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Post Info TOPIC: Prize Money


Futures level

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Prize money allocations


The more I think about it, the more I feel the game needs to reconsider prize money allocation, especially at challenger level.  I think prize money allocations should be more aligned to the ranking points given.

For example, to win a low level challenger, you may receive 90 pts and $7000

To reach the 2nd round of a ATP 250, you would receive 20 points and $7000 

 

Does this not strike anyone was a bit of an odd and unfair system?

I feel this creates a a strange gambler dynamic where players are obsessed with the main tour, like a drunk playing roulette in vegas. 



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Not the ATP side, but the same applies to the WTA, and their CEO just discussed this at length in their latest Insider podcast. The problem where most players at the top end of the game effectively depend on the Slams to make their living.
This then has lead to sponsors becoming aggrieved at how readily players withdraw from regular tournaments at short notice in order to ensure Slam participation, or generally manage their calendar to their convenience. This leaves no recourse to change the marketing accordingly, or to deliver on what had been advertised. Also mentioned was that this is exacerbated by the frequency with which players withdraw from matches, and how to square the circle of protecting player health whilst not leaving punters and broadcasters with reduced, or no, action, and providing a viable and reliable tournament 'product' to sell.
All of which has caused many sponsors to be very reticent to continue sponsorship of an event or to step into the Tour. Those that do stay are resisting increased prize money because they feel they are increasingly unable to sell the tournament when big names concentrate on a smaller and smaller number of events and there is no demand for just having 'a tennis tournament', they only want the best players, and the events that can guarantee them are already established and unchanging. This is likely to be even more pronounced now one of the top draws of the WTA is absented, although in reality she never played outside the biggest events anyway.
This was all brought to a head in Dubai and Doha recently with a mass of last minute withdrawals, which, even the WTA CEO conceded were a matter largely of convenience than genuine injury, and further soft retirals in the matches, with, it was suggested player preparing to manage their calendar out of the Aussie Open, and into Indian Wells and Miami, rather than meet their commitments. All of which has understandable and sympathetic audience on both sided, but the end result is that sponsors of these tournaments are genuinely upset and threatening to walk away unless their investment is somehow better protected and made less subject to the vagaries of players whims or 'injuries of convenience.
That in turn then means that the only reliable events are those established big events that year-on-year increase massively their prize money to ensure that they remain that way - all fair competition, they need to protect their own investments - but it ultimately means that at the lower levels prize money is highly unlikely to increase in the meantime, and the drift will be to even more concentration at the top in ever smaller numbers of events, with lower players preferring to play them even if they lose in early rounds for fewer points and no titles than play the smaller bread and butter tournaments.

Perhaps the same forces are broadly at work in the Men's game, I suspect so, to greater or lesser extent.

Edit: Activeboard is replacing ampersands with the character code! So I had to go back and replace them with "and". Teach me to be lazy!.



-- Edited by AliBlahBlah on Wednesday 16th of March 2016 01:42:46 PM

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Tennis legend

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Slightly related, but I see Novak has had his say on prize money with all this hoo ha on the women's game and the sexual references to the women being inferior. Novak saying the men should be paid more because they have more spectators and a greater TV audience.

The reason they have a bigger TV audience is because most of the Top players are from the big TV spectator areas - Western Europe, North America.

The women on the other hand bar Serena are generally not and are from Eastern Europe/Russia.

Top 20 women - 2 x USA, 1 x Germany, 2 x Spain, 2 x Italy, 2 x Switzerland (total 9)
Top 20 men - 1 x GB, 2 x Switzerland, 3 x Spain, 4 x France, 1 x Canada, 1 x USA, 1 x Austria, 1 x Belgium (total 14)

In addition there are a lot more personalities in the men's game than the women's, but I suspect this is down to profile and the way the game is marketed.

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Indeed! If the WTA spent a little less time marketing women on the basis of their looks and a little more on the basis of skill and personality, that might help. Then again, Mr Moore's comments about the WTA being marketable in the future as they have some very attractive players and his subsequent clarification that yes, he did mean both physically attractive and competitively attractive (suggestion for Mr Moore - next time you're offered an escape route, take it. Don't just compound your error) suggest that they may know their market better than one wishes they did.

Interesting point, Paulisi, about the locations of the top 20 and its impact on TV audiences. Would guess that when Li Na was playing, women's tennis had more coverage in China's than men's. Serena Williams also made the point that in the US her final sold out before the men's this year. Some tennis writers have also pointed out that popularity isn't static: there have been times when the women's tour had bigger stars and times when the men's did.

I do wonder how any person who runs a (partially) WTA-sanctioned tournament and makes the comment that in my next life ... I want to be someone in the WTA because they ride on the coattails of the men. They don't make any decisions and they are very lucky ... If I were a lady player, I'd go down every night on my knees and thank God that Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal were born can possibly stay in his post. What he thinks is his own business. What he says in a press conference should indicate some respect for the people with whom he works.

Edit: direct quotes now in italics as quote marks not working.



-- Edited by Spectator on Monday 21st of March 2016 05:46:58 PM

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Challenger level

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As a man that has ridden in on the coattails of his predecessor as Tournament Director at Indian Wells, (now CEO of the WTA) Steve Simon, perhaps Raymond Moore should get down on his knees every night and thank God that Mr. Simon was born, because Mr. Moore has obviously been carried at that tournament for the previous 11 years; he didn't make the decisions, and has been very very lucky.

Satire aside, I think Serena's comments afterwards were fantastic and unequivocal, showing real leadership.
Amongst them:
I think there is a lot of women out there who are very exciting to watch. I think there are a lot of men out there who are exciting to watch. I think it definitely goes both ways. I think those remarks are very much mistaken and very, very, very inaccurate.
So I just feel like in order to make a comment you have to have history and you have to have facts and you have to know things. You have to know of everything. You look at someone like Billie Jean King who opened so many doors for not only women's players but women's athletes in general.
I feel like that is such a disservice to her and every female, not only a female athlete but every woman on this planet, that has ever tried to stand up for what they believed in and being proud to be a woman.

Asked if she though this was just someone expressing themselves poorly, or clumsily:
If you read the transcript you can only interpret it one way. I speak very good English. I'm sure he does, too.



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Some interesting comments on The Guardian's article condemning Novak's comments. It's a poor article, in my opinion, and expresses very little original writing nor, indeed, gives any real reason as to WHY Novak was wrong. Here's the link: http://www.theguardian.com/sport/2016/mar/21/novak-djokovic-equal-pay-tennis

And here's one of the most interesting comments:

There is nothing 'horribly wrong' about it. Let us consider the 2014 Wimbledon finals:

Women's
Winner: Petra Kvitova
Prize money: £1,760,000
Total games played: 137
Length of final: 55 minutes
Earning rate: £12,847 per game

The women's final was watched by a peak UK audience of 3.1 million (BBC statistics).

Men's
Winner: Novak Djokovic
Prize money: £1,760,000
Total games played: 276
Length of final: 236 minutes
Earning rate: £6,377 per game

The men's final was watched by a peak UK audience of 10.0 million (BBC statistics).

Simple question - what is fair about the above?

And another:

'There is no justice in saying women should be paid less because they play less' Yes, there is. If two people work the same job, but one has to work 3 hours to earn the same pay as their co-worker earns every 2 hours, the harder working one is perfectly entitled to point out that this is unfair.

When my website launched in January, I had a writer do a piece on this exact topic, for release just before the Aus Open. Obviously, we were discussing the equality of pay at Slams, which is inherently a different conversation due to the fact Men play more sets of tennis than Women at Slams. But we touched upon but of the issues raised above: even if women do play the same amount of tennis at all other tournaments outside of Slams, Novak is right: the Men's game attracts bigger crowds, bigger TV viewing figures, bigger sponsorships - so surely it should reward with bigger prize pots? Prize money is, after all, based on the income and revenue a tournament is able to raise. If that revenue is higher for men, then surely the prize money should be too?

It's the same in any sport, see this article: http://www.theguardian.com/sport/2016/mar/21/prize-money-row-major-sports-compare-men-and-women. Golf, snooker, cricket, football - and, if you want to look at it from the opposite end of the stick, women get paid far more for modelling than men do, because female models sell a higher quantity of clothing of a more elite nature than male models. I don't hear anyone complaining about that, because it's fair. Is it not the same argument you can apply to tennis?

I'd be interested to hear your thoughts. As a feminist, I'm a firm believer in equality and equal rights and equal pay, but sport is a different matter. It's not a wage. It's a prize, and at Slams in particular, I don't think women taking equal prize money is actually fair.



-- Edited by BradMarx90 on Tuesday 22nd of March 2016 01:02:38 AM



-- Edited by BradMarx90 on Tuesday 22nd of March 2016 01:04:44 AM

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I thought the BBC had a reasonable article breaking down some of these points, accompanied by some decent data - albeit sometimes misleadingly presented (e.g. Prize money disparity graphic) : Equal pay is as much a myth as it is a minefield

The ATP does get more viewers and ticket sales, and consequently more money for the Tour overall, as commercial practicalities dictate.
The piece touches on some of the deeper reasons why this might be, apart from the validity of the perception that it's 'just better', and also points out other hypocrisies and fallacies in the common points of argument.



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Challenger level

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I would be interested if anybody on here can provide a fact based argument (as opposed to an emotional or principled one) as to why women should receive the same prize money in slams as the mens? I am not opposed to it (from a principle point of view), but I never actually read any actual facts to support it.

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I see that Mr Moore has resigned. Some will doubtless feel that this is unwarranted - but I think that the reality is that any person in business who made disparaging comments in a press conference about the organisation that provided a substantial portion of his or her company's revenue would probably not be regarded as able to continue in his or her position.

The question of equal pay is a far more nuanced one. Thank you, IF, for that link, which is really quite helpful indeed.

For me, it seems fair enough that the ATP currently offers more prize money overall than the WTA, given that it also generates more revenue. One can, of course, argue that it generates more revenue for reasons that relate to biases in the media etc ... but as players often say "It is what it is," and under current circumstances, the greater total prize money makes sense.

With the Slams, the difficulty in presenting a "fact-based" argument is that it's difficult to work out what facts would be involved. The "more hours" argument has issues: the logical endpoint of that would be to say that the poor hapless souls whom Novak Djokovic, Serena Williams et al demolish in the early rounds should get less money - and indeed even that an early round whitewash should earn less for the good players than a later round struggle. That's patently not going to happen: this isn't wage labour and people aren't being paid in terms of their minutes on the court. So it's hard to see it as a compelling argument for a gender pay gap. (And, by the way, note the cherry picking in examples ... the 2014 Wimbledon finals were unusually one-sided; they are not representative of the whole).

The "more revenue and attendance" also varies. As Ms Williams pointed out, the women's final at the USO last year sold out before the men's. Again, that's cherrypicking: it was quite an unusual circumstance. But it suggests that there's not a single story - and that it would be interesting to drill down a bit in terms of revenue and audience.

As the Beeb article suggests, the attraction of the Slams is that they represent the pinnacle of sport for both men and women. Their storylines include both. Within any given year or Slam, the extent to which the focus will be on one side or the other will vary, and may vary massively within even the same side. So it does seem to make a certain amount of sense to have a single structure, rather than trying to calibrate things to take into account the particular attraction (or not) of given matches.

 



-- Edited by Spectator on Tuesday 22nd of March 2016 08:38:03 AM

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Futures level

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I am not sure how "equal" can ever be assessed, or why it should be.

We have taken two groups (me & women) that play different sports - although largely by the same rules - in men's and women's tennis: why should these be equated? If they all play in the same pot, by the same rules, on an equal footing, then equality is assured. If women want the same pay as men, then play together in the same draw.

As long as there is a need to separate out the draws, then they aren't the same sport.

We haven't (yet) got "Equal prize money for juniors/ vets/ wheelchair/ etc." bandwagons, but why not? They all play similar sports, with an entry limited by an arbitrary consideration, so if women should have the same prize money then why shouldn't other groupings?

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In terms of unequal pay, I don't think the 'women play three sets, men play five sets' argument holds any weight.

We don't pay the 10,000m runner 100 x more than the 100m runner just because he's run longer (or even more, given the time difference is more than 100 times).

And for those arguing old 'labour' laws, wages can be hourly, or piecemeal. A computer project will be paid on a flat fee basis, no matter how long it takes, and no matter if a shorter one gets paid more (all depends on a lot of factors).

So, on a piecemeal basis, they get paid to play a final and that's that.

The revenue-generation argument is more interesting. And men's tennis most definitely garners higher tv audiences etc.

But if we followed that logic, we wouldn't pay futures players anything at all (in fact, we'd make them pay to take part - which, effectively, we do).

And Challenger players would almost certainly not be paid anything either.

And you can't justify paying them because it feeds the higher ranks. Because, as Bob says from the UK players, the depth of new players is increasingly hugely, more and more ranked players, at a time when prizes are their lowest ever (before the new increases feed through). It doesn't seem to be putting anyone off. Audiences want a dynamic, 'famous' top 30. Given the huge numbers now, we could still get that with half the amount of 'feeder' players.

But the sport is a sport as a whole, top to bottom. And (in my view) it does serve as a statement, as well as pure entertainment and business. So I'm in favour of equal pay.

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Sim


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Good point CD re 100m vs 10,000m runners. Infact the 100m runners generally earn more as this is seen as the prestige event. Interestingly the 2 highest paid group of athletes are probably at the 2 extremes 100m and Marathon.

Coming back to tennis I wonder why no Grand Slam has tried having 5 set women's matches (atleast in the closing rounds say QFs, SFs and finals). I can see that having all womens' matches as 5 sets could cause scheduling problems.



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Shhh wrote:

I would be interested if anybody on here can provide a fact based argument (as opposed to an emotional or principled one) as to why women should receive the same prize money in slams as the mens? I am not opposed to it (from a principle point of view), but I never actually read any actual facts to support it.


That only applies to GS, so you could say that standard tour events should be equal pay and GS weighted, but it is the other way round.

The fact is that the ATP currently is better marketed and has more appeal to spectators than the WTA, until the WTA sort this out then the likes of Novak will always have an argument. 



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Futures level

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Sim wrote:

Good point CD re 100m vs 10,000m runners...


 

Yes, it is a good point, but do male and female 10,000 meter runners earn the same? 100 meters?

Does one only measure value in time? Is a five-minute 147 worth less than a two-hour one? (Snooker)

 

If Sky will pay (presumably because of consumer interest) billions for men's soccer (golf/ cricket/ rugby ...) but only thousands for women's, should both get the same reward?

 

I am still convinced that the only answer is to let them all play against one another for a single set of prize money.



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Elite tennis players of both sexes are grossly overpaid, they are many more dedicated more highly skilled individuals that do jobs that earn a fraction of what Novak does.

More pertinently if the playing field were level and every athletically gifted individual had access to the resources he had as a child it is highly unlikely he would be in the top 150. Fortunately for Novak relatively few people play tennis and life just isn't fair. The hard facts are that this discussion has little to do with fairness regardless of how it is dressed up and everything to do with mysogny and greed.

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