Kenyon Martin Argues Basketball Has Become 'the New Golf’ Due to Its Exclusivity

He argued there's a difference between how he played basketball for "survival" and how some people treat sports as a "hobby" due to their wealth.

July 10, 2025

YouTube/Gil's Arena

Kenyon Martin has argued that basketball has become too exclusive and isn't prioritizing the talent of inner-city kids anymore.

On the latest installment of Gilbert Arenas' YouTube talk show, Gil's Arenas, the former NBA star branded basketball "the new golf and tennis." Speaking around the 1:11:00 mark in the video below, he said: "In order to be good at those sports, what do you need? ... In order to be good at golf and be good at tennis, it takes money. ... It always has."

He added: "Tennis and golf, as a child... To put your child in these sports to become anything, it cost money to play tennis and golf. Shit ain't free."

He said that in order to be good at golf or tennis, you need equipment, access to courses or courts, and coaching. "How many trainers are out here now for the game? Our game that we grew up playing for free," he continued. "These dudes getting paid for that shit now. Whole academies just for basketball, right? IMG started as a tennis academy. I'm saying strictly tennis. You know how much money it cost to go to that shit?"

IMG Academy was founded in 1978 as the Nick Bollettieri Tennis Academy, later incorporating golf in 1993. A basketball program was introduced in 2001. Boarding school tuition for IMG Academy IMG Academy will cost students $63,900 a year, while its comprehensive programs can go for as much as $96,000.

He said that "people from the hood" won't have access to these same resources, which will put them at a disadvantage against those from more affluent families.

"The NBA kids that grew up on money, the NFL kids that grew up on money, they paying for these trainers now and they getting the knowledge of being in a [NBA or NFL] household," he said. "So it's a hobby. ... Bo Jackson played NFL as a hobby."

Arenas argued that there's a difference between how someone like him played basketball for "survival" and how some people treat sports as a "hobby" because their wealth allows them to.

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