Can We Spread the Love? On the Monopolization of Prize Money in Tennis
The winner of this year’s Australian Open will take home the sum of A$4.12 million (that’s $2.83 million in US dollars).
Should the winner happen to bear the name Roger, Rafa, or Novak, that amount is but a pittance.
A minor addition, if you will, to a bank balance that already has many zeros before the decimal point.
Meanwhile, 48 young men will have to brave the winter and make their way to the indoor courts of the Tennis Club de Bressuire in France. They will likely fight like hell to qualify for the main draw of an ITF World Tennis Tour M15+H event there (most ITF events don’t even allow that many qualifiers and leave players out in the cold, with little opportunity to even try).
Those who make it will compete in a draw of 32 for a winner’s check that won’t exceed $2,160. So a qualifier has to win 8 matches against really good players to make a couple of grand.
If the tournament does not offer hospitality, that check won’t even cover the hotel, let alone coaching fees, strings, food, and other expenses.
Fortunately, the event in France offers hospitality. That’s what the +H stands for (the M15 means a Mens $15K event while the M25 is a $25K event).
Most ITF World Tennis Tour events (which used to be called Future tournaments) don’t offer even that.
Futures players are not chumps.
Most of them will beat you, dear avid club member and pretend-champ, 0 and 0, in a heart beat, faster than you can spell T E N N I S.
And, no, your 4.5 USTA tournament win last week is not comparable, in any way, shape or form to playing at a level where real competition is involved.
Neither is your backhand, forehand, volley, or serve.
Take the winner of the M25 event in Los Angeles last week, Argentina’s Francisco Cerundolo. A formidable player, he has an ATP world ranking of 242. Cerundolo regularly plays in Challenger level tournaments (the highest tier of tennis’ minor leagues).
The Challengers are even tougher than Future events and regularly summon top ATP talent.
In total, Cerundolo has won $51,646 in prize money (which also includes his doubles wins).
That is a travesty. Cerundolo is only 21, and will probably make it a lot higher in the rankings and make more money.
But the point is that this kind of low pay for players who are that good is unfair when compared to how much money Grand Slam players bring in.
Minor league tennis players are more or less at the same level of technical proficiency as the multi-millionaires of the ATP, a point many followers of tennis do not seem to grasp.
There is very little difference in skill level between a player who is in the top 50 and a player who is ranked 250 in the world.
On a good day, a player who regularly plays challengers can beat a top grand slam champion. This year’s number 1 seed in the Bangkok II Challenger, for example, is the supremely talented Czech Jiri Vesely.
Tennis fans will remember Vesely’s take-down of then world number 1 Novak Djokovic in Monte Carlo in 2016.
While Vesely has made money from tennis, many of his competitors on the Challenger Tour are broke. Farther down, in the ITF M15 and M25 events, it is even worse.
As a result, many talented players have to quit and give up on their dreams early on because of the financial difficulties involved.
One can certainly understand why top players make a lot of money. But the game has become boring to some because the same players keep winning. As they win, they bring in more money, allowing them to benefit from a wider support system (coaches, hitting partners, nutritionists, doctors, etc.), which gives them more advantages. And then they win again.
When Roger Federer meets the 90th ranked male in the first or second round of Wimbledon, it is not an even playing field in any fashion (I am a die-hard Federer fan by the way).
The 90th guy has come in tired, with virtually no help, having had to either qualify or play a ton of challengers to get there. Meanwhile, Federer has flown in on a private jet, has been staying in a luxurious rented house, and has been pampered by a long retinue of staff helping him out in myriad ways.
To be sure, the top champs had to endure the same difficulties as their lower-ranked fellow players on the road to glory. But the insane disparity in prize money may be facilitating a longer stay at the top for the legends and a faster exit from the game for journeymen and young aspirants.
If prize money is distributed more fairly, perhaps we can see more players hanging in there and breaking through, giving the game more variety.
Fans, TV networks and sponsors are not going to pay a lot of money to support unknown players in obscure tournaments like the M25 in Los Angeles.
So how do you make more money available to lower ranked players?
More team competition.
Among others, Chris Evert has recently called for more team events in Tennis Magazine. And she is right. Team events are exciting to watch and allow more players to join in the fun and make more money. I found the ATP Cup a lot more fun to watch than any ATP 500 event.
Who cares if Dominic Thiem wins Vienna again this year?
Team competition is one of the few ways to mix lower ranked players with famous legends. In the process, the lower ranks can make a lot more money and become more viable in the game. Not an ideal solution, but one way to share the spoils.
In the meantime, professional tennis remains grueling and only very few will ever able to make ends-meet off of their talent.
Karl Marx would be horrified.
