PHOTOS: Greening the US Open
You might think the biggest sporting event in the country is the World Series or the Super Bowl. But by head count, neither comes close to the US Open tennis tournament, when 700,000 guests flood into the Billie Jean King National Tennis Center in Queens, New York, over the course of two weeks. As at all sporting events, this wave of fans likes to eat, drink, and buy memorabilia. Much of the effort to "green" the tournament has focused on visible aspects, such as recycling waste and food. More, however, goes on behind the scenes. Over the past three years, the United States Tennis Association has worked with the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), among others, to re-plumb the operations of this complex sporting event in order to reduce its environmental impact. See how it's done.
Crowd Control
Given its size, the US Open is like “putting on seven back-to-back Super Bowls, but all in about two weeks,” says Joe Crowley, senior director of facility operations at the USTA Billie Jean King National Tennis Center. He should know: before coming to the USTA, Crowley worked in Miami, where he oversaw operations at Sun Life Stadium, home to both football’s Dolphins and baseball’s Marlins. But while a football team has a season spanning about six months and a full year to tweak and refine operations, the US Open has two weeks every year to deploy, test out, and refine fixes. “We’ve gotten very good at improving on the fly,” says Rita Garza, who as senior director of USTA Corporate Communications also heads up the association’s green efforts.
