2019 ATP General News

[Murat Baslamisli]

Monte Carlo draw is out. Zverev- Felix can be very interesting. Agut-Rafa, maybe. Let's see who gets their clay legs faster.

 

[JesuslookslikeBorg]

the kokk and faa/small colin have been given wildcards for mc...kokk was playing a challenger somewhere this week.

 

[Fiero425]

Monte Carlo draw is out. Zverev- Felix can be very interesting. Agut-Rafa, maybe. Let's see who gets their clay legs faster.

As usual Nole's getting the worst of it with #6 Tsitsipas, #4 Thiem, & #8 Khachanov in the top 1/2 of the draw while Rafa gets pigeons #5 Kei, #7 Cilic, & #3 Zverev in his! The unseeded players in Rafa's section might be tough though in Wawrinka, RBA, Shapovalov, Dimitrov!

 

[Federberg]

As usual Nole's getting the worst of it with #6 Tsitsipas, #4 Thiem, & #8 Khachanov in the top 1/2 of the draw while Rafa gets piegeons #5 Kei, #7 Cilic, & #3 Zverev in his! The unseeded players in Rafa's section might be tough though in Wawrinka, RBA, Shapovalov, Dimitrov!

Are you really suggesting that Novak's draw is worse? Rafa's looks tougher. Come on man...

 

[Moxie]

I think the top dogs are paid fairly though there is an even an argument there that they should get more. But clearly the lower ranked guys really struggle to make decent money when you factor in expenses and that's where I see greater differences with other sports. The 100th best golfer, basketball player, football player, etc. makes a hell of a lot more than #100 in tennis. It's not a total apples to apples comparison but tennis clearly can be doing a lot better for the players who are not top echelon.

I also thought that the interview was compelling. He was very frank. I think the top dogs are fine with the money they get, but the lower ranked players should get more. How much does the tournament really need? It's not like most of them (tournaments) are going out of business, and the more players that can afford to stay in the game, the better for the field, and therefore, the sport. I was disappointed, however, that he felt the need to point out what the women make and the fact that they only play 2/3...and that the interviewer fell into that trap without mentioning that the women are not offered to play 3/5. I think Tipsy even said that would be too boring. If that's the way he feels, it's an argument that turns in on itself.

 

[Moxie]

Are you really suggesting that Novak's draw is worse? Rafa's looks tougher. Come on man...

TBH, I think Djokovic's is worse. I just object to Fiero's "as usual."

 

[Moxie]

Monte Carlo draw is out. Zverev- Felix can be very interesting. Agut-Rafa, maybe. Let's see who gets their clay legs faster.

Zverev is starting to turn into a Manila Folder. I like Felix's chances. RBA is much more of a HC guy, for a Spaniard, so I wouldn't be looking for the upset there.

 

[Chris Koziarz]

I have to say, Tipsarevic's point that players getting only 12% of the revenue at slams it's completely outrageous. I agree with him. He also says that it is negligent that we have stars like Serena, Roger, Novak and the Bryan brothers playing right now and tennis has not received the bump that other sports have experienced. His point is that Tiger's presence resulted in golfers as a whole getting more money, and MJ and Lebron's presence has resulted in basketball players getting more money. But somehow tennis players have not leveraged their bounty as well. He has some extremely good points

And how Yanko would want to fix this 12% ? By telling the ATP to move Winbledon to Abu Dhabi ! Ha, ha! presumably UAE, with their big oil, have big money to spend and they would be capable of spending big on the midsummer grand slam, perhaps rename it to "Sheikh-o-don"? Perhaps Sheikhs would pay players 50% rather than 12% All England Lawn Tennis & Croquet Club are paying? If you threaten brits with such idea and the threat will come up all the way to the Queen, she will ask AELTCC "why don't you pay the players more?" and the problem would be solved. Even more funny is Yanko's reasoning why such action threatening the very basics of the tennis culture would work: because he openly believes in the pure nihilistic philosophy as represented by Friedrich Nietzsche: that you can negate everything and start everything from scratch. Perhaps, he also believes, after Nietzsche, that nothing, especially cultural traditions, has any inherent importance and that life lacks purpose, so we have no regrets "starting from scratch". Well, he should go one step further and say that constitutional monarchy lacks its original purpose in UK, so we should get rid of the Queen who does not really rule anymore in modern society. But apparently, he stopped here and even contradicted it by actually imagining the Queen would have a decisive influence on players' wages in Wimby. I normally don't play with mood signs but this time couldn't resist because I think Yanko's opinions and ideas especially his nihilism, are just laughing stock. You cannot fight with ATP bureaucrats by threatening to destroy tennis traditions. By exactly the same token an atheist who disagrees about the existence of God, cannot fight believers by threatening to destroy all churches and mosques. It won't work against the deep rooted cultural traditions. Up to that point, Yanko's opinions sounded reasonable even perhaps interesting but you may correctly guess that at that point I stopped listening. And because I now know this guy is a nihilistic type (that BTW I was in my younger years so I understand and have a feeling for, but I grown out of such attitude), I would double check everything he says, including his 12% claim herein.

 

[Federberg]

And how Yanko would want to fix this 12% ? By telling the ATP to move Winbledon to Abu Dhabi ! Ha, ha! presumably UAE, with their big oil, have big money to spend and they would be capable of spending big on the midsummer grand slam, perhaps rename it to "Sheikh-o-don"? Perhaps Sheikhs would pay players 50% rather than 12% All England Lawn Tennis & Croquet Club are paying? If you threaten brits with such idea and the threat will come up all the way to the Queen, she will ask AELTCC "why don't you pay the players more?" and the problem would be solved. Even more funny is Yanko's reasoning why such action threatening the very basics of the tennis culture would work: because he openly believes in the pure nihilistic philosophy as represented by Friedrich Nietzsche: that you can negate everything and start everything from scratch. Perhaps, he also believes, after Nietzsche, that nothing, especially cultural traditions, has any inherent importance and that life lacks purpose, so we have no regrets "starting from scratch". Well, he should go one step further and say that constitutional monarchy lacks its original purpose in UK, so we should get rid of the Queen who does not really rule anymore in modern society. But apparently, he stopped here and even contradicted it by actually imagining the Queen would have a decisive influence on players' wages in Wimby. I normally don't play with mood signs but this time couldn't resist because I think Yanko's opinions and ideas especially his nihilism, are just laughing stock. You cannot fight with ATP bureaucrats by threatening to destroy tennis traditions. By exactly the same token an atheist who disagrees about the existence of God, cannot fight believers by threatening to destroy all churches and mosques. It won't work against the deep rooted cultural traditions. Up to that point, Yanko's opinions sounded reasonable even perhaps interesting but you may correctly guess that at that point I stopped listening. And because I now know this guy is a nihilistic type (that BTW I was in my younger years so I understand and have a feeling for, but I grown out of such attitude), I would double check everything he says, including his 12% claim herein.

Mate we all saw Tipsarevic reading Nietzche at the Open, so does that make him a nihilist? Perhaps, perhaps not. But if you are going to try to ridicule the guy at least do the homework. I find your post strange considering you always try to bombard us with facts. Take AO15 as an example, they generated A$254m, players got A$40m, do the maths. He's not far off. Now do a comparison with other major sports and then tell me he's talking rubbish. You can critique his solutions, frankly he seemed to just throw ideas out for what a united group of players could do. If you disagree with the solutions that's fine. But at least have the decency to do some basic research

 

[herios]

the kokk and faa/small colin have been given wildcards for mc...kokk was playing a challenger somewhere this week.

Kokkinakis withdrew with an injury this week in Barletta. So that WC is most likely a waste.

 

[Chris Koziarz]

Mate we all saw Tipsarevic reading Nietzche at the Open, so does that make him a nihilist? Perhaps, perhaps not. But if you are going to try to ridicule the guy at least do the homework. I find your post strange considering you always try to bombard us with facts. Take AO15 as an example, they generated A$254m, players got A$40m, do the maths. He's not far off. Now do a comparison with other major sports and then tell me he's talking rubbish. You can critique his solutions, frankly he seemed to just throw ideas out for what a united group of players could do. If you disagree with the solutions that's fine. But at least have the decency to do some basic research

A$40m/A$254m in AO2015 is 15.7% and not 12%.
OK, then. I didn't have time previously, but now I did my homework.
For USO & Wimby only, I looked at Forbes here https://www.forbes.com/sites/gracem...aves-60-million-on-centre-court/#41a699d1c68e
Wimby 2017:
Revenues: $289 million - $160 million from broadcasting rights, $47 million from ticket sales, $47 million from sponsorships and $35 million from concessions and merchandise
Prize money ~$45 million (I had to calculate it because they did not say it verbatim in US$)
USO 2017:
Revenues: $335 million - $120 million in broadcasting rights, $120 million from tickets, $65 million from sponsorships and $30 million from concessions and merchandise,
Prize money: $50 million
In both cases the prize money is 16% of total revenue.
So, 16% of total revenue by GSes (a bit higher than 12%) goes to players' official earnings.

I also looked at comparable data for NBA, to verify Yanko's claims about NBA players being rewarded 50% of revenue.
NBA 2017-2018:
The 30 NBA teams generated $7.4 billion in revenue, according to https://www.investopedia.com/articles/investing/070715/nbas-business-model.asp
I've calculated total players salaries as $3,357,350,000, by importing "Team Payrolls" & "Player Salaries" data from https://hoopshype.com/salaries/2017-2018/ into excel.
So, the percentage is $3,357,350,000/$7.4 billion = 45%
Maybe this 45% is the number Yanko is talking about (and inflating it to 50%).
However, that's not the organiser's revenue but team revenue. I'm not sure if we can compare GS organiser's revenue to NBA team revenue. But I don't know enough about NBA to argue that detail, so let's leave it there.

So Yanko's right that NBA salaries/revenue is a bit higher than tennis salaries/revenue (with corrections per my numbers above) if the two business models can be compared. But that is a big if. I would argue for example, that for starters, we have only 1 tennis player while some 15 NBA players per team in the game. And assuming both games are supported by roughly equal amount of organisers, officials, commentators, etc, a single tennis player is surrounded by much larger army of organisers than a single NBA player is. So if we want to pay fairly to everyone involved in the event, the percentage of a tennis player salary needs to be more diluted than the percentage of NBA team salary. But my speculation maybe wrong here. Perhaps there are even more organisers in tennis than in NBA or otherwise the revenue distribution in tennis event must be somehow different than that of NBA event, e.g. more must go into court maintenance year round. I don't know enough to have an opinion. One conclusion is safe to say: Yanko did exaggerate his figures slightly, and also did not show that he understands the details of tennis vs NBA salaries better than I do. So I should not consider him an authority on these matters.
The gap between top players and bottom players salaries is much bigger in tennis than in NBA. But that's a different issue.

 

[Federberg]

A$40m/A$254m in AO2015 is 15.7% and not 12%.
OK, then. I didn't have time previously, but now I did my homework.
For USO & Wimby only, I looked at Forbes here https://www.forbes.com/sites/gracem...aves-60-million-on-centre-court/#41a699d1c68e
Wimby 2017:
Revenues: $289 million - $160 million from broadcasting rights, $47 million from ticket sales, $47 million from sponsorships and $35 million from concessions and merchandise
Prize money ~$45 million (I had to calculate it because they did not say it verbatim in US$)
USO 2017:
Revenues: $335 million - $120 million in broadcasting rights, $120 million from tickets, $65 million from sponsorships and $30 million from concessions and merchandise,
Prize money: $50 million
In both cases the prize money is 16% of total revenue.
So, 16% of total revenue by GSes (a bit higher than 12%) goes to players' official earnings

he's not far off, and we don't know if a particular major event in a particular year matches more closely. I would be highly amused if you're making the claim that his stance is invalidated because of the difference in 12% to 16%. You can't be serious

 

[Federberg]

I also looked at comparable data for NBA, to verify Yanko's claims about NBA players being rewarded 50% of revenue.
NBA 2017-2018:
The 30 NBA teams generated $7.4 billion in revenue, according to https://www.investopedia.com/articles/investing/070715/nbas-business-model.asp
I've calculated total players salaries as $3,357,350,000, by importing "Team Payrolls" & "Player Salaries" data from https://hoopshype.com/salaries/2017-2018/ into excel.
So, the percentage is $3,357,350,000/$7.4 billion = 45%
Maybe this 45% is the number Yanko is talking about (and inflating it to 50%).
However, that's not the organiser's revenue but team revenue. I'm not sure if we can compare GS organiser's revenue to NBA team revenue. But I don't know enough about NBA to argue that detail, so let's leave it there.

I believe the NBA teams own the NBA, but folks like DarthFed can chip in there. Either way it is clear that the players in the NBA have a substantially higher share of the sports revenue. Almost 3 times more than it seems for tennis player which is precisely the point Tipsarevic is making. I don't understand why this is difficult for you to understand.

 

[mrzz]

However, that's not the organiser's revenue but team revenue.

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).

 

[Federberg]

So Yanko's right that NBA salaries/revenue is a bit higher than tennis salaries/revenue (with corrections per my numbers above) if the two business models can be compared. But that is a big if. I would argue for example, that for starters, we have only 1 tennis player while some 15 NBA players per team in the game. And assuming both games are supported by roughly equal amount of organisers, officials, commentators, etc, a single tennis player is surrounded by much larger army of organisers than a single NBA player is. So if we want to pay fairly to everyone involved in the event, the percentage of a tennis player salary needs to be more diluted than the percentage of NBA team salary. But my speculation maybe wrong here. Perhaps there are even more organisers in tennis than in NBA or otherwise the revenue distribution in tennis event must be somehow different than that of NBA event, e.g. more must go into court maintenance year round. I don't know enough to have an opinion. One conclusion is safe to say: Yanko did exaggerate his figures slightly, and also did not show that he understands the details of tennis vs NBA salaries better than I do. So I should not consider him an authority on these matters.

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

 

[Federberg]

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).

I feel this way too. Certainly when you look at the premier league players wages are 40 - 50% of team revenue. So I'm not surprised that NBA players compensation is in the same range. For tennis players to get less than 20% seems anomalous to me

 

[mrzz]

I feel this way too. Certainly when you look at the premier league players wages are 40 - 50% of team revenue. So I'm not surprised that NBA players compensation is in the same range. For tennis players to get less than 20% seems anomalous to me

I agree with the anomaly but I can see one reason behind it, and that is that tennis is much more dependent on its star players than the other sports (on average). A local classic (Flamengo x Vasco, Inter x Milan, Boca x River, Real x Barcelona) during regular season will have at least a half full stadium and a lot of viewers no matter what, even if you put juniors playing. If it is a final or a semi, you could put dogs with jerseys and you would still get full capacity.

 

[Federberg]

I agree with the anomaly but I can see one reason behind it, and that is that tennis is much more dependent on its star players than the other sports (on average). A local classic (Flamengo x Vasco, Inter x Milan, Boca x River, Real x Barcelona) during regular season will have at least a half full stadium and a lot of viewers no matter what, even if you put juniors playing. If it is a final or a semi, you could put dogs with jerseys and you would still get full capacity.

Lol! You talk about tennis being star driven on the one hand then you use the most storied rivalries in football to differentiate from tennis? The Inter's, Barca's and Real's are the Roger, Rafa and Novak's. That's just the way all sports are. They are driven by stars, and historic franchises. One thing is clear from Janko's thesis. He's not arguing for some sort of communist parity. He fully concedes that tennis as a sport is carried by it's biggest stars. He's not talking about the distribution amongst the players. He's talking about the share. Less than 20% for the players is an outlier to me

 

[Federberg]

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

 

[Murat Baslamisli]

I think a fair comparison may be golf. Anyone looked into it? What is the total revenue for example Masters this week generates, what is the percentage players take home?
I have some minor experience in that I played some satellites and challengers on the fringes of the sport. It IS a tough life for peanuts. In fact , you are in the minus if you do not have sponsors and you usually don't. A number 200 tennis player in the world has a rough life. 200th player in the NBA is set for life because he is in a roster of a team. Ditto with football (the correct kind, played actually with feet )
So yeah, a little bump on the percentage cannot hurt. I am sure organizers think differently.