Don't they see tournaments are having tough times

[OhYes]

Roland Garros almost lost big money for moving semis to Saturday and final to Monday. They don't have enough for lights, roof, attendance was so poor in semis, 1 guy always wins making it too predictable, Chinese and Americans are breathing by their neck, TTW have had it... and now this guy wants his share

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1138127738567442432

I mean... have players below rank 50 ever heard about tradition ?

 

[Jonesy]

Damn, only 14%... And i though MMA money distribution was bad. Forgive me Dana.

 

[r2473]

From Tenn!s World USA . org

https://www.**************.org/tenn...-effect-french-open-breaks-record-attendance/

The Roger Federer effect: French Open breaks record attendance

In a conference call the French Open Tournament Director Guy Forget shared the impressive numbers behind the 2019 edition. Roger Federer played for the first time since 2015. "In terms of figures and audience, it's something that you often mention in your articles or magazines.
We have beaten our record with Simonne Mathieu court. We had a record participation of 520,000 spectators", announced Forget. "We have exceeded the half-million threshold on which we stopped over the past years, and the tournament was sold out as of the first day of the opening of the ticket sales.
In terms of broadcasters, for France 2, we had, on average, 1.3 million telespectators, 15.6% of share. The highest peak was in the match between Benoit Paire and Nishikori, 3.9 million telespectators on France 3. And EuroSport also had extremely positive figures, increasing with respect to last year.

​

Also, the good performance of China, they were 63 million watching Roland Garros at a single minute. It shows the potential of the Chinese audience. In terms of digital platforms, the figures are there, too. We have more than 5 million single visitors on RolandGarros.com, and 25 million active users of our App Roland Garros who have followed the tournament with a score which is very high, 4.3 stars on the stores.
Although I'm not an expert, it's a very good score. In terms of spectators, they were always present in front of the screens in the stadium. I want to talk about it here. On the Philippe Chatrier and Suzanne Lenglen, we had the problem of the loges that are empty.
It's not something which is new. It's something on which we have been working for the past years. Today, in particular with our partners, we are trying, as of next year, to find new means to fill up these loges that are empty sometimes.
At some times, economically speaking, we cannot allow us to refuse these partners and sometimes these people who pay a more expensive ticket, who consume tennis in a different way as in the past and have difficulty in spending eight to nine hours sitting on the chair.
That's why we will try to do with our partners the sort of overbooking as in the hotels or in the airline companies in order to have some of their clients in the first part, and then a second batch of people coming afterwards following the lunch.
But we are aware that we have to go further in that direction to avoid what we see today. And I remind you that the tournaments as US Open or other tournaments of the tour are facing these same issues. I'm sure that you will ask questions about that.
To conclude, I would like to say this 2019 edition has been a success, fantastic, as said by the chair, owing to the challenges and the race against the clock with these huge works that have been made on the Roland Garros stadium."

 

[r2473]

The 2019 Australian Open, which achieved a record attendance of 796,435 at Melbourne Park during the tournament, also delivered record viewership numbers in Japan during Osaka’s women’s final win.

Over the three weeks of the 2018 US Open, including Fan Week and the two weeks of the Main Draw, more than 800,000 people were on the grounds of the USTA Billie Jean King National Tennis Center.
The two-week Main Draw event attracted a record of 732,663 fans. When combined with the previously announced Fan Week total of 96,135, a total of 828,798 fans experienced the events and tournament that comprised the 50th anniversary of the US Open.

Wimbledon - With total attendance in 2017 totalling 473,373 people...………….. (I'm sure 2018 was around there).

Seems the key to getting higher attendance is having more tickets to sell. Who would have guessed?

 

[mistik]

It was a succesful event. Yeah it looked empty at times because of weather not because it isnt sold out or people lost interest.

 

[TheIntrovert]

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-...-fill-empty-seats-on-main-court-idUSKCN1TA0IQ

 

[Cupcake]

attendance was so poor in semis,

Just because there were many seats without fannies sitting in them does not mean the tickets had not been sold. Do you really think tickets for both semifinals of the French Open were not totally sold out weeks/months before the event???

The semi's also had incredibly windy, cool, wet weather, not only uncomfortable for the players, but for fans also. That perhaps there might have been fewer people there on those days is not a reflection of the money the tournament took in but rather that there might have been many who did not want to sit outside in windy/rainy circumstances.

 

[tennisaddict]

While i am all for lower ranked players getting a decent income, i find it irritating that they should talk about revenues the sport is generating and wanting a pie of that.

That is not how the world works. You work for Walmart and Walmart makes billions, you still get paid $8 an hour if that is what the market rate is.

 

[el sergento]

While i am all for lower ranked players getting a decent income, i find it irritating that they should talk about revenues the sport is generating and wanting a pie of that.

That is not how the world works. You work for Walmart and Walmart makes billions, you still get paid $8 an hour if that is what the market rate is.

Yes, but people don't go to Walmart to see the elderly employees making $8.

People want to see a good show at a tennis tournament? Well then make playing tennis more attractive economically for elite athletes and up and comers with good potential not just for the established top tier that has literally won every single big tournament for the past 20 years.

Wrong analogy IMO.

 

[metsman]

While i am all for lower ranked players getting a decent income, i find it irritating that they should talk about revenues the sport is generating and wanting a pie of that.

That is not how the world works. You work for Walmart and Walmart makes billions, you still get paid $8 an hour if that is what the market rate is.

Walmart workers have no leverage and there is a near infinite supply of them. Tennis players, if unionized, have all the leverage. The big 3 could get pretty much whatever they wanted for the tour if they wanted to upset the current order (which clearly needs changing). And same goes for players ranked below 50-100, if all of them striked, the game would still be brought to its knees as it has in other strikes in other sports despite the fact that most of the players striking weren't big stars.

 

[beltsman]

Pospisil is certainly entitled to try for a larger share - he's only looking out for his own best interest, after all. And I think it would help tennis to give more of the revenue to players, especially lower players. But it also comes off as whiny and entitled when you are an absolute nobody who puts zero butts in the seats except for your immediate friends and family. You are a jobber You are enhancement talent for the stars.

Don't come at it like "oh I'm just trying to make it fair!" If you really wanted it to be fair, players would receive revenue based on ticket sales generated for their own matches. Then Pospisil would get even less. No, you don't want "fairness," you just want more. Which is fine. Nothing wrong with that. But at least be honest.

 

[MasturB]

Pospisil doesn't quite understand the difference between tennis tour and team sports. Lol.

 

[insideguy]

Pospisil doesn't quite understand the difference between tennis tour and team sports. Lol.

He might not. But Golf aint a team sport.

 

[MasturB]

He might not. But Golf aint a team sport.

The majority of the big golf tournaments are in north america (USA/CANADA parts)

PGA Tour =/= European Tour either.

Miami, Indian Wells, USO, Cinncy, Canada, Washington are the only big tourneys in North America (500 or higher, 250s don't attract the big dogs often enough to compare consistently). Acapulco is kind of big.

The rest of the 500s and 1000s and slams are elsewhere.

The best European golfers on tour play way more PGA Tour events than they do Euro tour because of more prize money and sponsorship opportunities stateside. 3 of the 4 golf majors are in America. Hugely opposite of US Open being 1 out of 4.

It's just as naive to compare ATP prize money to PGA golf money. Now, I do think there should be more money given to players but Pospisil is insane if he thinks he's going to get anywhere near close to what the big team sports players get in USA. They have unions, guaranteed money via contracts and their tv ratings are far more than tennis. Thus those sports command way way more money in tv rights.

 

[terribleIVAN]

I can't believe the reactions of people here.

What do the organizers to entitle them 85% of the big pie ?

Why is this even allowed/legal ?

Do they train from age of 5 ? Do they sacrifice their youth and family life ? Do they suffer constant injuries ?

Are they forced to travel to the 4 corners of the world or sleep in cars and do other jobs to put some money on the side for your retirement?

Davenport said the same thing years ago: the money is ridiculous compared to the sacrifices when you're outside the top 50 and compared to other sports.

Not because there's no money, but because the organizers suck all the wealth from the deserving players who generate the revenue.

Enough is enough. Tennis needs to clean up it's act and be fair to the players.

 

[OhYes]

I can't believe the reactions of people here.

What do the organizers to entitle them 85% of the big pie ?

Do they train from age of 5 ? Do they sacrifice their youth and family life ? Do they suffer constant injuries ?

Are they forced to travel to the 4 corners of the world or sleep in cars and do other jobs to put some money on the side for your retirement?

Davenport said the same thing years ago: the money is ridiculous compared to the sacrifices when you're outside the top 50 and compared to other sports.

Tennis needs to clean up it's act and be fair to the players.

Maybe people find easier to give their ticket money to invisible people in suits, than to those who they see playing and his ranking sucks.

 

[terribleIVAN]

While i am all for lower ranked players getting a decent income, i find it irritating that they should talk about revenues the sport is generating and wanting a pie of that.

That is not how the world works. You work for Walmart and Walmart makes billions, you still get paid $8 an hour if that is what the market rate is.

You Sir would make a fine slave.

 

[mahesh69a]

I think the players are the biggest asset for any sport - not organizers, not tradition, not stadiums, not pencil-pushing bureaucrats.
And it should reflect in their compensation.
The comparision to a Walmart minimum wage worker is highly inaccurate because players make the product (sport) special.

 

[Nickos24]

From Tenn!s World USA . org

https://www.**************.org/tenn...-effect-french-open-breaks-record-attendance/

The Roger Federer effect: French Open breaks record attendance

In a conference call the French Open Tournament Director Guy Forget shared the impressive numbers behind the 2019 edition. Roger Federer played for the first time since 2015. "In terms of figures and audience, it's something that you often mention in your articles or magazines.
We have beaten our record with Simonne Mathieu court. We had a record participation of 520,000 spectators", announced Forget. "We have exceeded the half-million threshold on which we stopped over the past years, and the tournament was sold out as of the first day of the opening of the ticket sales.
In terms of broadcasters, for France 2, we had, on average, 1.3 million telespectators, 15.6% of share. The highest peak was in the match between Benoit Paire and Nishikori, 3.9 million telespectators on France 3. And EuroSport also had extremely positive figures, increasing with respect to last year.

​

Also, the good performance of China, they were 63 million watching Roland Garros at a single minute. It shows the potential of the Chinese audience. In terms of digital platforms, the figures are there, too. We have more than 5 million single visitors on RolandGarros.com, and 25 million active users of our App Roland Garros who have followed the tournament with a score which is very high, 4.3 stars on the stores.
Although I'm not an expert, it's a very good score. In terms of spectators, they were always present in front of the screens in the stadium. I want to talk about it here. On the Philippe Chatrier and Suzanne Lenglen, we had the problem of the loges that are empty.
It's not something which is new. It's something on which we have been working for the past years. Today, in particular with our partners, we are trying, as of next year, to find new means to fill up these loges that are empty sometimes.
At some times, economically speaking, we cannot allow us to refuse these partners and sometimes these people who pay a more expensive ticket, who consume tennis in a different way as in the past and have difficulty in spending eight to nine hours sitting on the chair.
That's why we will try to do with our partners the sort of overbooking as in the hotels or in the airline companies in order to have some of their clients in the first part, and then a second batch of people coming afterwards following the lunch.
But we are aware that we have to go further in that direction to avoid what we see today. And I remind you that the tournaments as US Open or other tournaments of the tour are facing these same issues. I'm sure that you will ask questions about that.
To conclude, I would like to say this 2019 edition has been a success, fantastic, as said by the chair, owing to the challenges and the race against the clock with these huge works that have been made on the Roland Garros stadium."

And yet the experts on here claim it was a failure.

 

[Dondon]

Bouchard makes more money on insta than tennis

 

[weelie]

Do you really think tickets for both semifinals of the French Open were not totally sold out weeks/months before the event???

on 23.5. I checked for the fun of it, most days had seats left, don't remember all of it nor did I take a screen capture, but for example ladies / doubles final Saturday had decent seats left. But that does not change the fact that attendance in ATP tennis events across the board is improving (I have not followed WTA, so I don't know about that side), stadiums are getting larger etc.

 

[tennis_pro]

He might not. But Golf aint a sport.

Now better.

Tennis pros need more energy to finish an extended rally than a pro golfer in an entire tournament.

 

[bigserving]

Professional tennis needs a CEO. That is the biggest difference between tennis and the other major sports. There is the ATP, WTA, ITF, USTA, plus every other association has their own agenda. Tennis has too many individual organizations with their own individual agendas.

There needs to be one person who is in charge of growing the game. Until then, everybody should expect more of the same.

 

[gogo]

I believe that the players need stronger representation. I support Pospisil's comments. It's a sad sport if only the top 50 players make an good wage after expenses. It is highly skewed to the top.

It's not about the specific dollars, but more about the percentage sharing. And let's face it....ATP hasn't been the best at marketing.

I'm for the athletes!

 

[bobleenov1963]

This thing can be resolved in less than a month. Here is what needs to be done. The top 200th players band together and boycott ALL tournaments. The big 4 (Djokovic, Nadal, Federer and Murray) uses their own endorsement money to support players from 50th to 200th. That will force tournaments organizers to have 50/50 revenue sharing with players. It is not that complicated. If the top 100th players do not play in GS events, ATP 500 and ATP 1000 events, things will change in a hurry.