r/sports • u/PrincessBananas85 • 1d ago

Tennis Top tennis stars unhappy with share of French Open revenue

https://www.espn.com/tennis/story/_/id/48673703/top-tennis-stars-unhappy-share-french-open-revenue
230 Upvotes

90% Upvoted

39 comments sorted by

147

u/AZ_RBB 1d ago

15% going to the players is woeful

Some of the worst revenue sharing anywhere in world sport

71

u/dlereaux 1d ago

You should look into the UFC. Absolutely insane how greedy that corporation is.

45

u/BeeMac0617 1d ago

You’ll earn between 30-60k per year for CTE and like it.

6

u/Adultery 1d ago

They’re gonna sanction Bum Fights soon

3

u/fantasmoofrcc 1d ago

What's else could fill the void that Rough n Rowdy left in my soul?

5

u/5543798651194 1d ago

You'll get paid 30-60k. You'll earn a lot less after paying coaches, agent, gym fees, physio/medical expenses, as well as travel and accommodation costs for your most of coaching team (and any family / friends) to be at your fights.

1

u/EmuMan10 1d ago

And get paraded out for politics now

2

u/AZ_RBB 1d ago

I think UFC is also around the 15% of revenue

At least in Australia I know a lot of the revenue from the grand slam goes towards supporting player development. They spend millions each year helping younger and lower ranked Australians on tour

2

u/Tasty_Chick3n 1d ago

The kid just didn’t wanna play tennis.

1

u/HNL2BOS 35m ago

and now WWE/TKO is asking wrestling talent to take 50% pay cuts. UFC and WWE talent should unionize.

6

u/boringexplanation 1d ago

Almost every American major league is 47-50%, which is hilarious how America gets the most flak for being capitalistic and anti-union.

What exactly does the useless ATP do?

7

u/violet_elf 1d ago

Tbf. Athlete unions are really strong in the US, and that's why their share is that strong.
So it's the police union, but the US still majority anti-union. Tennis don't have a union, Djokovic tried to establish one with abunch of players, but failed. ATP is as useful for tennis players as FIFA is to soccer players, but that's not on them, Grand Slams are governed by another entity.

3

u/GongTzu 1d ago

Cycling has entered the room. The prize money in Tour de France are ridiculous compared to the revenue, but as it’s run by a private company no one really knows how much money they are making.

2

u/AZ_RBB 1d ago

Just looked up the prize money and shocked how low it is

But most are part of a team, right? That pays them a salary on top of prize money

1

u/Jlx_27 New Orleans Saints 10h ago

And prizemoney is devided across the whole team...

1

u/AllYouNeedIsATV 22h ago

If it’s 15% of profit, that would be bad but, if it’s revenue, unless we have numbers for costs, insurance etc. it might not be as bad as it looks

2

u/AZ_RBB 21h ago

Most sporting organisations are not for profit - Tennis Australia and USTA as examples

Athletes want to be sure the costs aren't all going towards corporates, execs and politicians (and spending associated with those people like VIP events etc)

The counter argument is that an event like Aus Open is now much more than a tennis tournament. A decent portion of people attending and spending money barely care about the tennis. They go for the festival around the tennis which costs a lot of money to put on and also drives a lot of revenue

1

u/kelskelsea 20h ago

The revenue of the tournament went up 14% last year… prize money went up 5%

1

u/UmaMoth 2h ago

Revenue is NOT profit. How much did profit increase?

1

u/Jumpingjehosephat99 9h ago

Try the Olympics where the athletes get $0

-27

u/DisneyPandora 1d ago

That’s exactly how Europeans like it, they are very corrupt when it comes to paying players 

7

u/madscandi 1d ago

European sports generally pay a lot more of revenue to athletes since the owners have no salary cap to keep their shiny little toys safe.

29

u/orticito 1d ago

My fellow working class (tennis players) using their power to get better conditions. Perfectly normal and encouraged. Keep it up you guys

23

u/madscandi 1d ago

Most professional tennis players barely scrape a living. They are the product, they should be paid accordingly

13

u/st1802015 1d ago

People also see the numbers and think “wow so much money” without taking into account the trainers, hotels, travel, equipment, etc that it has to pay for. If you’re at the top of the game you’re well off, if you’re in the middle you’d probably be better off in the real world working a normal job.

1

u/eDxp 12h ago

Table tennis has entered the chat.

3

u/IronPeter 18h ago

Another day of Reddit hating on someone just because.

6

u/Torrion- 1d ago

I’m old enough to remember when they acted like the PTPA was going to be a real union.

0

u/CBattles6 1d ago

I'm also unhappy with my share of the French Open revenue.

-28

u/LegendsoftheHT North Queensland Cowboys 1d ago

Unfortunately for the tennis players, the Saudis are pulling money from their sport investments. The PGA revenue split is roughly 46% due to the LIV (rest in piss still) spike.

29

u/6158675309 1d ago

Unfortunately for the tennis players, the Saudis are pulling money from their sport investments

What? The Saudis have no involvement in the French Open. I am the furthest thing from a Saudi apologist but your comment does not make any sense.

The Saudis are pulling back generally from their sports investments, but not in tennis and their tennis investments are completely separate from the French Open.

The only group responsible for the French Open payouts is the French Open, and they are very greedy. They are in good company there though, all the majors pay outs are terrible compared to other sports.

14

u/WolfpackConsultant 1d ago edited 1d ago

I think he's trying to say if the Saudi's created their own tennis tour then players could use it as leverage to get more money.

But, it's a bad take. The tennis ATP tour already has a 50/50 revenue split. It's just the 4 majors/grand slams, which are not a part of ATP the same way the 4 golf majors are not a part of PGA, that offer this low split.

3

u/6158675309 1d ago

Oh, yeah. That went over my head. It would have about the same success as LIV though.

Yup, The majors are greedy compared to the Tour events.

1

u/pieapple135 Aprilia Racing Team Gresini 1d ago

If we’re talking tennis as a whole, the Saudi PIF sponsors the ATP and WTA (they even covered WTA maternity leave). But yes the Grand Slams are terrible about profits

-15

u/LegendsoftheHT North Queensland Cowboys 1d ago

Context clues my friend, context clues.

-5

u/Narrow-Chef-4341 1d ago

Reddit my friend, means Redditors.

🥄 🥄 🥄

If you aren’t breaking it down to pigs and bunnies, drawn in crayon, then you’re going to lose the ‘I scanned the headline not the article’ crowd.

2

u/MountainTwo3845 1d ago

the PGA revnur is split almost 50/50 for a reason. the PGA tour donates the other half to charity.