  Speaker 1: actually go to an app on our website, go to
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  Speaker 1: us and dot org. When you're inside the ball, give
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  Speaker 1: it your seat location and it will take a picture
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  Speaker 1: or of you. You'll have a thirty second window where
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  Speaker 1: you can actually see what's going on and it could
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  Speaker 1: be in the middle of an incredibly cool point. And
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  Speaker 1: in general for us, it's always about what's newest and
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  Speaker 1: what's great and at the same time trying to do
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  Speaker 1: something that reflects on the history of the event. So
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  Speaker 1: you will find that when electronic line call was what
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  Speaker 1: was very important to us. We introduced it on one court.
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  Speaker 1: Now it's on seven courts and it's one of a team.
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  Speaker 1: We will be both broadcasting from all eight teen courts
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  Speaker 1: and doing electron flint calls on all a teen courts.
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  Speaker 1: So the broadcasting on all eighteen courts. Would that be
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  Speaker 1: what what channels? What network will got be carried on? Well,
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  Speaker 1: we're broadcasting to over two countries, so there's matches being
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  Speaker 1: played from players from all over the world, and those
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  Speaker 1: host countries want to see their players and currently now
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  Speaker 1: they can't always do that from all a ten courts,
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  Speaker 1: So this will give us an opportunity to show matches
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  Speaker 1: all over the world from every court. Well, I think
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  Speaker 1: a lot of people don't realize to the first week
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  Speaker 1: there's all some one of these side court matches are
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  Speaker 1: the ones that people most want to see because you
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  Speaker 1: never know when you're gonna get the upset, and you know,
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  Speaker 1: for an especial second, if you're coming overseas, your your
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  Speaker 1: your person, you're guy or Galican B a star, all
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  Speaker 1: the stud your spot on. We can only play five
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  Speaker 1: matches a day in arthur Our Stadium. We've got seventeen
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  Speaker 1: other courts, so those matches have to get distributed amongst
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  Speaker 1: all those courts. And what's amazing for the fans is
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  Speaker 1: the players are the top seeded players in the world
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  Speaker 1: and they could be fifty feet away from you, so
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  Speaker 1: really quickly HI going to top this next year Danny's Housner. Oh,
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  Speaker 1: we're gonna just keep going in. Obviously, when we will
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  Speaker 1: have rebuilt eight of the whole site, people will be
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  Speaker 1: pretty surprised. And again, congratulations, really so much work, a
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  Speaker 1: labor of love and paying off hugely for tennis in
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  Speaker 1: the United States, for plushing Middle Queens, for this beautiful stadium,
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  Speaker 1: and for all the fans who come out. Danny's Ozener,
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  Speaker 1: chief of operating officer for the U s t A.
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  Speaker 1: I'm Kathleen Hayes. We're live with the US Open. This
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  Speaker 1: is Bloomberg. There are sponsors, there are fans. There's all
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  Speaker 1: kinds of business and money out here at the US Open.
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  Speaker 1: Up next Bloomberg Sports Reporters. Two of our finess on
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  Speaker 1: taking stock