Prepared for Barilla America · November 2026
Barilla already times things to the pasta. INTENNSE plays its tennis in ten-minute Bolts, on a running clock, with three women and three men playing for one score. In 2027 every team lives and plays in Atlanta for the whole summer. We’d like to set a Barilla table in the middle of it.
A partnership proposal · Seven sections, about five minutes
“This one you can have fun.” — in the stands, Atlanta
A gender-balanced Professional Team Tennis League
Eight playing weeks in the middle of the summer. Switch the view to see the same season against the American sports year, or against the college calendar our players come from.
Where our players have been on the tour, and where they sit on the rating that covers everyone. The orange rule is where tennis starts paying for itself.
Two Arcs that finished a point apart. Each clip picks up in the closing minutes, with the full Arc a click away.
The final three minutes of Freeze v Rise, 20 June. The clock runs out with the teams tied, and the next point decides it: 143–142.
Match Center ↗The final minute of Outriders v Inferno, 25 June. It finishes 150–149, with the winner’s cheque on court.
Match Center ↗One from the net, one from the low camera. Each is about twenty seconds, and each one changed the scoreboard.
The last play of the Bolt from the low camera: a two-pointer that takes the Sting from 86–87 to 88–87. 22 seconds.
Match Center ↗Dalayna Hewitt’s two-pointer in the closing seconds against Rise, 15 July — 156 to 158, level. 18 seconds.
Match Center ↗■ Already in tennis
From the Laver Cup in Chicago to the US Open, Barilla has backed tennis players one at a time, because that is how tennis has always been played. In INTENNSE they don’t play alone. Three women and three men take the court together, every point counts toward one score, and the team eats together afterwards.
The Laver Cup, in Chicago, a short drive from Northbrook.
Born in Atlanta; “Serving Love” at the US Open in 2023.
Every point from either counts the same, toward one score.
The segments where an INTENNSE match turns.
■ Perfectly timed
In January, Protein+ Training Timers turned the cook time into a workout. An INTENNSE Pro Arc is built the same way: about an hour and forty minutes on one running score, made of ten-minute Bolts, where a single two-point play can take a team from a point down to a point up. Every match night, the clock is already running.
The Bolt, timed by Barilla: the clock on court and on screen, Protein+ timers with the players for the days between match nights, and a moment in every Arc when the whole room counts down the same ten minutes as the kitchen.
■ The table
Tennis players spend most of the year eating alone on the road. In 2027 every INTENNSE team lives in Atlanta from late May to 1 August, and the team meal becomes part of the season. Barilla already knows how to turn a sport’s biggest weekend into a family dinner. This is a whole summer of them, in one city.
The whole league plays its season in the city, late May to 1 August.
Players and coaches in Atlanta for the whole season.
The largest city tennis league in the world, founded in 1934.
Each team moves to its own city, with its own owner.
One team, one table, one Barilla meal, and the stories players usually tell only each other: the travel, the money, the matches they still think about. Short episodes for social, a longer cut for YouTube, and a players-and-families dinner to close the season.
■ The 2026 Season
Ten teams, eight weeks, forty-three Pro Arcs, every one carried live. The 2026 Season closed on 1 August with Freeze beating Outriders 137–130.
The Rules of INTENNSE, explained · 2:04
Up 1,037% on the year before, with 26 million impressions.
Record live concurrents across the final series.
Average across forty local airings on Peachtree; the best single Arc drew 116,000.
Two broadcast, two RSNs, seven FAST, three streaming — 60% of watch time on TV.
■ Two ways in
Put Barilla on the clock in every match, or at the table where the teams and their fans eat. They are designed to work together.
■ Next step
We’d love an hour with the Barilla team, in Northbrook or courtside with the players in Atlanta.
Eight teams, one city, a whole summer of match nights.
The league’s biggest broadcast, and the season’s last family dinner.
Every team goes home, and the table travels with it.
Ten minutes on the clock. One table. One score.
