2019 ATP General News

[mrzz]

^ probably even more accurate to say that Fedalovic is like Messi/Ronaldo/Mbappe. And Inter/Real/Barca are like Wimbledon/RG/AO...

Now you're getting it. The point is that tennis is much more "big name" driven than football, specially if you look at ticket sales, which are much more important in tennis than in football.

If the top 10 most known players in European football quit today, you will obviously feel an effect, but it would probably 10 times smaller than what happens if Fedalovic would walk away. In places like Brazil, if the top 10 players stop or go play abroad, there is basically a zero overall impact on ticket sales and TV ratings.

So, the big names in tennis have much more leverage to look for their economic interests. They get appearance fees (and as money does not come for free, prize money will diminish in return). Also, the very structure of the tournaments make the better players earn more, which is fair up to an extent. The thing is that prize money increases in a quite non-linear way as you progress through the rounds. The bigger the tournament, the less linear it is.

The end result is that, in tennis, you need to be a much better athlete/competitor, in relative terms, than in the vast majority of sports.

EDIT: There are two different, even if connected, discussions here: one is the share that players get, other how that share is distributed. One thing that one must also consider is that we are talking about revenue share (not profit share), and obviously sports with a higher margin have much more room to maneuver.

 

[Chris Koziarz]

how do you exaggerate slightly? Let's be serious here. The guy was not far off in his estimation. You seem to want to nitpick. Your point about the difference in structure between the sports is fair, but so what? Don't mix up the resources top tennis players have compared to the average tennis player. This is a major sport. If you are seriously arguing that in the modern age, the revenue generators are only entitled to compensation of 16% of total revenue then frankly I'm stunned. There is something deeply flawed in the system and if the organisers are smart they'll make this right before the resource on which the whole sport depends does something extreme to fix the issue. I guarantee you that tournament organisers can hold fast to the current inequity insisting that they have the tournaments, but fans will follow the players not the tournaments. That much is clear

You are stunned because you misread me. You can call my correction from 4 times less (12% vs 50%) vs 3 times less (16% vs 45%) a nitpick but I did not say that players are entitled to only 16% of revenue. In fact I admitted that Tipsarevic is right, provided the comparison is fair. The only qualification I added is that individual sports like tennis are difficult to compare with team sports like NBA/football/soccer. Before we make a claim that tennis players are underpaid, we must understand how the revenue is distributed between players and organisers in both sports to have an opinion. As Murat has noticed, a fair comparison to other individual sports like golf would be easier and we should also discuss that.

 

[britbox]

Yeah, I don't think NBA v Tennis is a good comparison either. NBA, NFL, MLB are all franchise based and distribution of revenue follows a totally different model.

If you take Wimbledon, for example - most of the "profit" after operating costs goes back into tennis. I'm guessing it's a similar model with Tennis Australia.

So, when top players grumble about revenue splits, they need to be mindful of where the rest of the money is going rather than just focusing on percentages. Tennis facilities need to be paid for, tennis programs need to be paid for, promising young players receive subsidies... Of course, this is weighted heavily in favour of players who develop within grand slam hosting countries.

 

[Fiero425]

Yeah, I don't think NBA v Tennis is a good comparison either. NBA, NFL, MLB are all franchise based and distribution of revenue follows a totally different model.

If you take Wimbledon, for example - most of the "profit" after operating costs goes back into tennis. I'm guessing it's a similar model with Tennis Australia.

So, when top players grumble about revenue splits, they need to be mindful of where the rest of the money is going rather than just focusing on percentages. Tennis facilities need to be paid for, tennis programs need to be paid for, promising young players receive subsidies... Of course, this is weighted heavily in favour of players who develop within grand slam hosting countries.

Oh, Wimbledon's come around in the way of really funding British tennis? Way back when I seem to remember in '77 they earned $7 M for the telecast rights, but only donated $100,000 to "the cause" of tennis! The $$'s sick today and we can all be assured someone's getting hosed; heaven knows it isn't the elites of the game though! Fedalovic is cleaning up; Nole'll probably end up an all time earning leader for years to come with his intermittent dominance of the tour over the years! Of the top 10 seasons, he's holding 6 of the all time records! He's probably gonna wind up pushing out some of them; #10 (2011) - $12,619,803 & #9 (2012) - $12,803,737! :whistle:

 

[Chris Koziarz]

I guess that the fact that NBA is a franchise is central in this comparison. However, those are quite different sports, I am pretty sure if you sit together a team owner and, say, a tournament owner, they could spend weeks finding differences between their business, so ultimately this is a void comparison.

However, the principle, or claim, that money distribution across tennis is way, way worst than other sports is quite obviously true, I guess. Even if prize money is not the only single revenue source of a player, the figure one should look at is: how many players are able to make a living out of tennis? If you look at prize money earned (something you can check on the ATP page), I would guess that, being generous, the top 300 players
can do that. I made a rough estimation checking prize money for around 10 players from #200 to #300, and I would say that their revenue was, on average, from around US$ 8.000,00 a month (those around #200) to around US$ 3.500,00 (those around #300, those are average figures, obviously it floats from player to player). Factor in the costs with travel, trainers and etc, I say the cut is there. But, ok, we could be generous and expand it to 400.

Now compare it to, for example, football (unfair comparison, but ok). How many players make a living out of football? Well, I can safely say that only in the city I live there would be 400 players making a living out of it. According to FIFA, in 2006 there were around 113.000 professional football players in the world. Apply to it the yearly population growth rate, and let us assume that we have 130.000 thousand professionals in 2019. Tennis and football have different realities, so lets assume that, out of those 130.000 professionals, 50.000 make a living out of it.

So, rough estimation, we have 200 times more athletes living out of football than tennis. The question is: does football generates 200 times more money than tennis? It surely generates more, but 200 times is a lot. I I would guess, I would say 20 times more (which is still a lot). So, in this rough estimation one would conclude that, yes, tennis does not distribute well its money.

Anyway, my estimation can be flawed, but I stand by the principle behind it: you must compare the total revenue each sport generates with tthe total number of athletes competing on it (not to mention all the staff around it, but that would be on a more sophisticated level of analysis).

You calculate that only certain number of top players can barely make a living, and that said number is 200 times greater in football than in tennis. I think your numbers make sense. However, said numbers might not just be an indication of total revenue & revenue sharing differences but also of uneven prize money distribution among players. You mention that second issue in another post of yours. But herein, you mix the two issues. More soccer than tennis players make a living out of their career because both soccer revenue is bigger and perhaps more percentage of soccer economy revenue goes into players pockets but also the prize distribution is more equal among soccer teams. I think primary reason for the latter is that each team plays the same amount of games throughout the season because teams play against each other, while most tennis competitions are single elimination tournaments.

 

[Chris Koziarz]

I have found the detailed prize money distribution in Wimby 2017 & 2018:
https://www.wimbledon.com/pdf/2018_Prize_Money.pdf
and golf PGA 2018 tournament prize distribution:
https://www.pga.com/events/pgachampionship/2018-pga-championship-purse-and-winners-share
By comparing the two (a very fair comparison of the most prestigious events in both respective sports), we can conclude that the prize purse in golf is distributed even more unevenly than in tennis. Example:
Wimby 2018 single winner: £2,250,000; First Round: £39,000 - ratio 58:1
PGA 2018: winner: $1,980,000; T-65th to 70th: $20,100 - ratio 99:1
I think "T-65th to 70th" result in golf is roughly equivalent to "First Round" in tennis (which could be precised as T-65th to 128th), that's why I picked "T-65th to 70th" for comparison. I could pick T-80th, but the prize money differences are small at the bottom. The bottom line is that all top 80 PGA players are "Players making the cut", so presumably playing all of the holes (I don't know enough golf to be sure), so effectively participating in the whole competition up to the final, i.e. making as many shots at the winner makes. That's because golf competition is not a single elimination tournament. Yet in golf, the winner takes 99 times more money than an outlier who "makes the cut", a ratio almost twice bigger than a tennis winner vs an outlier who "makes the main draw". There should be no more complains that the distribution of prize money in tennis is so unfair and that tennis players outside of top elite can't make a living. While true, tennis case is not the worst one: the purse distribution among golf players is decidedly more unfair and pro golfers outside of elite are paid far more unfairly than their tennis counterparts.

 

[Federberg]

I have found the detailed prize money distribution in Wimby 2017 & 2018:
https://www.wimbledon.com/pdf/2018_Prize_Money.pdf
and golf PGA 2018 tournament prize distribution:
https://www.pga.com/events/pgachampionship/2018-pga-championship-purse-and-winners-share
By comparing the two (a very fair comparison of the most prestigious events in both respective sports), we can conclude that the prize purse in golf is distributed even more unevenly than in tennis. Example:
Wimby 2018 single winner: £2,250,000; First Round: £39,000 - ratio 58:1
PGA 2018: winner: $1,980,000; T-65th to 70th: $20,100 - ratio 99:1
I think "T-65th to 70th" result in golf is roughly equivalent to "First Round" in tennis (which could be precised as T-65th to 128th), that's why I picked "T-65th to 70th" for comparison. I could pick T-80th, but the prize money differences are small at the bottom. The bottom line is that all top 80 PGA players are "Players making the cut", so presumably playing all of the holes (I don't know enough golf to be sure), so effectively participating in the whole competition up to the final, i.e. making as many shots at the winner makes. That's because golf competition is not a single elimination tournament. Yet in golf, the winner takes 99 times more money than an outlier who "makes the cut", a ratio almost twice bigger than a tennis winner vs an outlier who "makes the main draw". There should be no more complains that the distribution of prize money in tennis is so unfair and that tennis players outside of top elite can't make a living. While true, tennis case is not the worst one: the purse distribution among golf players is decidedly more unfair and pro golfers outside of elite are paid far more unfairly than their tennis counterparts.

that's very interesting thanks. But what we need to know is what share the players get of total revenue. The distribution amongst the players is a red herring. No one is talking about that

 

[mrzz]

A bit late to start a Houston thread, but good to see that Garin won. Ruud is a decent player, but he is mainly solid, and that's about it. Garin has a very beautiful game, offensive, not as offensive as his countryman Jarry (which is borderline nuts), but way more technical. He has a lot of upside. He was a very good junior, I guess more than one junior major, strangely it took him a while to make inroads in the top 100. But it won't surprise me if he gets to another level. By the way when he was a junior he was sort of a grass specialist (even being south american).

 

[Carol]

Horrible what is happening in the Notre Dame Cathedral

 

[Moxie]

Horrible what is happening in the Notre Dame Cathedral

Carol, I just made a thread in World News. Absolutely heartbreaking.

 

[herios]

A bit late to start a Houston thread, but good to see that Garin won. Ruud is a decent player, but he is mainly solid, and that's about it. Garin has a very beautiful game, offensive, not as offensive as his countryman Jarry (which is borderline nuts), but way more technical. He has a lot of upside. He was a very good junior, I guess more than one junior major, strangely it took him a while to make inroads in the top 100. But it won't surprise me if he gets to another level. By the way when he was a junior he was sort of a grass specialist (even being south american).

Garrin won only 1 GS in juniors, RG in 2013.

 

[Horsa]

Horrible what is happening in the Notre Dame Cathedral

It is indeed.

 

[the AntiPusher]

Or this one

Thanks Miss Carol

 

[the AntiPusher]

Or this one

This is what I am talking about bringing the pain is..he should play like this this week..just thump the ball instead of waiting to look for an opening..However he has 10 or 11 MC championships more than myself..hahaha

 

[JesuslookslikeBorg]

It got better. He not only won it, but won it in style.

yes, one of dreddys dropshots had so much backspin it jumped back over the net.. i never seen that before,

title win gets has rank up to 170-ish..want to be making the fo qualifiers, big money compared to what he usually gets if he does not make it.

 

[GameSetAndMath]

yes, one of dreddys dropshots had so much backspin it jumped back over the net.. i never seen that before,

Actually, I had seen it before. Interestingly the feat was perfromed by Dreddy before. Even more interestingly, it was a service return drop shot that time. I will try to post the clip, if i find time.

 

[mrzz]

^It is not that unusual. I remember that other one from Brown. Cuevas did that too, and "suffered" one as well, just don't remember against who. We even have a name for that play here in Brazil, "the Mexican".

 

[isabelle]

terrible news : Jo Will has sickle-cell aenemia, don't know if he can play again

 

[Denis]

terrible news : Jo Will has sickle-cell aenemia, don't know if he can play again

Wow that’s bad news. Are you sure? Isnt that diagnosed when a person is 6 months old?

 

[Federberg]

Wow that’s bad news. Are you sure? Isnt that diagnosed when a person is 6 months old?

Wow! I'm amazed that's only been found out now. That's genetic. I don't believe it needs to be a career ender with proper medication. Sad news