Bloomberg Businessweek March 29, 2021 pp48-53. “Disorder on the Court” “With Rafa, roger, and Serena in the twilight of their careers, pro tennis is struggling to reform itself. Some players are taking matters into their own hands” By David Yaffe-Bellany
Read the article for all detail
Image from FT.com May 2, 2020
Summary of the article
Like golf and other outdoor sports-activities the COVID pandemic has increased participation in tennis but the sport as a profession continues to provide sufficient financial return only to the elite players. “By some metrics, tennis is the world’s fourth-most-popular sport…[but] as a business, though, it’s a perennial underachiever, accounting for only 1.3% of the total value of global sports TV and media rights, a smaller share than golf, hockey, or cricket…”. Long story short this is not a new situation for professional tennis which functions through a menagerie of disconnected organizations globally with the ATP, WTA, ITF and the individual Grand Slam events. With tennis' biggest stars heading off into the sunset and on the heals of the COVID pandemic “there’s been renewed discussion of a partnership between the men’s and women’s tour, a proposal that could produce a surge in revenue. Calls for shorter, more TV-friendly matches have intensified.” It is believed by some that “The prospect of a unified tennis ecosystem, in which a single owner or commissioner controls the Grand Slams, the ATP, the WTA, and the ITF, is often invoked as the sport’s best hope for reform.” Such a unification would create more leverage in negotiating “media and sponsorship deals.” However, as noted “There’s not realistic prospect that the sport’s current powers would allow someone to buy them out.” The current ATP Chairman, Andrea Gaudenzi, comments “Should tennis fail to evolve into a more sophisticated and profitable media operation…it could experience the financial devastation that Napster wreaked on the music industry in the 2000s.” “You either get over the line…or everything explodes.”
Comments