Hey Scott,
What Barry said about the gate being low is nothing but a bold faced lie. I made the trek to the Open this year, along with a friend of mine, and anyone who is there will tell you that it's utter bullshit. Every single VIP seat was sold, in fact there were so many sold that they had to rearrange the seats for the last few days to squeeze people in between tables. Barry even went on the mic himself and apologized for there not being seats for the general admission ticket holders, and said that even him and his daughter did not have seats.
In fact there were so many VIP and general admission tickets sold that Barry had to unexpectedly bring in projectors and screens so people on the non-TV side of the room could still see the match. AND if that wasn't enough, I believe for the final Barry setup a screen in one of the other rooms and even charged another $5/head to see it.
Let me get back to the main TV room, there wasn't an empty seat in the house for the finals. It was so jammed packed in there, and the seats were so poorly laid out that once you got to your seat you were there for the duration. Getting out of those seats literally required everyone between you and the door to get up, and possibly also move towards the aisle to make room and get out. Some larger people actually couldn't fit between the the table edge and the back wall, so they had to sit in a corner. Each section only had one stair case going to it, so people actually resorted to climbing up the back of the stands (~10 ft) to get in and out. A lot of people had to walk on top of seats to get through, because the seats were packed so tight they couldn't move forwards or backwards. If there was ever a fire in that building people would've died for sure. I'm sure if anyone ever wanted to shut down the US open a call to the fire marshal would've done the trick.
Suffice to say, blaming the lack of funds on the "poor gate" is nothing but an outrageous lie.
