Why the Outrageous Racket Prices?

vsbabolat

G.O.A.T.
I just want to be the first to mention the Prince Boron, which was $500 in the late 80's (@vsbabolat will correct me if I'm wrong)

And now I will end this thread: hitler.

You're welcome and have a good weekend everybody!
Boron came out in the early 80’s but you’re right about the price in The early 80’s of $500 MSRP. By the late 80’s the price came down. For your $500 you got a full length leather racquet cover.
 
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Moveforwardalways

Hall of Fame
If you want a cheaper racquet, TW has a used racquet section that is amply stocked. In particular, they have a ton of Yonex Ezone 98s and numerous Wilsons.
 

louis netman

Hall of Fame
Nobody forces you to buy it. The price is because somebody is paying it. You can always buy a no name for 40 bucks or an older brand model to 90 bucks.

I think an older model is best value. You don't want a 15yo model but a 3-4 yo model usually is only marginally worse if at all.

Why not a 15 year old model? Until my recent injuries (I'm 57), I still played my 21 year old Prince Precision Response Ti frames - rotating with Volkl Tour 10 Gen I MPs. I've demoed literally hundreds of frames over the past 20 years and still have not found a frame that does what these frames do for me. Perhaps, they don't resemble frames that anyone on the tour currently uses, but I'm OK with that--

I'm retired and don't coach enough get free rackets from any of the manufacturers...

Indeed, price is always dictated by what the market is willing to pay...
My advice for the market (novice - 4.0/4.5) is to invest in GOOD coaching/tennis instruction. I don't care what frame you bring with you.

"'3-4 year old model is only marginally worse if at all"-- I'm not understanding this...? Please explain...
 

socallefty

G.O.A.T.
Twenty or thirty years ago, there were 2-3 well known racquet companies, but also 10-15 other companies that had somewhat decent market share. The top 20 ATP pros in the Eighties played with 12-15 different racquet brands, but it is not like that anymore. Now, just a few brands (Babolat, Wilson, Head and Yonex) dominate the racquet market share market and the lesser brands have become almost non-entities. When I was on these boards for the first time in 2000, there used to be a lot of discussion about Prince, Volkl, Fischer, Gamma, ProKennex etc. which I don’t see anymore and the only new entrant I hear about is Angell which is going after a niche custom market anyway. As these top brands sponsor more and more pros, college players and top juniors, it becomes even harder for lesser brands to do well.

With less competition and more of a ‘monopoly’ by a few companies, it is easy for all of them to decide to keep increasing their prices and give consumers less choice of less expensive racquets. I’m not saying that the top companies get together and do ’price-fixing’, but with fewer competitors it is easy to guess that none of their strong competitors will undersell them on price. All industries where few companies dominate market share have a faster increase in prices and this is totally independent of costs going up. I’m only in a half-joking mood when I say that the FTC should look at non-competitive practices among tennis manufacturers - but, this is a very small industry and the FTC has bigger fish to fry.

Also, tennis is still an upper class sport in many countries played by the same people who are willing to spend thousands of dollars for golf clubs. So, tennis racquet manufacturers have realized that those people are not going to quibble too much about the rising prices of tennis racquets. I have a friend who works in an executive Marketing role at Srixon (who owns Dunlop) and I have had some interesting conversations with him about how prices are set for tennis and golf equipment - let me just say that it usually has nothing to do with costs going up except in a small minority of cases.
 
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louis netman

Hall of Fame
I just want to be the first to mention the Prince Boron, which was $500 in the late 80's (@vsbabolat will correct me if I'm wrong)

And now I will end this thread: hitler.

You're welcome and have a good weekend everybody!
I think I played a guy who played one of those. I think it was a double bagel, if i recall correctly...
 
Why do you really need the newest paintjob....
Just buy an older model with discount.
Or buy some second hand frame that is only played for some hours.
And dont change to much racquets, makes no sense. Its bad for your tennis.
 

chrisb

Professional
Personally I have 6 used frames 2 yonex sv 98s 2 secret 4s and u new old spalding assault 110s. All are great frame
 

chrisb

Professional
75 each for the yonex 30 each for the others cheap nylon restring every 2 weeks works fine Marketing strings is another load of bs. Lag and snap groundies gives enough power And the feel is 95% same
 

cortado

Professional
With Yonex paying Wawrinka $5million per year they need to make money some how. Don't forget that unlike talk-tennis-nerds who change racquet every week, most people buy a racquet and don't replace it (or the poly in it) for ten straight years.
 

zaskar1

Professional
Sorry TW, not intending to create an uproar. I just browsed the Yonex page and they have frames priced at $380.00!!! And a frame I'm interested in, lhe PK Black Ace, is 199.00...

Over a decade ago, the cost to manufacture a graphite frame was about twenty bucks. The marketing departments created the image/price points.

So, now, with all the engineering, manufacturing and distribution technologies in addition to the incorporation of less expensive materials (than UHM graphite), why are the frames so expensive?
well its the old supply and demand, they can get these prices because people are willing to pay these outrageous prices. if no one buys these expensive racquets, they will reduce the price to a level where things will sell. we see a little price reduction when Wilson offers $50 credit to trade in your old racquet on a new one
z
 

BillKid

Hall of Fame
Not long ago I had an insightful conversation with a guy working for Decathlon (selling Artengo). For those who do not know, their offering for tennis racquets is rather limited but they have a few interesting models like a tweener similar to a PD, Extreme etc.. I demoed one of them and I m telling you it's as good as any big brand tweener.
I asked the guy why Artengo was so much cheaper than big brands. He told me and I trusted him that the price difference was mostly related to the huge amount of money that Wilson, Head etc.. are spending in marketing and remuneration of champions endorsing their racquets. Interestingly, other brands like Prince or Pro Kennex, which do not have to pay millions to Nadal or Federer, are selling high quality racquets at much lower price than Babolat or Wilson.
 
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DANMAN

Professional
The MAP has also destroyed brick and mortar vs internet competition. Now that everyone sells for the same price no one gets an edge.

I find this practice almost a monopoly. Imaging if the big internet dealers actually had to compete against each other with price offerings.
Pure drives used to be $149 in 2002 at my local shop. Now pushing $80 more plus tax. They used to costs in 2012 around $90 for the shop at cost and were retailing around $189 at that time. Goes to show the markup on the frames.
 
Not long ago I had an insightful conversation with a guy working for Decathlon (selling Artengo). For those who do not know, their offering for tennis racquets is rather limited but they have a few interesting models like a tweener similar to a PD, Extreme etc.. I demoed one of them and I m telling you it's as good as any big brand tweener.
I asked the guy why Artengo was so much cheaper than big brands. He told me and I trusted him that the price difference was mostly related to the huge amount of money that Wilson, Head etc.. are spending in marketing and remuneration of champions endorsing their racquets. Interestingly, other brands like Prince or Pro Kennex, which do not have to pay millions to Nadal or Federer, are selling high quality racquets at much lower price than Babolat or Wilson.

Just chiming in to say that I own an Artengo 990 PRO and it's a very, very good racquet. Great quality and plays great. I'd say it's closer to the PA than the PD, and of course significantly cheaper.
 

BillKid

Hall of Fame
Basically you pay a racquet through the nose because the racquet is endorsed by a top player. But the truth is that the top player may be actually using a pro stock that is a totally different racquet than those commercially available.
Recently I bought some Prince racquets that were 89$ on sale. Thinking about it, I would qualify it as a smart move.
 

BillKid

Hall of Fame
You might want to check again
I did.
A few examples:
Head speed 219-239 $ depending on the model (to be fair the recent Extreme line cheaper for unknown reason)
Last Babolat release = Pure Drive 229$
Blade 16x19 or 18x20 219$
Clash 249$
And so on...

Prince models are almost all 189-199$
Pro Kennex are 129-199 $
 

Brian11785

Hall of Fame
My current racquets are the Yonex Duel G 97 310 and Tour G 310. One was bought through TW’s used supply and the other from this board’s Classifieds section**....both within the last year and both for under $100 apiece. They are two and three, respectively, generations old but were delivered in great condition. If one isn’t willing to shell out the $200, there are plenty of other options.

** The fact that TW maintains an active used market at no cost to buyers and sellers is a goodwill gesture that brings me back to them for other supplies when I could go elsewhere.
 

5sets

Hall of Fame
I guess it’s the other forum, the racquet equipment forum, where I find others who enjoy finding preowned gems. Your racquet is going to get some head scratches on it anyway, may as well save $50-100 and pick up a used one off the Bay. Prices are just going to keep going up, there’s not much you can do about it. And while people always want the newest, most recent colorway their favorite pro is playing, you can always find great deals on their lightly used equipment.
 
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