The Sports Professor Rick Horrow, in conjunction with promotional partner Northern Trust, looks at the business of professional tennis as the French Open continues play at Roland Garros.
As the French Open wraps up its first round, amid tennis fan delight and superstar complaint, the year’s second Major ushers in mixed results for the business of professional tennis.
The tennis business continues to make progress toward growth and stability – but it’s largely a one step forward two steps back progression. More people are playing the sport, yet limited superstar presence, especially after the demise of the Williams sisters, and a lack of Bjorn Borg-John McEnroe, Pete Sampras-Andre Agassi caliber rivalries have turned viewers away from televised tennis in droves.
As play at Roland Garros unfolds. we’ll examine pro tennis from three perspectives: its television presence, its stars, and its grass-roots following.
TENNIS AND TELEVISION – MORE, OR LESS, COVERAGE
Thanks to the return of tennis on ESPN2, this year’s French Open will receive more television coverage than any tournament at Roland Garros to date. With its first time Sunday start, the tournament will extend through 15 total days of play and include three Sundays, a big bonus for viewership and corporate sponsors alike.
For this year's French Open, television audiences are expected to surpass last year's record of an average of 1.8 million viewers on each day of the event. Not since the days of the Borg-Connors-McEnroe clashes has there been so much interest in men's tennis, with world number one Roger Federer and number two Rafael Nadal capturing attention with their rivalry for top spot in the men's game. In 2005, television channels from 195 countries, spread across five continents, broadcast the tournament, meaning almost three billion viewers were able to follow 6,000 hours of programming. Last year's men's final, won by Nadal, had average television viewing figures of 4.35 million, with peaks of nearly six million towards the end of the match. The women's final, in which Justine Henin-Hardenne beat Mary Pierce, had average viewing figures of over 4.1 million, with peaks of 5.5 million viewers. Yet tennis’ biggest business issue is its lack of a comprehensive television schedule. The season is one of the longest in all of sports, stretching from January to December, if you include the Davis Cup. While coverage has increased since 2002, none of the major networks has the economic incentive to televise it all. As a result, networks take frequent breaks from the sport, focusing on the major events and leaving large gaps in which great tennis is played but not seen. For the ATP, the governing body of the men's tour, the television issue is top of mind. Etienne De Villiers, the ATP’s new chairman, comes from the Walt Disney Company, where he was president of Walt Disney Television International and started the Disney Channel. A renewed focus on television coverage is likely at the top of his to-do list.
Elsewhere, tennis tournament revenues have surpassed $150 million, with net income to the USTA exceeding $82 million. The USTA has used these revenues to overcome its $15 million operating loss of the last few years.
And thanks to increased t.v. revenue and ticket sales, and the largesse of some of the sport’s biggest talents, the U.S. won’t lose one of its most popular annual events. The Pacific Life Open will remain in Indian Wells each March for the next 20 years with help from Tennis Magazine, Sampras, Billie Jean King, and Chris Evert, who joined the USTA in purchasing a tournament-saving 50 percent stake from IMC. The investment saved the tournament from moving to Doha, Quatar.
THE TENNIS SUPERSTAR – EQUAL PAY AND ENDORSABILITY
If it were up to French tennis fans, the men and women competing in this year’s French Open would receive equal pay for equal pay.
While French Open prize money is nowhere near reward for the U.S. Open (which, at $20.6 million including player bonuses, is the highest annual purse in sports), this year, both the men’s and the women’s French Open singles champions will receive the same amount of prize money: 940,000 euros, about $1.2 million at today’s exchange rates. But the men earn more than the women through the earlier rounds.
According to a poll released Monday by the WTA Tour, 90 percent of more than 1,000 people polled in France think that the prize money should be equal throughout the entire tournament.
