Are tennis players underpaid?

Achilles82

Achilles82

Professional
I think they are, comparing to how much money players from NBA, MLB, NFL, NHL, european football (soccer), and even European basketball.


And I'm not talking about top players like Nadal, Novak or Roger. I'm talking about rest of them.


I mean, in NBA there are like at least 20 players with 20 mill $ per year. Same goes for NFL and MLB.

In tennis, only top 15 players makes more then 1 million dollars in 1 year. And they pay all there expenses (traveling on tournaments, hotels etc...), unlike other professional sports players, where everything is paid for them.

In golf for example, top 80 players made more then 1 million dollars in a year, only from prize money of course.

I believe they (atp and grand slam tournaments) are making tons of money on players, and something should change to protect lower ranking players.
 
great post. great question. I agree that the money needs to be better distributed for the future of the sport. but how?
maybe the players need to unionize?
Looking forward to reading some responses to this one.
 
Aeropax said:
No, it's just that other athletes are over paid.
Click to expand...

No they are not, and let me tell you why.


The thing is SOMEONE is making money. It's not like if, lets say NBA players stop making all that money, instead 20 milliion dollar contract they get 1 million. In that case owners will make TONS (literally) of money.

Someone is getting very rich, it's either players or ATP (grand slam tournaments), and I think players should get more money, especially for lower ranked.

Cuz if you get like 800 000$, and you pay taxes on that, and you pay your coach, your manager, hotels, food, plane tickets... It's not really all that great, and you're like 18th in the world.
 
Equal prize money is a joke.

Only WTA players are underpaid.

WTA deserves twice what ATP players get.
 
kul said:
great post. great question. I agree that the money needs to be better distributed for the future of the sport. but how?
maybe the players need to unionize?
Looking forward to reading some responses to this one.
Click to expand...


Players should ask to look in ATP books to see how much they're making, and agreement should be made.


I think ATP should pay for plane tickets, hotels, food, and all expenses of any player on ATP.


Before NBA lockout in 1998, top NBA players were literally making around 3 or 4 million per year (except Jordan who made last 2 seasons like 35 mil per year). And right after lockout, players salaries were doubled at LEAST.

Minimum wage for NBA player is 350 000$ FOR ROOKEY, and for second season in NBA its twice as much. So if you are 12th player in Minnesota timberwolves for example, and you almost don't play AT ALL, you are guaranteed around 700 000$ per year.

That's what I'm talking about.
 
Last edited:
r2473 said:
Equal prize money is a joke.
Click to expand...

I'm not talking about equal. I'm talking about more money in general, and benefits for lower ranked players (paid hotels, plane tickets etc...)

r2473 said:
Only WTA players are underpaid.

WTA deserves twice what ATP players get.
Click to expand...

WTA has 4 premium tournaments, which has more prize money for winner then ATP masters series.

Second, I don't want to deflect from topic, but WTA players just simply can not make more money then ATP. And same goes for grand slams. It has nothing to do with "sexism", it's just men's tennis is far more popular and watched all over the world.

Womens tennis is watched also, but not as much as mens tennis. It's just a fact and arguing that is just silly
 
I agree. I mean, the top 100 sometimes have trouble making ends meet. And they play much more then the BB teams players.
THey are all alone on the court, with no one to take their place if they are tired, injured, blah blah blah.
 
That is a very interesting topic. You might well have a point.

It's very true that tennis players have to pay for everything themselves (plane tickets, accomodation, coach, medical stuff, etc), while say, football players don't.

I wonder though, if maybe there just is less money to be made in tennis...
 
Sport is market-based.

There aren't many massive superstars in the sport, everyone knows Fed everyone knows Nadal a lotta people now know Joker but most of these guys aren't actually international figures who transcend their sport. Whereas there are dozens of footballers who non-football fans know, and lots of leagues where they put themselves on tv each week. Sports teams are totally different because people ally themselves to a BRAND and the sportsmen become a part of that, so they are made heroes of the brand, rather than having to build a name just for themselves from the ground up like tennis players.

You can be a very famous team sports player without being top 5 in the world in your position. Outside the top ten in tennis and you're commercially pretty much a nobody.
 
Tennis, men or women, is hardly watched compared to 30 years ago, so players income will not keep pace with major sports. Go to the TVbythenumbers website and you'll see a steady plummet of Wimbledon TV ratings ever since about 1980.
 
I seem to recall another poster doing a little math to demonstrate the difficulty of making ends meet on the tour if ranked ~200 in the world. I don't think the 200th world best American footballer or baseball player or basketball player has this problem...
Not sure about overall revenue comparisons between sports, but I don't think the gap between #10 and #200 baseball is as big as in tennis.
 
Achilles82 said:
I'm not talking about equal. I'm talking about more money in general, and benefits for lower ranked players (paid hotels, plane tickets etc...)



WTA has 4 premium tournaments, which has more prize money for winner then ATP masters series.

Second, I don't want to deflect from topic, but WTA players just simply can not make more money then ATP. And same goes for grand slams. It has nothing to do with "sexism", it's just men's tennis is far more popular and watched all over the world.

Womens tennis is watched also, but not as much as mens tennis. It's just a fact and arguing that is just silly
Click to expand...

1283636575276.jpg

You're posting on an online message board, and you still haven't developed some sort of Troll Sense? The likelihood of him not being serious is OVER NINE THOUSAND.
 
Crisstti said:
I wonder though, if maybe there just is less money to be made in tennis...
Click to expand...

I agree that tennis is less popular then MLB, NBA, NFL (especially NFL), but the thing is it's such a big difference in prize money, its like 50 times more in those sports.

I remember when Roger Federer made 10 million $ in 2007, it was this big news (well medium big), how that was first time in tennis history that some player made more then 10 million dollars in 1 year.

Now, we are talking abour Roger Federer, man who is superstar, like Tiger Woods, or Michael Jordan, and that year he was just dominating, winning 3 of 4 grand slams, and making all 4 grand slam finals, and winning atp world tour finals. And he made little bit more then... let's say Andris Biedrins from Golden State warriors? Andris Biedrins having same sallary as Roger Federer? Are you kidding me? (and we are not talking about sponsorship deals, cuz that has nothing to do with original prize money)
 
If you consider how much talent, dedication and hard work it takes to be a top tennis player, and you compare against other sports, yeah, tennis players are underpaid.

But how much they get paid is driven by the market, not by how much we think they deserve.

Two parts to this:

1. How much money the sport generates. These days, money is generated via tv contracts. Tennis does not get the kind of viewership as other popular sports, therefore the tv money is far less. This is unfortunate but that's reality.

2. How the revenue is split up between tournaments / administrators / players. I don't know much about this, but tournaments are not exactly raking in the dough, so I don't think they can afford to pay players an order of magnitude more than they currently get.

Bottom line is, the only way tennis players will earn much more is if the sport makes more as a whole, and that will only happen if more people watch it on tv and the tv money increases.
 
I don't think you can compare overall revenues directly with NFL, NBA, etc. Team sports are popular and have been marketed well. Good for them.
However, I think you can question the discrepancy in pay between #1 and #200 in the world and how the sport can continue to develop quality players if it is so difficult to simply exist (travel, train, etc) at #200 in the world.
 
OrangePower said:
If you consider how much talent, dedication and hard work it takes to be a top tennis player, and you compare against other sports, yeah, tennis players are underpaid.

But how much they get paid is driven by the market, not by how much we think they deserve.

Two parts to this:

1. How much money the sport generates. These days, money is generated via tv contracts. Tennis does not get the kind of viewership as other popular sports, therefore the tv money is far less. This is unfortunate but that's reality.

2. How the revenue is split up between tournaments / administrators / players. I don't know much about this, but tournaments are not exactly raking in the dough, so I don't think they can afford to pay players an order of magnitude more than they currently get.

Bottom line is, the only way tennis players will earn much more is if the sport makes more as a whole, and that will only happen if more people watch it on tv and the tv money increases.
Click to expand...

Absolutely. I'd also add that it's an individual sport, where there can only be a certain number of players genuinely considered the best, and they're the biggest draws. No-one's that interested in the guys who don't win titles, and EVERY player except about 10 will lose every week of the season in the big events. So if you're lower ranked you're not much of a draw and you're not really worth as much money to the sponsors or tv or the organisers cos you're not one of the ones people are paying to go see.
 
fps said:
Absolutely. I'd also add that it's an individual sport, where there can only be a certain number of players genuinely considered the best, and they're the biggest draws. No-one's that interested in the guys who don't win titles, and EVERY player except about 10 will lose every week of the season in the big events. So if you're lower ranked you're not much of a draw and you're not really worth as much money to the sponsors or tv or the organisers cos you're not one of the ones people are paying to go see.
Click to expand...

yeah. i see the argument. like boxing. only the very best deserve the cash. very macho. mano y mano stuff. there is a thrill to that and a certain primal justice too.
seems like the net result is a small market sport though... maybe tennis will always be a niche sport (like boxing) compared to the acronyms & GOLF.

Still, people like to *play* tennis (unlike boxing). Seems a path to popularity (and better revenue sharing) could be forged.
 
I think one of the biggest differences you're going to have to overcome when you start to talk about prize money in the ATP compared to something like the NFL is the location. ATP players come from all over the world, the events are located all over the world, etc. This makes it much harder to afford to go to every event and the like. NBA players may have their travel expenses paid for certainly, but they also have an owner who owns the entire team and who's making the revenue off that team.

I really don't think a fair comparison can be made between the two things.
 
I'll tell you who's underpaid, people all over the world who have to work for a living. The top sports stars get paid ridiculous amounts.
 
kul said:
I'm thinking golf is the better comparison...
Click to expand...

I compared golf.


In ATP only top 15 players made more then 1 million dollars in 1 year.

In PGA, top 80 made more then 1 million dollars!


Now, golf is more popular then tennis in north america, and thets where all the money is, but overall around the world, I believe tennis is more popular. And I just can't believe that golfers are making that much more money then tennis players.
 
Mustard said:
I'll tell you who's underpaid, people all over the world who have to work for a living. The top sports stars get paid ridiculous amounts.
Click to expand...

I knew someone is going to say this.


Again, SOMEONE is going to make that money. Like, if NFL suddenly reduced players salaries by half, that just means owners will make more money. Some one is going to make that money, and it might as well be players. Stop comparing yourself and regular people to sport stars.
 
I'll ask you these questions. As an American which I am safe to assume that you are. When American Football is on NBC, how many other channels is it usually on? ESPN, sometimes ESPN 2. On those channels, they are all different teams playing. Those channels are your regular satellite channels that you don't need a sports package for. To watch many different tennis matches, during majors only, you have to have DirectTV and get the sports package etc. They make Football more accessible to watch by playing it more. Does Football honestly need that many channels to play? No. When you go on youtube and look at the sports videos trending, what sports are usually there? Football, soccer, baseball. It's only every once in awhile that tennis is on there. I lived in New York City for 4 years and now I'm back on Long Island. Whenever I get the newspaper, I get Newsday. During Football and Baseballs off-season, they get the front cover of the sports section. When Nadal and Federer and del Potro won the US Open (let me mind you that I live 45 minutes from Flushing Meadows) they got a small tiny column on the last page of the sports section next to the obituary. That's the biggest garbage ever. The US Open brings so much revenue to the state of New York and when the Met's lose a game on the final Sunday of the US Open 2 or 3 years ago, they get the front cover of the Newspaper? Is that messed up or what? The Met's aren't even a good team (I am a met's fan too). Roger Federer wins his 13th major and doesn't get longer than 5 paragraphs written about him. Nadal gets his career slam and first US Open and doesn't get more than a picture on the front cover. Del Potro upsets the defending champion at The US Open and doesn't get more than 2 pages from the cover. Many people in the United States think of tennis as a girly, non-athletic sport. I actually have a friend who wrestles and runs and he told me that he could play tennis for an hour without getting tired so I took him to the courts for an hour and the next day he was so sore he could barely walk. Now, he respects the game. At my High School, it's all about the Football and Soccer team. Last year they both had a losing record. Tennis still gets brushed off of the schools budget. My coach and I had a long talk about how tennis is possibly the hardest sport because it's only you and your opponent, you have to get to every ball, you have to make your own game plan during the match while most other sports they can pull out a player and they have time-outs, and how the scoring works. It doesn't matter how many points you won in the last game, you still lost it. Where as a sport like basketball every point carries over. Just my two cents into the topic. I think I needed to get that all of my shoulders. :D
 
Achilles82 said:
I knew someone is going to say this.

Again, SOMEONE is going to make that money. Like, if NFL suddenly reduced players salaries by half, that just means owners will make more money. Some one is going to make that money, and it might as well be players. Stop comparing yourself and regular people to sport stars.
Click to expand...

All real wealth is made by workers making, distributing and selling commodities. Instead of these workers getting the money, it goes to bosses and company shareholders.
 
I love tennis but there are tons of these threads, mostly about TV coverage....if there was more money to be paid, players would make a ruckus. there is none. most athletes are well overpaid.

again, I love tennis, but how much money "do they deserve?" I mean winning a Grand Slam is an amazing achievement but what does it do for anyone else? how much is it "worth?" very arbitrary
 
Unionize, not just tennis players but EVERYONE!!!!

It is the only way to even begin to discuss improving working wages and conditions. Just look at the U.S., unions are destroyed, corporations take even more power and screw the wage earners=working poor, crime and drug use rates increase, production within the U.S. disappears, economy in the crapper.
 
Achilles82 said:
I compared golf.


In ATP only top 15 players made more then 1 million dollars in 1 year.

In PGA, top 80 made more then 1 million dollars!


Now, golf is more popular then tennis in north america, and thets where all the money is, but overall around the world, I believe tennis is more popular. And I just can't believe that golfers are making that much more money then tennis players.
Click to expand...

It's not the popularity of the sport measured by how many people play it; it's the popularity of watching it on tv that determines the $$$.

Golf here in the USA gets 5x the tv coverage of tennis (maybe even more).

Another example - NASCAR. Not a sport than many participate in themselves, but it's big on tv and therefore the drivers make a lot of money.
 
If they could reinvent the Davis Cup into a more commercially attractive package then nationalism comes into play as well as a team of a small number of players from each country that can be renumerated equally.

Unfortunately that would mean something like a 3 match Davis Cup tie that would be over in a day in some sort of one month yearly or biannual event.
 
I think guys in the top 20 make a lot more than you think they do - while some of them have toiled in relative obscurity over the years, many are, or have been, top 10 players at some point and are raking in significant endorsement paychecks.
 
Lower ranked players need to make more money? How low are we talking? And how much money do you want them to make?

If you are #150, and your match record on ATP Tour is something like 5-20, and perhaps in Challengers you're a little better than .500, why should you be making any more money than you already are?

If you only win 5,6, 8 pro matches per year, just how much money should you be making?
 
I think there needs to be a pay grade scale in place for years of service on the tour, that way no one will have a reason to complain.
 
kul said:
great post. great question. I agree that the money needs to be better distributed for the future of the sport. but how?
maybe the players need to unionize?
Looking forward to reading some responses to this one.
Click to expand...



Unionize? That word makes me shudder. No it nor should anything else be unionized. We don't want to live in a communist society thank you.

In tennis the way the money is distributed is the correct way. The top players should make the most money. They for the most part work the hardest and are the most dedicated to the sport and it is those players whom the fans pay to come and see. They are the face of the sport.

If the players below the top 50 are worried about making ends meet they should choose another career. That is the way it goes. It is what it is.
 
Uh... Ok. No unions. Got it.
So it seems like many of the comments here focus on the fact that tennis is not as big a revenue sport as other sports, like golf. Yep. Pretty obvious. Many reasons for this. See other threads.

And because tourneys are setup for winner-take-all approach (not unlike golf) where ~10% of the players get ~90% of the prize money (which is directly related to tv revenues, etc) then you get a situation where only a small number of people in the world can actually play professionally. Ok.

Makes sense then why fellow golfers were happy to have Tiger dominating the PGA tour. Tiger's mere presence in the field drove larger revenues which increased the scraps shared amongst the bottom 90% golfers.

Makes the commie union players of the NHL, NFL, NBA, & MLB look like a bunch of p*****s, what with their offseasons, minimum wage salaries, guaranteed contracts, etc.

I'm glad working a regular job isn't as difficult as being a pro tennis player. I would have starved to death long ago. (no way I'm top 200 in the world at my job)
 
OrangePower said:
1. How much money the sport generates. These days, money is generated via tv contracts. Tennis does not get the kind of viewership as other popular sports, therefore the tv money is far less. This is unfortunate but that's reality.

2. How the revenue is split up between tournaments / administrators / players. I don't know much about this, but tournaments are not exactly raking in the dough, so I don't think they can afford to pay players an order of magnitude more than they currently get.

Bottom line is, the only way tennis players will earn much more is if the sport makes more as a whole, and that will only happen if more people watch it on tv and the tv money increases.
Click to expand...

Well, TV contracts are surely a huge part, but there's also the tickets sales, which is something that means huge money in other sports and it just can't really in tennis. I notice most people are from the US here, but in football (soccer) you have 70.000, 80.000 tickets you can sell every week...

Achilles82 said:
I compared golf.

In ATP only top 15 players made more then 1 million dollars in 1 year.

In PGA, top 80 made more then 1 million dollars!

Now, golf is more popular then tennis in north america, and thets where all the money is, but overall around the world, I believe tennis is more popular. And I just can't believe that golfers are making that much more money then tennis players.
Click to expand...

That is actually quite amazing :shock:
I can't believe either that golf is that much popular... It's really a masive difference... I was always under the impression tennis was very popular in the US.

Mustard said:
All real wealth is made by workers making, distributing and selling commodities. Instead of these workers getting the money, it goes to bosses and company shareholders.
Click to expand...

Very true. And that's very unfair, hence it's great that that doesn't happen in professional sports, where the players get a lot of the money.

cc0509 said:
Unionize? That word makes me shudder. No it nor should anything else be unionized. We don't want to live in a communist society thank you.
Click to expand...

Communist governments heavily repress/d unions... :-?
 
Seriously.

You have to be a top 50 ranked Tennis player to have a good income.

You get 4.5 scholarships for the mens tennis team.

Why would any reasonable American kid not play Basketball, baseball, or even golf?

You get more glory, much more pay, and you dont have to work as hard.

And ppl wonder why tennis is sooooo unpopular in the US.
 
If they want to make some more money they should get off their asses and market themselves better.

When was the last time you heard of a player accused of rape? When was the last time you heard of a player threatening another player with a gun? When was the last tennis player arrested for some reason? When was the last time a player released a sex tape?

Never. Its like they dont even want to be famous.
 
The ATP is the players union, guys.
Association of Tennis Professionals.
It came out of the wars on who would control tennis in the 70's. (WTC tour, Riorden/Connors tour, ITF, etc.) If there were more money to be made, the players would make more. The top players make so much more than the lower players because they bring in the ticket and TV revenue. The tournaments (aside from the big 4 - where a lot of the profits go to national federations) don't make a huge amount of money - some tournaments don't make it and close shop after a couple of years.
 
Achilles82 said:
In ATP only top 15 players made more then 1 million dollars in 1 year.
Click to expand...
Only in prize money. Almost every player in the top 150-or-so has a clothing sponsorship and most have a racket sponsorship, and possibly also other local sponsorships. I'm sure the top 200 players in the world live very comfortably.

Though Golf pays more anyway, as they have their own sponsorships.
 
FedExpress 333 said:
Seriously.

You have to be a top 50 ranked Tennis player to have a good income.

You get 4.5 scholarships for the mens tennis team.

Why would any reasonable American kid not play Basketball, baseball, or even golf?

You get more glory, much more pay, and you dont have to work as hard.

And ppl wonder why tennis is sooooo unpopular in the US.
Click to expand...

And realistically, very few teams offer 4.5 scholarships anyways. It's more like one or two shared amongst the top players.
 
cc0509 said:
Unionize? That word makes me shudder. No it nor should anything else be unionized. We don't want to live in a communist society thank you.
Click to expand...

WOW! really!?:shock:

Is it still the 1950's and I wasn't told?

It's so so sad that this is even still associated, why do you think they became associated in the first place? To make sure they could obliterate unions with as little public backlash as possible, even gain support for doing so.

I could go on but this is not the place to discuss politics so I digress
 
HiroProtagonist said:
WOW! really!?:shock:

Is it still the 1950's and I wasn't told?

It's so so sad that this is even still associated, why do you think they became associated in the first place? To make sure they could obliterate unions with as little public backlash as possible, even gain support for doing so.

Check the facts son.

I could go on but this is not the place to discuss politics, just one last thing, the top paid athletes in this country, the ones who actually know how much revenue they're sharing all belong to unions.
Click to expand...

I am not going to get involved in a political discussion with you. I will just say that unions in my country are a nightmare for business owners to have to deal with and the political party that supports them in my country while not "communist" per se in the strictest sense of the word is pretty close! Thankfully in my country this "party" who approves unions is not in power.
 
cc0509 said:
I am not going to get involved in a political discussion with you. I will just say that unions in my country are a nightmare for business owners to have to deal with and the political party that supports them in my country while not "communist" per se in the strictest sense of the word is pretty close! Thankfully in my country this "party" who approves unions is not in power.
Click to expand...

I did think you were speaking about the U.S. which is all I know about so I apologize for the misunderstanding, and I did edit the post as I didn't want to be as confrontational as the OP sounded.

I tend to get too fired up about this particular subject.
 
HiroProtagonist said:
I did think you were speaking about the U.S. which is all I know about so I apologize for the misunderstanding, and I did edit the post as I didn't want to be as confrontational as the OP sounded.

I tend to get too fired up about this particular subject.
Click to expand...

No problem. This is a subject that elicits strong responses from many people. Better not to discuss on a tennis board of all places. :)
I obviously let my bias show in this area as I am against unions 100%.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Similar threads

FromThailand
Do tennis players earn too much money?
2
Replies
77
Views
13K
Eviscerator
Eviscerator
Otacon
Why we won't see a tennis revival in the US in our lifetime
Replies
22
Views
2K
Rosstour
Rosstour
T
how much do tennis players make?
Replies
5
Views
2K
menelaos
M
D
Tennis players poor?
Replies
21
Views
3K
!!!TennisMaster!!!
T
S
Appearance fees for top players
Replies
18
Views
2K
smash hit
S
Back
Top