US Open 2026: Live From Billie Jean King National Tennis Center Day Two

**SPEAKER_1** (0:02)
Bloomberg Audio Studios, Podcasts, Radio, News.
This is Bloomberg Businessweek Daily, reporting from the magazine that helps global leaders stay ahead, with insight on the people, companies, and trends shaping today's complex economy, plus global business, finance, and tech news as it happens. The Bloomberg Businessweek Daily podcast with Carol Massar and Tim Stenovec. On Bloomberg Radio.

**Carol Massar** (0:33)
He's executive editor and senior writer for Sports Illustrated. A correspondent for 60 Minutes, a tennis commentator, the author or co-author of 10 books, including Glory Days, The Summer of 1984, and The 90 Days that Changed Sports and Culture Forever, Strokes of Genius as well, Veteran and Doll in the Greatest Match Ever Played, and many more. Jon Wertheim is here with us at the US Open. We speak to him each year. It is a highlight of our US Open coverage, and he's back. Jon, welcome, welcome. Good to have you with us this year.

**Jon Wertheim** (0:59)
Good to be here. Kind of toasty out here.

**SPEAKER_1** (1:01)
It is toasty. It's a pleasure to be with you.

**Carol Massar** (1:03)
Listen, imagine if you had to be out there playing five sets without any shade.

**Jon Wertheim** (1:06)
Unthinkable.

**Carol Massar** (1:07)
Yeah, unthinkable. Hey, we're going to talk tennis, but I think one of the hottest topics here is prediction markets. You were outspoken earlier this week. We learned on Monday that Kalyshe and the USTA were teaming up, would be the official prediction market partner of the US Open. Here's what you posted in response. We have a full screen here.
This is such a disappointing decision, US Open. About a week goes by when the Tennis Integrity Unit that you helped fund fails to announce a match fixing scandal and you take sponsorship money from a platform predicated on profiting from inside information. No way to spin this as a positive.

**Jon Wertheim** (1:43)
Yeah. I mean, I think, yeah. I'm not naive. I realize it's 2026
We are where we are with this kind of money flooding the sports marketplace. I just think tennis is a unique situation, right? Individual sport. It's very corruptible and that is not theoretical. I mean, there are all sorts of, man, not a week, literally, like I said, not a week goes by when there isn't some sort of press release about a match fixing scandal. The players get the brunt of this. They can't take any of this revenue. They can't use the product. I mean, imagine if somebody said, hey, Heineken's are sponsored, but if anyone drinks Heineken, they're suspended. I mean, it's something problematic about taking money from a product so problematic. The athletes themselves can't use it, but the institutions can benefit.
I distinguish between an individual sport and a team sport. Tennis has this corruption problem, and also these players get the brunt of the abuse. The WTA, the women's tour in particular, their entire task force set up to deal with death threats from angry bettors. Now the USTA, which is not a standalone tournament, but it's a federation, a national federation is getting in bed with a prediction. I mean, again, I also differentiate between sports betting, between draft, you know, whatever, Rufando and DraftKings, and Cauchy and PolyMarket. I did a 60 Minutes piece on PolyMarket a few months ago, and I'm sure you guys know this, but I think people just think, oh, you know, hey, Tommy Paul's going to win, Tommy Paul's going to lose. I think people that have played on that know it's begging for insiders with inside information to manipulate the market. All of these sort of the kooky bets of someone that knows something, it leads to violence. It's not as regulated as sports betting.
It's just, it's so honestly, it's just for lack of better. It's so lame for the USTA to be doing this. It's beyond hypocritical. It's just irresponsible. And again, I'm not the town, you know, I get it. It's 2026 I understand what the reality is. Tennis channel where I work, take sponsorship. Sports Illustrated has an own betting platform. I mean, I'm not polar than now about this. I just expected more from the USTA.

**Tim Stenovec** (3:43)
But so you're mentioning here sports betting platforms and that, you know, making the distinctions with prediction markets here, so it's maybe a little bit of a squishy line between them. WTA, haven't they had a partnership with Fandal now for like five years? Yeah.

**Jon Wertheim** (3:56)
And there are all these data. The euphemism is sort of data rights, but nobody cares about first-served percentages for the sake of analytics. This is all about betting. It's really problematic. And again, tennis is so easily corruptible and corrupted. And if the integrity of competition goes, we're left with pro wrestling.