Navratilova in charge may be what tennis needs

Andre Agassi wants a tough commissioner in tennis. Martina Navratilova is up for the job.

Now all the sport needs is to get all the fat cats feeding off the game to listen to either of them.

Fat chance.

Everyone has an agenda: the International Tennis Federation, the Grand Slams, the television networks. There are the ATP and WTA tours; the racket, ball and sneaker makers; fashion and watch companies; sponsors and advertisers and promoters looking to fill seats at events from Delray Beach to Dubai, Houston to Hamburg, Cincinnati to Casablanca.

Way down on the list of people with a voice in the game are the players, who merely perform and profit.

Way, way down are the fans, the ones who pay for it all.

It's fanciful to believe that, with billions of dollars at stake, all the powers in the sport will cede control to Navratilova or any other would-be commissioner.

Even Navratilova doubts it could happen.

Matters of importance

"They've not been willing to yield at all," she said, referring to the suits who run the show at the ITF, the majors and the tours. "They've drawn their line in the sand, they've stuck their feet in it, and they're tugging on that rope. They're not letting go at all.

"It would be a rough road to take. But I think it can be done. I would rather get it done with consensus. Everybody, hopefully, wants the same thing in the long run, which is a better, healthier game overall worldwide. We can get it done the nice way, or it can certainly be done the nasty way."

The nasty way is with player rebellions, fights among factions, losses all around.

The time for action is now, with TV ratings down, squabbling growing over Grand Slam revenues, and an inquiry into possible match-fixing or betting based on inside information. But even those problems aren't prompting any sense of urgency within the sport.

Tennis needs a ruling body that has the respect of all sides, and a leader like Navratilova who can unite the players and balance the interests of the alphabet soup organizations.

There are encouraging signs. Women's tennis, bolstered by Serena and Venus Williams, is up 65 percent in popularity from a decade ago, according to a poll by the Sports Marketing Group of Atlanta.

On the flip side, men's tennis has fallen about 25 percent in popularity during the same span. Women's tennis is now almost twice as popular as men's tennis, the poll showed.

Navratilova is still playing at 47 -- she's on the U.S. Fed Cup team this week in Moscow -- after winning yet another major title this summer in mixed doubles at Wimbledon. But if there were a higher calling in the sport to act as commissioner, she would jump at it.

"I think, with me, people would not question what I'm in it for," she said. "I would only be in it for the good of the game."

That would be a radical change in a sport where pretty much everybody is looking out for themselves.

Steve Wilstein is a sports columnist for The Associated Press.