posted Dec 10, 2007

Capitalism is about survival of the fittest. The cream will always rise to the top and, with the obscene money on offer, the supreme competitor is going to make more money than us mere mortals can only dream about. Unfortunately, the majority of spectators only want to watch a tournament with "names" involved. ie if Federer, Nadal and the rest weren't involved gate and tv receipts would be down and the tournament would soon be relegated down the pecking order. Would the top players accept a radical change in prize money? I suspect not and they would certainly bring pressure to bear by boycotting tournaments who make such radical changes. I don't see the difference really in the concept of tennis prize money distribution and the share of salaries in any business. The larger stake is given to those at the top and it just seems so obscene in tennis because the amounts involved are so large. If you start interfering with the prize money split in a contrived fashion we will have the top players pulling out with the negative consequences for the popularity of a sport that certainly in Britain and I suspect in many other countries is a minority sport anyway. It is tough for those not in the top tier of tennis but is it any different for the journeymen in other sports like golf who struggle to make ends meet? Don't get me started on the subject of women's tennis. I was at Eastbourne in the Summer to watch Mauresmo and Henin in the final. It was one big yawn and the two participants weren't even good looking. The Womens tennis union have done a damned good job to get equal prize money when they play less sets and send you to sleep with their slow motion tennis. Would the top womens tennis player get more than a couple of games off Roger in a three set match? As for supply and demand, if the top mens and womens tennis tournaments were played at the same time but in different locations I wonder where the greatest interest would be generated? I know which tournament that I would attend or watch and it wouldn't be the womens.

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posted Dec 10, 2007

Combined events tend to do better than either men or women only events in terms of crowds and TV interest so it's no surprise that more of these events are on the way. Actually just having combined events doesn't mean that the organisers have to offer equal prize money as the two tours have different structures. I believe Miami, IW, Madrid & Beijing will be offering equal prize money from 2009 (if they don't already) but that's because they will becoming mandatory events on the womens tour as well as the mens. Previously the womens tour hasn't had a tier of mandatory events like the Master Series. The womens Tier 1's that aren't becoming mandatory have increased prize money but not to Masters level as they aren't guaranteed the same quality of fields.

Anyway the move to equal prize money isn't solely down to combined events - the WTA Champs moves to Doha in 2008 and that will be offering equal prize money despite not being a combined event.

Oh and I was at Eastbourne for Henin v Mauresmo and thought it was a great match. All the media reports and (going by the general atmosphere) the vast majority of the crowd agreed.

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posted Dec 10, 2007

Aside from the Doha event, which is smart business by the WTA for its members, the only events I'm aware of that offer equal prize money are the shared events because realistically they have no choice.
GS2, we had this debate in the summer if you recall and I predicted an increase in such shared events- smart move by the WTA, not so smart by the ATP.
I even predicted Madrid would become shared which if you recall, you ridiculed at the time.
I take your point it might increase overall appeal, there's some evidence that happens, but if I was a lower ranked ATP player, I'd certainly be asking my association to explain the maths, because my female contemporaries will be getting a much bigger rise in potential revenue than I would.

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posted Dec 10, 2007

Well Jolly and GS,

You've both made interesting points. I disagree with a few things but I do think that what you say reflects general opinion.

And, while there may be differences of opinion with regard to how entertaining (or not) some of the women's games are, certainly it seems that the men's game is more popular. I think I've watched every mixed tournament available on television over the last 5 years but haven't bothered where the tournament was 'women only'.

-I usually watch the women's game and all doubles games while waiting for the men's to start. -I also find the lower ranked women's players more interesting to watch. There isn't a top ten player I care to watch perhaps with the exception of Kuznetsova (and Davenport when she's around). To me, they behave professionally.

(It isn't purely a gender issue as I find people like Nadal, Murray and, in the past, Mc Enroe unpleasant to watch also. They are the equivalent of penalty box divers in football.)
-I accept that many people like that kind of thing.

Fashion intrigues, toilet break summits and shreiking are a huge bore (to me) and the fitness levels, (with a few notable exceptions, Henin, Venus and Mauresmo), appear to be appalling. A few people on here have remarked how their neighbors, given the nature of the shreiking, suspect that they are in fact watching a very different kind of indoor sport.

________________________

The Darwinian theses, I don't buy for a moment, for the simple reason that it favors the top, whereas the, let's say, 2015 Wimbledon Champion (now aged about 10 or 11 years old, and who has yet to establish his name) has got to make a career choice based (increasingly) on finance.

A climate where a junior can make a living must be better than a climate where he (or she) can not. That is the alpha and the omega of my argument. IF market forces were allowed to dictate, we would have no apprenticeship programme for trades,.. oh, I forgot, we do not have an apprenticeship program for trades....

By the way, if we want to let the fittest survive, a very Republican, Petrician, and Conservative concept, have ONE tour where men and women compete against one another. -Survival of the fittest can mean different things to different people.)

As for the cream rising to the top, some of the cream rises to the top but a lot of the cream quite sensibly chooses more lucrative careers (coffee futures). For names to develop, you need a place where such names can learn their trade.

By the way # 2, if people interfere with prize money in a 'contrived fashion'(as you suggest), then yes, there will be the consequences you say but nobody is talking about doing anything contrived. -The suggestion is that if the current division favours the few, while juniors bus it around to tournaments where their career choice starts looking like a career risk, the sport will likely 'lose' some great players.

[In publishing, it is well known that a few bestselling books passed across the desks of quite a few prominent publishers before being noticed. There is every likelihood that such classic books might never have seen light of day, so, the admirable cream may not act as we'd all like to see it act].

'Don't put your son on centre court, Mrs. Worthington'.

As for players refusing smaller gates, well, divert increases in prize money to programs that support juniors.

I don't pretend to have a solution to the dilemma(s) but I do know that it is plain wrong for the majority of prize money to be fixated at the very top while young juniors, whose real potential as future champions is not known, are (now increasingly)financially discouraged from taking part.

The future of tennis rests with the juniors. They need a better shake and then we'll see the cream rising.

-Apologies for the glib puns.

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posted Dec 10, 2007

Hi Fedex,

I missed your posting, sorry.

Will respond later.

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posted Dec 10, 2007

Porlock, I take your point on juniors, but the LTA does purloin some £25m from Wimbledon which is supposed to help with development of tennis in the UK. It's quite a sum. Quite a lot of it went on the shiny new facility at Roehampton, the budget for which almost made Lleyon Hewitt pass out whn he heard it, in Oz, they might spend 15-20% max on such a facility.
So maybe this money could be spent wiser....

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posted Dec 11, 2007

My point was that Miami, IW, Madrid & Beijing will be paying equal prize money because they will be getting the same high quality (mandatory) fields on the womens side that they get on the mens.

IW isn't offering equal prize money in 2008 because it won't be mandatory - IW isn't being forced into offering equal prize money because it's a combined event it's chosen to do so because it wanted an improved womens field. It could have continued as it has for the last decade but it obviously saw it was worth offering the extra money in return for the better field.

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posted Dec 11, 2007

Correction to my last post, above

Patrician.

(Hold the front page).

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posted Dec 11, 2007

An interesting insight from Butch Buchholz about the challenges of funding equal prize money outside the shared events.

"Again, for the issue of we're going to combined events in 2009, you're going to be talking about equal prize money to the tune of $8 to $9 million, and the Masters Series events are in that range, will be in that range.

But the women's tier 1 prize money isn't anywhere near that. So for example, Charlie Pasarell is going to have to come up with a heck of a lot more money from the women's side. I was at a dinner the other night with the WTA, and they were saying, you know, you guys are going to have to help subsidize that because there's a big difference in what the men's prize money is on the Masters Series and the women's prize money on tier 1, and you're going to have to help get that up and just going to have to subsidize it if you want equal prize money"

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posted Dec 13, 2007

Good points Fedex,

We need to discuss prize money on the women's tour. I'm not really in any position to comment on it. Maybe others can weigh in (intelligently).

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