USTA Invests Rec to Boost Grassroots Tennis Boom

On August 6, the United States Tennis Association (USTA) announced that its investment arm, USTA Ventures, has made a strategic investment in public court booking platform Rec Technologies ("Rec"). This investment aims to support Rec in enhancing the user experience for players, fueling the continued growth of grassroots tennis participation in the U.S.

In 2025, the U.S. tennis population is approximately 27.3 million, with nearly 40% playing on public courts.Rec connects players, coaches, and local public facilities (such as park courts) through a streamlined court booking and class registration process, reducing the operational costs for cities.Residents can use Rec to find playing partners, coaches, and training classes, and participate in organized events.

The Rec team believes that traditional public court management often has flaws—courts show as "booked" but are actually empty, with no penalties, and players who want to play can't find a court. This situation varies from court to court, so a one-size-fits-all approach doesn't work. Rec instead adopts a category-based rule-making approach, offering flexible solutions for parks.

Take San Francisco as an example:

• 57% of locations across the city retain a first-come, first-served system, making free, first-come, first-served the norm for most courts.
• For the 28 highest-demand facilities with concentrated no-show complaints, they introduced a targeted $5 per hour booking fee rather than charging across the board.

The $5 booking fee is designed to establish accountability, not to generate revenue. The amount varies by city—for example, Seattle charges $15 per hour, while New York charges $15 plus an annual $100 permit fee.

Above: Tennis courts at Dolores Park in San Francisco

The impact of this mechanism is clear:

• Cancellation rates dropped by over 60%. In the free system, cancellations meant courts appeared unavailable but were actually empty. For example, Dolores Park in San Francisco—previously booked solid seven days a week—now has midweek availability. Courts are truly being used.
• Total bookings have declined, which is expected. Speculative placeholders and multi-account hoarders have left the system. What remains are genuine players.

At the end of 2025, Rec launched an "AI Refund Assistant" to help cities manage cancellations and refunds, significantly reducing the effort spent on this most painful and time-consuming manual task across departments.

Currently, Rec is used by nearly 100 cities across the U.S. for tennis and pickleball court management. Rec also facilitates booking for basketball, swimming, volleyball courts, as well as art gallery tickets, park picnic areas, and other public activities.

Rec was founded in 2022 and is headquartered in San Francisco. The founders are two early Uber employees, Birju Kadakia and Rachel Williams. In addition to their time at Uber, Birju Kadakia served as Director of Product Management at sports media outlet The Athletic, and Rachel Williams worked at online education platform MasterClass. The Rec team now includes seasoned talent from renowned tech companies such as Google, Microsoft, Airbnb, and Strava.

In terms of funding, Rec secured a $6.2 million seed round in 2024, led by NFX. In September 2025, Rec raised $11 million in Series A funding, led by Crosslink Capital, with participation from NFL star Montana's venture fund Liquid 2 Ventures, NBA star Durant's venture fund Thirty Five Ventures, and others.

The press release for this investment states that investing in Rec aligns perfectly with USTA's goal of making the U.S. the world's leading tennis nation by 2035, with a tennis population of 35 million.Michael Hughes, USTA's Senior Director of Digital and Commercial Strategy, said: "A significant amount of tennis is played on public park courts, yet the process of finding and booking a court or coach often becomes a barrier for players. We see a huge opportunity to improve this experience. Rec is at the forefront of modernizing local park infrastructure, and USTA Ventures is excited to support their work in making tennis more accessible to communities across the country."

| Source: Official press release; official website

| Image source: Official website