There has been a background picture on my website for a while which relates to the story below. We will change the background picture as soon as I have a new “free time” story.

During the Miami tournament I went to a game of Miami Heat together with Igor Sijsling, an Australian player and my coach. Miami Heat is a basketball team that has been the NBA champion many times. Last year, they did not perform well and matches were not sold out. However, this changed when the club bought star players like Bosh, Wade and James.

The atmosphere in the stadium was unbelievable. The game is played fast and there is action all the time. Even if there was a time-out, the crowd was kept busy by cheerleaders or dancers. No chance to get bored; maybe the ATP could learn from this. Despite tennis being a traditional sport, the game could be made more exciting for people to watch, by introducing for example music during breaks. There occasionally is at tournaments, but it´s so far not comparable to any basketball game.

When the Miami Heat players entered the arena, an awesome remix of “In the air tonight” by Phil Collins was played.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9HWRmvtSrQE

Miami Heat dominated the game, which meant there wasn´t too much excitement. However, due to their lead, players gave a “demonstration”. I rarely looked up the scoreboard which was hanging very high, so it was hard to keep track of the scores. This is different to tennis, where it´s very easy to follow scores. What I also found interesting was that that there were a lot of families. I did not expect this since tickets probably cost $100 or more per person. I guess Americans pay these prices happily, as they are crazy about sports. I further noticed that US fans are different from European fans.

Despite the game proving to be an easy win for Miami Heat, I still enjoyed it and will definitely return if I get the opportunity. The entertainment is at a very high standard. By the way, Miami Heat did very well this season and hopefully they will do well next year. There are currently some issues between the players and the NBA (basketball association). Let´s hope they will resolve their issues quickly.

Recently there was also a story about the three best players of Miami Heat. They supposedly agreed to a reduction of their salary in order to be able to attract another player. I thought this was very cool, but then again, considering that they still earn $18 million instead of $20 million, their choice might be less special. I am not sure about the exact amounts, but I think I am in the zone.