Fiend at Court Unplugged
Over the past two days, this site has examined the series of events that lead up to the “Original Nine” signing the contracts that put the wheels in motion that led to the creation of the WTA tour. Inequities in prize money lead to that precipitous event, but promotion of tennis was inextricably linked to what transpired.
Earlier this year in a series of posts starting with “An Inconvenient Truth” this site explored why women once refused to play Best-of-Five at the Australian Open. Central to that refusal was the fact that the WTA was also embroiled in a dispute with the tournament over court assignments at that tournament. Matches that are relegated to outer courts receive less exposure. That, in turn, dictates who has the best opportunity to emerge as a star of the game.
The Business of Tennis
Casual tennis fans are probably unaware of the business organizations that underpin tennis. It is important to understand that the Womens Tennis Association (WTA) and the men’s Association of Tennis Professionals (ATP) are separate business organizations. Each organization sets prize money and other compensation standards for their own tour events.
There are two cases where professional tournaments have both men and women. Grand Slam Championships are owned and operated by the tennis associations in the country where they are conducted. The four majors are the only tournament where a meaningful comparison between prize money between the two genders can be made.
The four Grand Slams are the only tournaments where the prize money is set by a single organization. Equity in compensation between the men and the women at the majors is a fairly recent development. Parity was not achieved for the top prize money until 2007 with the last holdout being Wimbledon. You’ve come a long way, baby. But it took a really long time.
Other tournaments are sometimes conducted as joint events between the ATP and a WTA organizations. In that case disparity between prize money will vary based on the compensation structure established by the respective professional tours as if the tournaments were conducted independently. Differences in prize money at joint events garners attention in the press and twitter, but it is really an apples and oranges situation.
There are financial realities governing prize money distribution at tennis tour events. It is not unusual for events to go bankrupt and fold. The prize money distributed has to make economic sense. That fact is particularly relevant today because professional tennis tours may be headed to a distinctly different economic reality in the post COVID-19 era.
The Promotion of Tennis
Tennis tournaments make money off spectator ticket sales, television rights, and corporate sponsorship. In order for those dollars to flow to the sport, there has to be public interest in attending or watching those events. That drives how much prize money can be offered.
In 2018, Rafael Nadal was quoted with words to the effect that public interest in watching events should drive compensation to the players. Underlying those comments was a belief that the public is more interested in watching the men than the women. While Nadal has more recently walked back those statements, those sentiments still exist on the male ATP tour.
It is undeniable that the general public is very interested in watching the stars of the sport play and generally apathetic to players that are less famous. This was driven home just over a year ago when the hosts of the American talk show “The View” went on a rant about Dominic Thiem after he made critical statements about Serena Williams during the French Open. A recurring theme in the rant was that they had no idea who Thiem was. He was ranked #4 in the world at the time. Thiem had been the face of the “next” generation for a long time.
The top players of the game are almost always assigned to the larger stadium courts. That is a practical reality for tournaments, as they need to sell tickets in the interest of the economic viability of the event. For the same reason, all the matches of the top players are generally televised. Once stardom is achieved in tennis, super stardom inevitably follows. That makes it harder for other players to break through.
Flashback to 1970
In 1970, prior to when the “Original Nine” signed their $1 contracts in order to play the Houston Invitational, the female players had distributed an informal survey to fans at the US Open. The results of that survey were that more than 50% of the men and 66% of the women would pay to watch a women’s tournament. The USLTA and tournament organizers were not swayed by those results.
Justification of inequitable prize money by promotors of professional event hinged on the “fact” that the public was more interested in the men’s game. Consequently, the men’s events were assigned the venues and preferential times where higher attendance for their matches was assured. That in turn was used to justify the disparity in pay. It is circular logic.
Painting By The Numbers
Tomorrow in conjunction with the weekly “Tennis News You Can Use” focus, this site will examine television viewership data for the recently concluded US Open. The numbers paint a very interesting picture of current interest in professional tennis.
Professional tennis has a problem. The viewing public has a myopic focus on a handful of stars of the game. Those stars are old. Recent evidence to the contrary, they cannot play the sport forever. It is an imperative for the professional tour organizations to build public interest in players beyond the current super-stars. Otherwise tennis viewership could plunge off a cliff.
Tennis is already teetering on the precipice.
- “Follow the money: How the pay gap in Grand Slam tennis finally closed,” Peter Bodo, ESPN.com, September 6, 2018.
- “Nobody needs Rafael Nadal’s bad take on women’s pay in tennis,” James Dator, SBNation.com, June 13, 2018.
- “Thiem Accuses Serena of ‘Bad Personality Following Her French Open Loss,” The View Television Talk Show, June 3, 2019.
- No Challenges Remaining Podcast, Original 9 – Kristy Pigeon, Episode 275b, September 22, 2020.
- “Original 9 trailblazers stood for tennis equality in 1970,” Melissa Murphy, APNews.com, September 23, 2020.
good informative post