EP 13 - Building a Tennis Community Through Netgains Tennis with Marcus Gilliam

Gerard (00:11): Welcome back to Spin the Racket, the recreational tennis pod covering everything from the pro tour to the everyday league player. I'm your boy G.

Spin The Racket (00:20): I'm Lou.

Gerard (00:21): Today we're joined by Marcus Gilliam, CEO of NetGainstennis. He is a former athlete and has a passion for nonprofit work and doing some great work in the Atlanta community. Marcus, poke to the pod.

Marcus NGT (00:34): Thanks for having me. Thanks for having me.

Gerard (00:36): Of course, of course. I've got my Dus hat on here. So it's just kind of a, if you're watching on Spotify or YouTube, you see this amazing hat spelled D-U-S, yeah, U with the umlaut on it. So it's like pronounced, ooh, like so deuce, like tennis, which is cool. ⁓ Got this hat over the weekend at the Netgains tennis event, the ATL kickoff, which was an absolute blast. Like Lu and I were talking about it, had an amazing time, got a lot of energy from it. So excited to.

Marcus NGT (00:40): Amen.

Gerard (01:09): Yeah, yeah, he was a super nice guy too, like, and a really good tennis player. ⁓

Marcus NGT (01:11): Yep.

Gerard (01:15): Yeah, well, tell us about that event. So obviously, we were out there at Grant Park over the weekend on Saturday. I think it was called the ATL kickoff rally. ⁓ Talk to us about how that came together.

Marcus NGT (01:27): Yeah, so ⁓ I guess I'll take a quick step back. So Net Gains Tennis all together is a recreational tennis company. We bring a lot of beginners out and expose them to the game of tennis in non-traditional ways. ⁓ As you all know, you guys play tennis. Traditional tennis is a little more quiet, a little more structured. And so we just created a lane where we could expose players to tennis ⁓ via events, special events.

Gerard (01:50): Mm-hmm.

Marcus NGT (01:56): So, you know, there's music, there's vendors, there's games, there's fun, there are all these different things that allow people to come out and have an experience, but still also get to experience tennis at its core. And so that's who we are, that's what we do. And to go into this weekend, like you said, we had the ATL kickoff rally, which was a prelude to the Atlanta Cup. Coming to Atlanta, we wanted to do something to welcome, you know, the community and all of the tennis players around the area.

Gerard (02:27): Yeah, no, it was a cold weekend out there for sure. I was telling Lou about that. was like, we stopped moving for a minute. We just started freezing, shivering again. But there were a lot of people out there, which was fun. So there was a of energy. And it was cool to see how many folks you had in the community out there, from not only participants, but also sponsors and folks that you know. You mentioned like Premier Active Sports and so forth.

Marcus NGT (02:34): Yeah.

Gerard (02:49): Like how have you kind of, I guess, cultivated that community and kind of gotten people to get some excitement around net gain tennis?

Marcus NGT (02:57): Yeah. Honestly, man, just networking. that's kind of my bag a little bit. I don't mind.

Gerard (03:03): Mm.

Marcus NGT (03:07): getting out and saying who I am and telling people what I got going on. And I think that people in and around the tennis community, especially from a professional standpoint, I think that they're looking to have more people exposed to the sport. They're looking to help grow the sport. And so when I reach out to them and tell them that that's kind of what I want to do, then they're typically on board. it does help, you know, that we've had some initial events that we did just on our own.

Gerard (03:12): Mm-hmm.

Marcus NGT (03:36): and they had a certain level of success that we could kind of piggyback off of and show some proof of concept. So when we were able to do that mixed with ideas that we have for future events, typically we received ⁓ some good

Gerard (03:40): Mm-hmm.

Marcus NGT (03:49): So I would say we did a lot of lead work kind of on our own beforehand before we started reaching out to people. But one of my mentors was a huge help in this. Jamel Madison of Madison A's Racquet Sports out in Dallas. He gave me a whole lot of game, kind of schooled me a little bit on how to approach certain things. And, you know, we had a bunch of conversations. I gave him kind of like the vision of what we wanted to do. And he's doing something very similar out in Dallas, obviously on a larger scale.

Spin The Racket (04:31): How did that vision come about, Marcus? Like what sprung this whole thing?

Marcus NGT (04:37): Yeah, yeah. actually, it's a it's kind of a funny story. So I actually on a nonprofit, the Southside Aviator, and we teach minorities how to fly planes and expose them into aviation careers. And ⁓ in the state of Georgia, you actually need three people to start a nonprofit. So there's me, ⁓ my big brother, who is a pilot for American Airlines. We're kind of the two figureheads of the organization, but you needed a third person. And so my dad was a

Gerard (06:20): That's pretty cool.

Spin The Racket (06:24): Full circle.

Gerard (06:35): Wow.

Marcus NGT (06:37): maybe

Gerard (07:31): Mm-hmm.

Marcus NGT (07:36): we do.

Gerard (07:38): That's really cool. That is a funny story. Luis and I both know Sergio, too. We played him in Alta doubles this season. And I've played him in USTA before. Great tennis player. You're talking a story about how you were training up for the tournament. That could be a Netflix special, following you in fitness, to tennis, getting ready for that, seeing how you perform, that sort of thing.

Marcus NGT (07:55): Seriously. Seriously.

Gerard (08:25): Mm. Cheers.

Marcus NGT (08:31): We sold tickets to this because we were looking to raise money. So like we have people come in. We have all of these different things happening. And so ⁓

Spin The Racket (08:35): wow.

Marcus NGT (08:39): It really, it really, that's kind of one of my highlight moments so far. And we've done some great things, but that's one of my highlight moments because, you know, I got there and it was one of those times where it's like, nobody would blame you if you cancel, you know, the courts are wet. It's bad. Like it doesn't look good. And so I remember praying and saying like, man, you know, what should I do? And I ended up just going on YouTube looking like, how can you dry courts really fast?

Gerard (08:54): Mm-hmm. Right.

Marcus NGT (09:09): I

Gerard (09:11): Alright.

Spin The Racket (09:22): wow.

Gerard (09:27): Right.

Marcus NGT (09:38): Yeah, I got a blower bro. You should have just called me. So he blows the other half of the court. But I say all that to say like, I think that after that event, ⁓ I felt.

Gerard (10:05): Right. Yeah.

Spin The Racket (10:24): That's

Marcus NGT (10:36): Yeah.

Spin The Racket (10:54): show up and try to do the thing. So I think that's like, that's super powerful.

Marcus NGT (10:59): Yeah, for sure. I appreciate that.

Gerard (11:01): Yeah, I must

Marcus NGT (11:12): Yeah, ⁓ it wasn't good.

Spin The Racket (11:20): I'm not above it.

Gerard (11:24): Yeah.

Marcus NGT (11:37): Yeah.

Spin The Racket (11:54): Where I grew up without any sort of facilities. So it was always looking at the weather, always looking at the weather and always complaining about the weather. When I used to play soccer as a kid, not an issue, know, it rains, whatever. Cool. We're still playing. But with tennis is a whole, all this story. So, ⁓ yeah, a lot of people would probably quit in that moment. Just be like, yeah, you know, courts are rained out. ⁓ can't do it, but I mean, you had a lot of stuff on the line.

Marcus NGT (12:10): Thanks.

Spin The Racket (12:30): Yeah,

Gerard (12:31): Right, right. And so

Spin The Racket (12:32): yeah.

Gerard (12:34): that event was kind of your first time playing real competitive tennis. Talk to us about your game right now. How have you evolved since then? How's that forehand looking? Where are we right now?

Marcus NGT (12:46): Yeah,

Gerard (12:59): Fair.

Marcus NGT (13:12): Yeah, so

Gerard (13:28): Mm-hmm.

Marcus NGT (13:42): put the time in and I enjoyed it. So a lot of times it was something that I did, you know, after a work day or whatever the case may be, you know, stress is a good stress reliever. There's so many pros. I know that wasn't necessarily a question, but when I started thinking about it, like there's just so many pros to the game, which kind of speaks again to why we're doing it.

Spin The Racket (13:59): Yeah. was.

Gerard (14:00): Honestly.

Spin The Racket (14:03): No, well, someone someone who's been doing it for for a year. I wanted to ask you like, you know, we have a lot of listeners and the idea of this pot is being broad, right? We're not necessarily just having folks that are super into tennis and want to know about the ATP in the WTA tour. Like we're trying to cast a wider net and really talk to folks about recreational tennis, which is what most folks actually become.

Marcus NGT (14:54): Yeah, so for me, I think one of the more exciting points, and this may not be for everybody, but as somebody who grew up competitive, as like an ultra competitor, I think the stark difference between tennis and the sports that I traditionally grew up in, where they were team sports. And so this is like the ultimate litmus test. Like it's you, you either gonna be good or you're gonna be bad. know, obviously there's doubles, but that's not how you start off. You start off, ⁓

Gerard (17:51): Absolutely.

Spin The Racket (17:51): Yeah, I think

Marcus NGT (18:23): It's not for me.

Gerard (18:25): need

Spin The Racket (18:48): So we yeah, he mentioned again pickable being another aspect of of you know, can't now it's like you can't talk about tennis without talking about pickleball and vice versa But you know, we've we've had conversations in this podcast ⁓ In previous episodes where you know, we talked about how influential pickleball has been in getting America moving again right and getting people active getting people out there so

Gerard (19:40): Yeah, I feel like there's a lot when I think about NGT, there's a lot of similarities to this organization I played in growing up called DD &J, Junior Tennis Foundation. And it was in Columbia, South Carolina. And that's where I learned how to play tennis. It was a nonprofit started by this husband and wife couple. They had another third gentleman who was a part of that organization as well. But their whole mission in life was to teach young black kids how to play tennis. And

Marcus NGT (20:56): Hmm, that's a good question, man. I think ⁓ there are a few different faucets that I see net gains operating in. One, I do think that...

Gerard (22:14): wow, that's really cool.

Spin The Racket (22:18): USDA

Marcus NGT (22:20): We're looking at Alta right now, but we're just we're having those talks and seeing like what it'll look like if we do that Obviously, we need a home base ⁓ And that's kind of like our big stop right now while we're trying to develop our own we're looking to potentially buy our own courts hopefully so that those are some of the things that we're looking to do in the future, but ⁓ More more than anything. We just want to make sure that we're creating a space that people can come and

Gerard (22:38): Wow.

Marcus NGT (22:50): experience the game for the first time, for the second time, for the hundredth time, and still have that good time. I think at our core, that's what we do and that's who we are. We're exposing people to tennis and then making those connections. Like I said, whether you are playing for the first time or the hundredth time, you can come out and have a good time. And that's kind of what we do.

Gerard (23:12): Yeah, well, I had a great time, like I said, at the event on Saturday. I you mentioned it was a was a prelude to the Atlanta Cup, which I'm still kind of sore that I didn't get to go. I was texting Lou about that, a little FOMO.

Spin The Racket (23:16): I can resonate that.

Marcus NGT (23:25): Yeah, and you did you win you won did you win? Yeah, yeah, look at that man

Spin The Racket (23:29): Yeah, I won. Yeah, I just honestly I

Gerard (23:31): He won everything.

Spin The Racket (23:34): woke up that day and I was like, man, I'm beat from the week. But it's also I hadn't played tennis in like two, three weeks. And so I hadn't touched a racket. hadn't done anything. And I was like, I almost wasn't like a tennis funk. Like, I'm like, dude, I gotta I gotta get out there. I gotta do the things, you know, I like it keeps me healthy. So I was like, dang, So I just kind of showed up with like

Marcus NGT (24:19): man, that's what's up man. That's what's up.

Spin The Racket (24:26): And G can attest to that. just kind of MIA all last week, just swamp with work. so coming out, you know, 3, 3 18 in the afternoon and saying goodbye to you. And then just looking back, I'm just like, wow, this was cool. Like I want to do it again. And I know I told you, um, then and there like, Hey, how can we, how can we support? How can we help? Um, that's something that definitely, I felt like I was, I was giving some energy back.

Marcus NGT (24:57): Yeah,

Spin The Racket (25:26): Dude, got three things. I want a hat. Then I ended up, unfortunately, G got disqualified on some, man, some bat shot, unfortunately. It was just like.

Marcus NGT (25:29): wow, okay yeah.

Spin The Racket (25:42): See, he's too nice, man. So he was looking back, and then all of sudden he looks forward, and the shot's just kind of in the corner. And he's just like, my gosh. so yeah, unfortunate turn of events. Otherwise, he would have gotten the sling with me. So I won that prize.

Marcus NGT (25:52): You got disqualified.

Gerard (25:54): That's just... Squalify is a strong word.

Spin The Racket (26:01): Yeah, I don't know. I'll let you explain it,

Marcus NGT (26:12): ⁓ you missed one of the balls. Like you need an extra ball. man.

Spin The Racket (26:16): Yeah, just just yeah, because

Marcus NGT (26:30): Yeah

Gerard (26:41): That's right. That's what I told her.

Spin The Racket (26:43): Yeah, no. Yeah, it was it was a

Marcus NGT (26:56): ⁓ Yeah, yeah,

Gerard (27:04): They had like at the end they were like, you didn't win a prize, come over here and grab something. So I did take a, I got a wristband, which was cool.

Marcus NGT (27:07): Yeah. Okay. Okay. Cool. Cool. Cool. Yeah. So yeah, that's,

Gerard (27:21): That's right. Hey, I'll take it.

Spin The Racket (27:28): No, it... Yeah, most of the time I don't win, man. That's what I'm

Marcus NGT (27:36): Well, it was because the week you had it. The week you had it, we couldn't let you go out like that, man. You had to win something. You had to turn it around.

Spin The Racket (27:38): I guess. I guess, man. I'm telling you.

Marcus NGT (27:49): Thank you. I'm so glad to hear you say that. That means a lot. If we could do anything, we want people leaving feeling like, man, I had a good time. I left better than I came.

Gerard (27:59): I know you mentioned that you've done other events as well, some larger than that, some smaller. What do your other events look like?

Marcus NGT (28:08): ⁓ So it depends on I guess what it is that we're doing. So we did our spring open, which is going to be something annual. So I'll definitely be inviting you guys out to that. Our annual spring open is a big blowout. It's free. We invite everybody out. We have vendors, games, prizes, music. ⁓ And it's just a celebration of the spring being ushered back in. This period of time right here is not for the casual player.

Gerard (28:42): Mm-hmm.

Marcus NGT (29:08): So

Gerard (29:18): Okay.

Marcus NGT (29:38): stairs where you could get food. was a kitchen, ⁓ know, your cocktails and all of those different things, your mocktails, whatever your flavor was. And so we did the club style. We actually went out and participated in the overnight tennis. We sponsored that out in Dallas and that was a great time. So that was actually 7 p.m. to 3 a.m. And again, I was with Jamel, my mentor. So ⁓ we got a chance to go out and do that and experience that. We did our

Gerard (29:54): Wow.

Spin The Racket (30:03): Legit.

Marcus NGT (30:08): our

Gerard (30:17): cool

Spin The Racket (30:49): Gotcha. How do you promote these events? How do you get the word out?

Marcus NGT (30:57): Yeah, so, ⁓ well now we have a mailing list that does pretty well. So we use that, ⁓ in the beginning, ⁓ guerrilla marketing, that was always my big thing. So ⁓ for our very first event, I printed off a thousand flyers and I walked blocks. put flyers on people's cars. handed them to people. Social media, obviously, sent out emails, cold calls, whatever, just letting people know

Gerard (32:00): like that. Yeah, I mean, at some point in order to get started, you definitely got to, you know, pound the pavement and get the word out there. And it's good that starting to click where people in the brand and kind of show up for you.

Spin The Racket (32:15): Yeah, I mean, you do something right. You get repeat customers. That's typically how it goes. So in this case, yeah, I mean, somebody has a good time. wouldn't they want to have like bring their friends or whatever? Like now I'm thinking like of all the people that I could have brought to that event. ⁓ and I'm like, dang dude, like I can think of at least like 30 people. So.

Marcus NGT (32:34): Yeah, and

Spin The Racket (33:19): Yeah, yeah. Hey, maybe, you know, we'll chop it up and put it on social media. Just my little review of the event.

Marcus NGT (33:27): ⁓ man, I'm down for that. I'm definitely down for that. We would love to have it.

Spin The Racket (33:30): Yeah.

Marcus NGT (33:37): Yeah, yeah, yeah. And so

Gerard (33:51): Mm-hmm.

Marcus NGT (34:07): I just, I don't know man, it's something about it that I don't like and I haven't been able to put my finger on it but it has prevented me from getting on as much as I should.

Spin The Racket (34:20): well, it's one of those things where, know, everybody, G and I talk about this all the time, right? It's like, have to play to our strengths. So I'm sure if someone in your team, you know, has that quality where they like to, they like social media and they know how to do things. And, and again, it's just taking an interest to it, to gain a skill, you know, just like you learn how to dry the chords. I'm sure if someone is like super into it or they feel like they want to

Marcus NGT (35:05): Yep, absolutely. that's a

Spin The Racket (35:12): I saw it.

Gerard (35:32): Nice.

Marcus NGT (35:35): trade so I leave that to them they make sure that you get the pretty emails and all of the things that look great and yeah they knocked that out of the park.

Gerard (35:43): Nice.

Spin The Racket (35:46): Yeah, goal is so that you just have someone with a camera following you around and then just documenting all the cool stuff that you do. And then they just chop it up and it just becomes content, right? That's the goal that G and I have too.

Gerard (35:46): That's huge.

Marcus NGT (35:54): That's what I need to do.

Spin The Racket (36:08): Yeah, yeah. mean,

Marcus NGT (36:27): Yeah, yep, yep, I hear that a lot.

Spin The Racket (36:37): hit record and then I will tell you and G will say the same editing is like the hardest part. Especially the more you record is just figuring out what's going to work. What are those moments? But, ⁓ you know, we are also in that process of, that journey of like building that muscle memory of whipping the camera out and recording the moment because that moment only happened once. And you know, you may go hit again and

Gerard (36:49): Hmm.

Spin The Racket (37:07): be on court again, but that moment, that moment in time has already passed. So why didn't you record it? What didn't you just post it? It's, it's a muscle, but, ⁓ one that we encourage you to, to flex.

Marcus NGT (37:20): No, that's definitely a good way of looking

Gerard (37:30): There you go. I

Marcus NGT (37:53): Yeah, so ⁓ netgainstennis.com, that's our website. You can join our mailing list. Obviously follow us on Instagram. We're in the midst of building out our TikTok and threads and all of those different things. But right now ⁓ you can follow us and catch us on Instagram. That's our main social media platform. ⁓ And then like I said, our website, those are our two modes right now, but we are building out the rest of them as we speak.

Gerard (38:21): And what do you have coming up? Like what's the next thing on the radar?

Marcus NGT (38:27): So right now our next thing is going to be our spring open. We're going down for the season. We do have our beginner and intermediate boot camps. Those clinics happen every Friday and Saturday. So those will continue on through the winter. If you're interested in coming out Friday night, 630 is our intermediate clinic. Saturday at 10 a.m. that's our beginner clinic and those are posted on our website. But in terms of large scale event, our spring open is probably going to be our next

Gerard (39:01): And for the clinics, just I'm aware. is it like the sign up on the on the website and kind of like book a book a space? I'm sure it's kind of like is it limited in terms of how you book a sign up, that sort of thing?

Marcus NGT (39:14): Yeah, so we typically do 10 people per class ⁓ to make sure that there's enough. So if we get 10 in a class, then we'll open up a second class to make sure that there's enough space because it's typically eight people per court. So we stretch it to 10, but we don't want to go to a point to where you're uncomfortable or you don't have the space to learn and grow and participate and all of those different things. So 10 per class after the first 10, we'll shut that class down and open up class B and you can sign

Gerard (39:29): Mm-hmm.

Marcus NGT (39:55): Yeah, yeah, absolutely.

Spin The Racket (39:58): What part of Atlanta is this in? Is this also in Grant Park as well?

Marcus NGT (40:03): So yeah, we're based primarily, Peachtree Hills is our typical court. That's the court that we've ⁓ done most of our clinics at, but we service anywhere in Atlanta. We're vendors in the city of Atlanta. So ⁓ any court in Atlanta we have some access to.

Spin The Racket (40:10): Okay.

Marcus NGT (40:27): For continuity, we typically do Peachtree Hills for the classes, but you can go on netgainstennis.com and submit a request if you want us to come to your neighborhood. ⁓ So yeah, we'll absolutely move around. If we have the numbers and it makes sense, obviously, we have no problem coming to you.

Gerard (40:38): That's cool.

Spin The Racket (40:48): I mean, yeah, I'm thinking, you know, most ALTA teams have at least 10 people. So, I mean, think about a team that has 20 people, that would be two courts and potentially, you know, that'd be cool. Like have a team, like imagine a whole team just booking you guys like, Hey, we want to get better. I know those teams. Like there's some teams out there. They're, know, regardless of the level that like everyone's kind of has that mentality. Like, Hey, we, yeah, we're great at this level, but like,

Marcus NGT (41:19): Yeah,

Spin The Racket (41:34): Sweet.

Marcus NGT (42:12): I'm gonna say no serve. I'm gonna say no serve. And the reason why I say no serve is because if I can...

Gerard (43:09): You were so

Spin The Racket (43:09): There's no right or yeah, there's no right or wrong

Gerard (43:12): convicted at first, and I was like, I don't know, maybe. think the same.

Marcus NGT (43:16): Yeah,

Gerard (43:25): I'm going to

Spin The Racket (43:36): That's Yeah.

Gerard (43:44): Mm-hmm.

Spin The Racket (43:46): I mean, it's a pretty dim situation one way or another. I think it's just like preference, right? ⁓ think, gee, you chose no, no forehand, right? But that's coming from a guy that has a great backhand. See? So he's like, yeah, I'll serve, bought it and then just like crush it with a backhand.

Gerard (43:56): Mm-hmm, yeah.

Spin The Racket (44:05): Most

Marcus NGT (44:19): Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's a good question. That's

Spin The Racket (44:40): Not yet. Hey, that's the key right there. Not yet. Lord.

Marcus NGT (44:42): Yeah, not yet, not yet, but it is, it's on the way.

Gerard (44:44): Yeah. We're going to set up some doubles then ⁓ get you out on the court. Me, Lou, maybe Sergio, some other folks.

Marcus NGT (44:50): Anytime, anytime. Hey,

Gerard (44:58): Yep.

Spin The Racket (45:15): Yeah, that battle with Sergio was brutal.

Gerard (45:19): Three sets.

Marcus NGT (45:19): Sergio is

Spin The Racket (45:23): Yeah.

Gerard (45:34): Cheers.

Marcus NGT (45:41): And it takes a special kind of person to have Sergio's level of energy, which is what makes him great, which is what makes him great as a coach. makes him great as a general tennis player. It makes him great in the space altogether. But yes, if you want to play with Sergio, get your rest, get your rest. Yeah, he's going to be able to go. Yeah, man.

Gerard (45:47): Yeah.

Spin The Racket (45:59): Yeah.

Gerard (46:06): I it.

Spin The Racket (46:06): So Marcus, thanks again for being part of the podcast. We look forward to.

Marcus NGT (47:01): Well first off, thanks for having me. But closing thoughts. Man, get out, get active. Try something that you haven't tried before. Meet somebody you haven't met before. You don't know what your life can be until you try to live it. So, I'm doing that myself. I take that mantra with me every day. yeah, try something new. Do something new. Don't be scared to pick up a racket. Or spin the racket. ⁓

Gerard (47:15): Mm-hmm.

Spin The Racket (47:32): All right.

Gerard (47:41): See you next time.