Bagel Boy
Rookie
minor league ballplayers still get to pocket like 1-2K a month since teams pay for almost everything during the season. Also many of them get to bank a signing bonus. So only a top 1500-2000 baseball player is actually making that salary. If you're on a 40 man roster it's like 50K (1200 total people) and many many prospects outside that range get a few hundred K signing bonus. And there are 750 people on big league rosters who are all making at least the 600K minimum. A top 1500-2000, or 750-1000 tennis player is almost assuredly making either 0 or negative money. And of course you have japanese and korean leagues which obviously pay way better than low ranked tennis players. So at least 2000 baseball players in the world are making a decent living. Heck there's probably tons of totally insignificant local leagues in the US like the Atlantic league where players can probably make close to 50K.
For hockey, the average salary in the AHL is 90K and the minimum is 50K, way way way better than tennis at the same level. The third rate US league (ECHL) the average salary is like 600 a week. There's probably multiple leagues in Canada with the same story. Again, these players get most of their expenses covered by the major league team that owns or is linked to the affiliate. And again, this is players outside of the top 700 nhl players, but there is also the KHL and SHL, the Swiss league, and the Finnish league where I'd guess the average player is making around 50-100K (and in Europe with most expenses paid, that's decent money). So probably close to the top 2000 or more hockey players in the world are making a decent living.
Then you can compare this to what people in like 3rd/4th/5th tier soccer or basketball leagues make and it's a total joke. Only the top 200 tennis players or so can even sniff the types of numbers we've been mentioning for top 1000-2000+ players in other sports, and tennis expenses are massive. Obviously tennis will have a smaller pool given it's an individual sport but this kind of a gap is absurd.
It's clear that tennis is no longer an attractive sport for elite young athletes who are even upper middle class because it's financial suicide which is how we get the whole Thiem/Medvedev/Zverev/Tsitsipas "cream" of the crop situation. Before it used to be as a major world sport with significant individual glory, now it's probably not even on par with golf. Probably now more like volleyball (which is what the tall storks should probably be playing).
Tennis is a business that's been totally run into the ground compared to other sports which have invested much more in player development and as a result have massively grown their talent pool and bottom lines. Sure it can make enough money now off older fans but just wait another 20-30 years.
Way to completely fail to understand how team sports generate and split revenues. And then you compared it to an individual sport.
Just, wow.