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When you add it all up, 59-year-old billionaire Bill Ackman’s bucket-list performance on the lawns of the Hall of Fame Open in Newport last week was worth … $10 million to him.
For a guy worth of $9 billion, that’s like pocket change found between the couch cushions.
Ackman, who received a wild card into the top-level Challenger event last week and teamed up with former top-10 player Jack Sock in a cringeworthy first-round doubles match, has now decided – after the fact, he says – to give a $10 million US endowment to the International Tennis Hall of Fame.
He will also, graciously, manage the endowment himself – free of charge!
Ackman’s latest – and, he promises, final navel-gazing Twitter novel about the experience was posted shortly before the Wimbledon men’s singles final between Carlos Alcaraz and Jannik Sinner.
So at least on the tennis side, which doesn’t follow his online activities closely, it probably fell under the radar in a major way.
Here it is, if you have an hour of free time.
My last post on the International Hall of Fame Tennisgate.
— Bill Ackman (@BillAckman) July 13, 2025
While I don’t mind and do deserve the ridicule about my poor play at the @TennisHalloFame, the Tennis Hall of Fame itself has received a lot of totally unfair criticism.
The HOF gave @JackSock and me a wildcard to…
We read it, so you don’t have to
If you’ve not had the Bill Ackman experience until now, you should know that the length of his Twitter missives is … legendary – as he makes full use of that blue checkmark and lack of character limits.
This one was no exception. Clocking in at a solid 728 words – 3,951 characters, so 3,671 over the regular Twitter limit – it’s a brick.
To sum up:
–He says he’s “not the first non-pro to get a wild card in a pro event by a long shot”.
–The HOF’s wildcard strategy “succeeded beyond their wildest imaginations”.
–The negative coverage was “almost entirely because of his poor play”.
–He REVEALS that 10 days before, he played a doubles tournament with former pros and top college players from around the world and HE PLAYED GREAT. (They were all 55+). (This GREAT play had nothing to do with his partner, Richey Reneberg (a former No. 1-ranked doubles player).
–The HOF bet that he would play “respectably” and that it would be an “appropriate” use of a wild card. (That bet was not a winner).
-That non-team player, Sock, INSISTED ON PLAYING THE AD SIDE. With Ackman having played the ad side for the last year, it completey threw him off. BIG, if true; throwing your doubles partner under the bus is the first rule of doubles. Not.
–He had to SERVE INTO THE SUN!!! Playing tennis. Outdoors! DAMMIT!!!!
–The opponents, Bernard Tomic and Omar Jasika, held back (so as to not embarrass him), which he thinks was a bad thing.
–He thinks it’s GOOD that he played terribly because it made the whole thing more viral.
–The HOF “engineered ONE OF THE GREAT PUBLIC RELATIONS ACHIEVEMENTS IN TENNIS HISTORY!!!”
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We could not help but harken back to a CLASSIC ad produced by the USTA at the peak of tennis fever in the U.S. in the 1980s, starring William Shatner.
It never gets old.
Find loophole, drive a Maserati through it
Technically, wild cards fall over rule D.1.k in terms of ITIA, tennis’ integrity unit, drafted to prevent tournament directors from selling wild cards.
D.1.k. No Covered Person shall, directly or indirectly, offer, pay or accept any money, benefit or Consideration for the provision of a wildcard to an Event
But there is a footnote – and this was intended to give management agencies that also own tournaments (IMG, Octagon) the ability to hand out wild cards to the players they represent. You know the drill on this – it comes up every year at the Miami Open (owned by IMG) and many other events.
Actions by a Covered Person which are taken not for personal financial gain but solely pursuant to a commercial agreement(s) of an Event which is permitted under the relevant Governing Body’s rules are not prohibited under this Section D.1.k.
This was not, obviously, meant to enable a 59-year-old billionaire to fulfill his fantasy. But it didn’t, technically, run afoul of any integrity rules.
The other issue is the rules about players being required to furnish their “best effort” to win a tennis match. Tomic has some unfortunate experience with that one.
Now, they were put in an impossible situation here, and you can’t even blame them for not wanting to maim the guy. Still, it’s a rule.
Putting pickleball to the side
Another fun part of all this? Jack Sock plays on a Major League Pickleball team called the Phoenix Flames. So does Canadian Genie Bouchard.
The league had a big “mid-season tournament” last week in the stylish burg of Grand Rapids, Michigan. And they missed that; the Flames were swept in the first round.
(They may well not have been contractually obligated to play; that, we don’t know. Bouchard is reportedly being paid $1.5 million for the season; you’d think Sock also has a pretty hefty contract).
Then again, they’re in a bit of hot water with their main sources of income.
What a universe that must be.
Breaking – MLP Forfeitures for Jessie Irvine and Genie Bouchard
— Erik Tice (@azetice) July 2, 2025
Both Jessie Irvine and Genie Bouchard have had partial appearance fees forfeited for their roles in the kerfuffle that took place this past weekend while playing for the Phoenix Flames.
According to league…
Now, the Phoenix Flames are a pretty terrible squad – even with those two superstars on the roster; they have a won-loss record of 4-13 on the season. The Flames stand 13th in a 16-team league with the two bottom teams also having just four wins on the season.
So it’s hard to blame them for spending a few days in idyllic Newport instead.
Okay, hopefully this is over now and there will be no need, ever again, to have to read Ackman talking about his tennis game – or worse, watching him play.
Onwards.