Brewer Rowe promoted to tournament director at tennis Hall of Fame Open
Scott Barrett
Newport Daily News
NEWPORT — Brewer Rowe can recall sitting in the stands as a youngster at the International Tennis Hall of Fame and watching stars Chris Evert, Martina Navratilova and Pam Shriver battle it out at the Newport Casino.
His family moved from Martha's Vineyard to Middletown in the mid-1980s, and the Rowes would host lower-tier players competing at the professional tournaments held locally. In turn, they got tickets to attend.
"I remember coming as a kid and watching tennis and thinking this place was magical," Rowe said. "And now to play a very small part in carrying on that magic is awesome."
The assistant tournament director for the Hall of Fame Open since 2012, Rowe was given a promotion. He is now the tournament director for the ATP World Tour stop, succeeding Todd Martin, the CEO of the International Tennis Hall of Fame who will serve as tournament chairman.
In explaining his new role, and that of Martin, Rowe said he'll continue to oversee the tournament from an operations standpoint on the grounds, much in the same way he did as assistant tournament director. But he also has a "seat at the table" with the ATP and has become more involved with player relations.
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Martin will guide Rowe as chairman, but from a "10,000-foot level," the 44-year-old Rowe said. "He's not down in the weeds of overseeing the day-to-day operations as he was previously."
COVID put Rowe's debut on hold
The ATP board approved Rowe's appointment as tournament director in 2019, and last year was supposed to be his debut.
Then COVID hit.
For the first time since 1975, no professional tennis tournament was held in Newport, and Rowe said the Hall of Fame's operating budget took roughly a 75% hit.
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"It was detrimental," he said. "Imagine any person or any company losing 75% of their revenue. It's tough. We made some changes. We changed how we do business. We re-evaluated every nook and cranny, every dollar we spend. We tried to maximize every dollar we earned. It was a challenge."
The result was doing more with less to ensure the tournament and Hall of Fame can continue to thrive in years to come.
"The tournament is a piece of the Hall of Fame organization as a whole," Rowe said. "Everyone plays an integral role in the tournament, so we're evaluating the best use of the museum and the marketing time. Are there ways positions can adapt to better serve their full-time role, which may not be laser focused on the tournament?
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"Going forward you should see a more collectively engaged Hall of Fame team for tournaments."
This year, that team had to be adaptable, considering COVID restrictions made for a very fluid situation. Rowe said preparations for 2021 began as soon as it became obvious no tournament would be held last year, though it was like trying to hit a moving target.
"As I've said, it was a Herculean effort to get this event off the ground," he said. "With COVID and with the hundreds of hypotheticals that we've had to go through, it's been a great team effort and we're happy we can put on a large-scale event. Six weeks ago, we didn't know what type of event we were going to be able to host."
Putting his own stamp on the Hall of Fame Open
When Martin took over for Mark Stenning as CEO of the Hall of Fame, Rowe was already here. Martin made some changes that modernized the event, adding video scoreboards and technology seen at other ATP tournaments.
As the new tournament director, Rowe wants to continue on that path.
"Todd elevated it in a certain way with the video replay and the live scoreboards and the Jumbotrons," Rowe said. "Prior to that, we had a historical nature and were a small, quaint professional tennis event. But we are a modern tour tennis stop on the global tour, and to compete with the other 250-level tournaments, we needed to increase our product, and we knew that.
"The next iteration of what I'm going to bring will be balanced like Todd did — keeping the historic nature of the facility, the small-town feel of the property, the small-town feel for the players. They enjoy that. That's priority No. 1. Priority No. 2 would be the guests, making sure they have a world-class tennis experience.
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"We need to be delivering top-notch entertainment. And that is what my hope is. And that will be my stamp, to elevate the entertainment level here."
This could be Rowe's final stop
After attending St. Michael's Country Day School in Newport and graduating from St. Mark's School in Massachusetts, Rowe went to the University of Vermont to major in French with a minor in sociology.
He played soccer and lacrosse in high school, but gave it up once he arrived on his college campus. He never left sports, though.
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His first job was in marketing with Octagon Sports, where he helped organize the Gravity Games — NBC's version of the X-Games. He assisted in putting on the CVS Charity Classic in Barrington before becoming one of six founders of Eident Sports Marketing, a Rhode Island-based company.
Time ran its course with Eident, Rowe said, and he landed at the Hall of Fame.
This could be his last stop.
He and his wife Abigail have two daughters, 12-year-old Adelaide and 10-year-old Evelyn. They're "recreational tennis players," Rowe said, but the family is ingrained in the community and have no thoughts about leaving.
That's how Rowe feels about his new role at the Hall of Fame. "Newport, Aquidneck Island is my home," he said. "I don't see myself doing anything but this for a while."
And perhaps the tournament he puts on will feel magical for some youngster in the stands.