zagor
Bionic Poster
Spain (who had a team with incredible depth) won 4 times, not Nadal. He played less than half matches Fed did for DC, in both singles and doubles.
Davis Cup is (soon to be) dead, long live Davis Cup?
- Thread starter merlinpinpin
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Spain (who had a team with incredible depth) won 4 times, not Nadal. He played less than half matches Fed did for DC, in both singles and doubles.
Tennis_Hands
Banned
zagor
Bionic Poster
Nonsense, DC is a tennis event with a unique atmosphere and format which allows players to for a moment experience the joys (and sorrows) of a team sport. It often features inspired performances from the underdog carried by the home crowd like you'll rarely see anywhere else. This is a dreadful change that damages the sport.
I admit my main gripe is with the noises that are made with those rotten sticks.
The other problem I have is all this fake jingoism and celebrations with crowds carrying the players on the streets while all the while knowing that many of them are domiciled outside the country to cheat on taxes, train outside, have foreign coaches, invest money abroad, can't stand each other, etc. The extreme case being Sharapova playing Fed Cup for Russia and trying to make it sound good by donating money to the Chernobyl victims while also taking Meldonium and so on.
And I really don't want to see Young play with Harrison or Tennys and have to pretend that patriotism makes them rise above everything because he knows well that it doesn't.
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LotusTang
Rookie
According to reports Nadal, Djokovic and Murray seem to welcome the change. Federer diplomatic it seems.
DC is due for a reform, but I think the ITF's idea of change is a little to drastic. At the end of the day Tennis is an entertainment business and the ITF feels this is going to be a money making venture.
According to this report Djokovic is a shareholder of Kosmos can anyone corroborate or is this misinformation?
Speaking at Tuesday's [27 February] Laureus Awards, where the 36-year-old was named world sportsman of the year and awarded comeback of the year, he said: "I am surprised this is happening, just because I do not know another Davis Cup other than the current format," the Daily Express report. (Daily Express)
"Time will tell us if it is okay. I am hearing a lot of extremely positive and extremely negative reactions. It will be interesting to see what happens, if it will be the final format."
http://rmcsport.bfmtv.com/tennis/co...t-emballes-par-la-future-formule-1383905.html
DC is due for a reform, but I think the ITF's idea of change is a little to drastic. At the end of the day Tennis is an entertainment business and the ITF feels this is going to be a money making venture.
According to this report Djokovic is a shareholder of Kosmos can anyone corroborate or is this misinformation?
van_Loederen
Professional
they can complain via their federations in this case.
but retired greats or lower ranked players complaining won't change anything.
it's the top20 players who would need to stand up. and not just 3-4 of them.
they would also need to regularly play the DC then. i'll say this won't happen.
...in its recent state, with top players regularly skipping it, the DC makes very little sense.
the participation of the top players is more important than the Bo5 or the home/away format.
Agreed. In my opinion Ferrer is a greater Davis Cup player than Nadal. They are both unbeaten at home on clay, but Ferrer has better away wins than Nadal. Whenever Spain have had a difficult away tie, more often than not Nadal hasn't been there.
I personally don't like these proposals. The current format has 2 big advantages:
- The home and away format is the best way to guarantee crowds and amazing atmospheres that you won't find at any tour event including the slams. How many people will want to buy tickets or travel for 'neutral' matches.
- Hosting Davis Cup ties is vital source of income for tennis federations across the world, especially those that aren't as wealthy as the USTA, the LTA in the UK, FFT in France etc.
van_Loederen
Professional
if top10 players play, then many people! (you could know that much yourself, no?)
vital, eh? where did you get that info from?
and if true, why did the ITF agree to these changes?
LOL I think you are drastically overrating the appeal of players at the mid and lower end of the top 10, and the appeal of watching a team event when fans' teams are not represented.
In tennis the only players that are big draws are a small group of global megastars like Federer and Nadal, and the national players from various, respective countries. That's it.
A France-Belgium Davis Cup final in either of those countries would be well attended, as it was in Lille last year. A France-Belgium final in Spain, Germany etc would be a complete disaster with empty seats galore. How many Spanish fans would care enough about Goffin, Pouille etc to want to pay money to watch a tie in a team event, where Spain were not participating? Not many. Often the Shanghai masters is played in-front of many empty seats. Imagine a neutral Davis Cup tie over there in China. Or a tie between 2 European countries in the US. Good luck finding a lot of people that care enough to want to watch that.
Well it's common sense. Take the Argentine tennis federation. Argentina hosts one ATP 250 tournament and that's it. Where do you think they are going to get a large percentage of their revenue from? Hosting Davis Cup ties in front of packed crowds at the large Parque Roca stadium, that's where.
That's why a lot of the smaller tennis federations were desperate for the Davis Cup to continue to be played every year, especially the ones whose countries don't host big ATP events or don't any tour events at all. The money generated from hosting Davis Cup ties has been crucial for the Czech tennis federation, with the Czech Republic not hosting any ATP tour events since 1999.
Note that the Belgian tennis federation is already strong opposing these changes.
Even Spain have hosted Davis Cup ties in large bullrings such as Las Ventas in Madrid in the past (which the Spanish players themselves have hated), to maximise revenue.
Why did the ITF agree to these changes, because they have thought things through properly clearly.
van_Loederen
Professional
the marketing value of that new format/model looks promising and works in many other sports,
but it doesn't even need to completely make up for the old one, as it brings mentioned side advantages too.
and this DC Final Cup is even expected to boost the really big names or at least quite many of the tier 2.
there will a whole 18 teams be represented. so the, say, Spain fans will already be around.
you also completely forget the TV audience.
those are on average 7 matches per year on home soil and we are talking whole countries here.
(btw, most countries outside the world group certainly won't earn much with them,
so all these changes are relevant only for the top20-30 nations in the world.)
but it doesn't even need to completely make up for the old one, as it brings mentioned side advantages too.
that's just wrong. the ATP500 and 250 events are successful. they just need couple big names, that's it.
and this DC Final Cup is even expected to boost the really big names or at least quite many of the tier 2.
what are you babbling there?
there will a whole 18 teams be represented. so the, say, Spain fans will already be around.
you also completely forget the TV audience.
common sense? LOL
those are on average 7 matches per year on home soil and we are talking whole countries here.
(btw, most countries outside the world group certainly won't earn much with them,
so all these changes are relevant only for the top20-30 nations in the world.)
for Belgium and Czechia things would indeed get tougher when the strong federations send their A teams from now on.
Nope completely wrong, many 250 and 500 events have major attendance problems and are played in front of large swathes of empty seats, especially before the final, from Rio de Janeiro, to Istanbul,to New York, to Quito, to Chennai, to Memphis, to Basel even (for non-Federer matches) to Moscow.
The grand slams and masters series events continually break attendance records which is great, but a lot of the smaller events without the stars continually struggle. For example the tournament in Estoril has been close to cancellation a few times (it used to be an annual drama).
Tennis is a sport where players like Berdych and Ferrer with 465 weeks in the top 10 between them, are basically relative nobodies and not even close to being stars outside their home countries, and even for Ferrer he doesn't get the respect that he deserves in Spain where it's all Nadal, all the time. Most of my favourite players will never get close to the top level of tennis anyway (my faves in recent times have been Cuevas, Seppi and Florian Mayer) but that's just a sad reality of tennis. It's far too dependent on a small group of stars.
What about the TV audience? The last Davis Cup final for example did very well in terms of TV audience. Most of the individual ties held across the world generally attract very strong TV ratings in those various countries. The spread of ties works very well. No guarantee at all that a World Cup of tennis in one place at the end of a long season would be a huge TV draw.
And yes with one city/country hosting, the likelihood is that only the host country's matches are going to be well attended. In a tournament in Spain, with 3 round robin groups of 6 teams, good luck selling tickets for the other 2 groups that don't involve Spain.
And if the tournament is held in November after the ATP Finals, firstly the top players would still be worn out by then, and secondly could the tournament even be held indoors in Europe with the winter weather in the first place, and number of matches required an outdoor facility would be more practical. If China or Singapore host it (the ITF are talking about an Asian host), those countries obviously wouldn't be represented, and it's difficult to see a heavily European nation dominated team event drawing in the spectators.
Look at what happened with the World Team Cup in Dusseldorf. For a long while it struggled to attract any interest. And for the women the Federation Cup up to 1994 it was hosted in one city (Frankfurt in the last year in 1994), and again there was no atmosphere and hardly any interest at all, which is why they changed to home and away format. Tennis is just not a popular enough sport like football (or rugby or cricket in certain countries where they are religions) to attract a festival of neutral or travelling fans in a one-site world cup.
Yes common sense, trying using some
.This is what the former ITF president Bitti said a few years ago:
Francesco Ricci Bitti, the president of the International Tennis Federation, which runs the Davis Cup, underlined the competition's importance in terms of developing the sport worldwide. "If you are in a Grand Slam country the Davis Cup doesn't mean so much economically, but it generates vital revenue and support in many smaller countries, both from sponsors and governments," he said. "The Slovak Republic built their national tennis centre on the proceeds of their Davis Cup success."
Similarly Peru hosting Spain in a Davis Cup World Group tie back in 2008 for example was a huge financial boost for their federation.
For countries that don't host grand slams or masters events, hosting Davis Cup ties, even if it is only one or two a year, is absolutely huge in terms of revenue. Think about it. How many opportunities is a country like the Czech Republic without a single ATP event going to get to host a 'World Cup of Tennis'? How many opportunities are those passionate Czech fans going to get to watch top level tennis in their own country. Not many that's for sure, and even launching one successful bid to host this new event would be very difficult for them.
Anyway it's not even certain that this revamp will be approved in the vote in August It's one nation one vote. Belgium, France, Germany and Australia could all vote against it and will see what the other nations do. This is what the Belgian Federation said:
'' Andre Stein, the president of the Royal Belgian Tennis Federation, who have twice been finalists in the past three years, said on sporza.be: “We are absolutely against and will vote against. This formula is exactly what we do not want, because Belgium will never have the means to organise such a competition, so our fans and our partners would see the already rare opportunities to see the best Belgian players in action disappear.”
If it does happen, as a tennis fan I would want it to be a big success, but I'm very sceptical.
NaBUru38
Rookie
I think that the Olympics should copy the Hopman Cup format, with mixed teams.
van_Loederen
Professional
oh, i see. so that's how they will do it.
the danger i see is that the ATP may start scheduling ATP250 events during DC weeks if the voting ends negatively.
only for some of them.Gizo said:
but lucrative enough for a vote in August it may be for many countries indeed.
in the other post you were indicating that DC would make for like a substantial part of the financial resources of many countries' tennis federations, which is ridiculous and can be true only for very few countries, if at all.Gizo said:
but DC being a useful tool for promoting tennis in quite some (or maybe many) countries i didn't question.
the overall level+attractivity of the DC has however declined, which tends to reduce also this function.
the new format works differently and whether it would do worse overall at promoting the sport worldwide cannot be estimated so easily.
the final isn't doing too badly, but it used to be much better.Gizo said:
very strong in most countries? i totally doubt that.Gizo said:
with that proposed new format the single federations might still earn even less though.
that's however not the whole picture. it's also about the 3 extra weeks.
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now to that DC Final Cup event as a standalone thing:
it doesn't necessarily need to match the overall revenue of the classical format. this aspect is more down to a power struggle between ATP and ITF.
profitable it needs to be though.
there is a whole huge ATP tour with many such events. SOME of them struggle, but it's ridiculous to compare them with this planned DC Final Cup.Gizo said:
the attendance figures are not the only relevant thing also. aside from TV audience, the sponsoring situation is very important too. even though there are of course relations, often events get "lucky" with big sponsors. (i mean, it depends on connections, location and skills at finding sponsors.)
and that DC Final Cup should generally be very attractive to sponsors. it's by all means above an ATP500 event, even if Fed and Nadal wouldn't come.
if Fed and Nadal come, it would be. otherwise it looks still promising enough. many cities or private organisations would apply for hosting it for sure.Gizo said:
sponsors provide the money in advance and if Singapore signs a contract for hosting, then the event will be staged there.Gizo said:
the attendance figures are not necessarily too important, but if the organizers are not satisfied, the event will move to another city.
current DC fans also travel to away ties for just 4-5 matches. probably not too many do that, but to a whole big tourney much more would go for sure.Gizo said:
oh pls, this "event" was scheduled the week prior to RG and that sais it all.Gizo said:
it would tend quite a bit towards exho level indeed, which is pretty bad from a competitive/sports viewpoint, but for marketing it may be a blessing even, as more top players may come.Gizo said:
they would need 4 courts.Gizo said:
(18 teams in 6 groups of 3 -> 18 ties over 4 days -> 5 ties or 15 matches per day)
Tennis_Hands
Banned
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