Like others, some of the details of these ideas/proposals are extremely worrying.

If tennis does change and someone wins the bid, I really hope there isn't a closed shop of 64 elite players given a whole year of playing 14 events in what effectively is a league to decide their end of year ranking - for me, the problem is not that all the top players should be encouraged to play against each other at the top events and not go for lesser ITF events where the field is weak to boost rankings - for me, the biggest problem is that this system is going to make it really difficult for lesser players to come through the ranks, if for all of the 10 events they have to qualify for each one, as that will consolidate the ranking points in the hands of the top 64 players and help the top 64 players to remain at the top.

I think this would mean that we would end up with some very average players keeping their top 64 ranking at the end of each season , just because they are not in the worst 8 or 16 players (we don't know how many will be relegated) and the system could even be set up so that those having to qualify for each of the 10 tournaments plus the Grand Slams will have to get more rankings points than the top 64 players who are automatically allowed into each tournament.

The ideas make me think of snooker and the set up there. The main tour has around 130 players in it, and outside of that there are vast numbers of players trying to gain entry to the main tour via a series of qualifying school events that take place where only the winner gets to join the main tour in the following year.

The top 32 snooker players in the 16 yearly ranking tournaments on the main tour qualifying are then always matched against players from outside the top 64 in 2 qualifying rounds to qualify for each ranking event, which inevitably means it is harder for the other 96 players to overhaul them, due to how many poor players are outside the top 64 but have not been deemed so bad to be booted of the tour.

The results of this system in snooker have been a massive stagnation at the top - only the very worst players ever get booted off the tour and all you need to do is maybe win 6 or 7 matches from the 16 ranking events to stay on the tour.

What that means is that a huge number of older players who are not that good manage to remain on the tour for years and many talented youngsters just cannot get through the qualifying school events to make it on to the tour. I can imagine exactly the same happening in tennis if this system took place - where players finish 40 something in the yearly league and so take years to get relegated, while lots of youngsters are not quite consistent enough to make the top 64.

Like others, these ideas depress me. I don't want the Saudis to gain control of tennis - sportswashing appears to now be a political strategy, and while I feel tennis is a global sport that should travel round the globe, I do not feel that the Saudis should have control of it, just because they have the most money.

Hopefully tennis as we know it won't be subject to either Saudi Arabian control or for the Premium Tour proposal to succeed, and like others, I feel that Saudi Arabia's attitude to homosexuality isn't great and the way that it treats women is even worse. If Saudi Arabia gains control and merges the tour, we could have a country controlling the sport, where women have almost no rights in employment, sex and marriage, driving, bank accounts and even wandering out alone on their own outside the house. While changes are happening slowly to modernise the country, it is still incredibly backward on women's rights, equality and inclusion/diversity, and as such, it should not be rewarded with taking control of a sport.
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Andy Parker wrote:

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Like others, some of the details of these ideas/proposals are extremely worrying.

If tennis does change and someone wins the bid, I really hope there isn't a closed shop of 64 elite players given a whole year of playing 14 events in what effectively is a league to decide their end of year ranking - for me, the problem is not that all the top players should be encouraged to play against each other at the top events and not go for lesser ITF events where the field is weak to boost rankings - for me, the biggest problem is that this system is going to make it really difficult for lesser players to come through the ranks, if for all of the 10 events they have to qualify for each one, as that will consolidate the ranking points in the hands of the top 64 players and help the top 64 players to remain at the top.

I think this would mean that we would end up with some very average players keeping their top 64 ranking at the end of each season , just because they are not in the worst 8 or 16 players (we don't know how many will be relegated) and the system could even be set up so that those having to qualify for each of the 10 tournaments plus the Grand Slams will have to get more rankings points than the top 64 players who are automatically allowed into each tournament.

The ideas make me think of snooker and the set up there. The main tour has around 130 players in it, and outside of that there are vast numbers of players trying to gain entry to the main tour via a series of qualifying school events that take place where only the winner gets to join the main tour in the following year.

The top 32 snooker players in the 16 yearly ranking tournaments on the main tour qualifying are then always matched against players from outside the top 64 in 2 qualifying rounds to qualify for each ranking event, which inevitably means it is harder for the other 96 players to overhaul them, due to how many poor players are outside the top 64 but have not been deemed so bad to be booted of the tour.

The results of this system in snooker have been a massive stagnation at the top - only the very worst players ever get booted off the tour and all you need to do is maybe win 6 or 7 matches from the 16 ranking events to stay on the tour.

What that means is that a huge number of older players who are not that good manage to remain on the tour for years and many talented youngsters just cannot get through the qualifying school events to make it on to the tour. I can imagine exactly the same happening in tennis if this system took place - where players finish 40 something in the yearly league and so take years to get relegated, while lots of youngsters are not quite consistent enough to make the top 64.

Like others, these ideas depress me. I don't want the Saudis to gain control of tennis - sportswashing appears to now be a political strategy, and while I feel tennis is a global sport that should travel round the globe, I do not feel that the Saudis should have control of it, just because they have the most money.

Hopefully tennis as we know it won't be subject to either Saudi Arabian control or for the Premium Tour proposal to succeed, and like others, I feel that Saudi Arabia's attitude to homosexuality isn't great and the way that it treats women is even worse. If Saudi Arabia gains control and merges the tour, we could have a country controlling the sport, where women have almost no rights in employment, sex and marriage, driving, bank accounts and even wandering out alone on their own outside the house. While changes are happening slowly to modernise the country, it is still incredibly backward on women's rights, equality and inclusion/diversity, and as such, it should not be rewarded with taking control of a sport.
.

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 Something will come through and take over from the current situation. the direction of the WTA and ATP , whether joined or not, is to market and separate out the top events. Both are heading in that direction. The tour as it stands with 65 events or whatever it is at 125, 250 and 500 level on each is flatulent and sprawling and has a loss of focus. 

the direction of creating something that puts the focus on the biggest events (the masters and slams) is the direction of tracel

and in my mind, right. What needs attention in the proposals is to ensure that there is movement of players into and out of the big events; I understood they are all to be 96 as opposed to 64? the point though is that right now we have a ranking system that caters for players in ITF 15, 25, 35, etc events, atp challengers and wta125, atp/wta 250, 500 and up through 1000 and slams. And it works- not perfect but it works. That could easily be maintained and each event in the new top tier tour accept the entries from the top 96 players each event and it would be little different to now; what would be different is changing the race that determines the year end tour finals and creating a tour finals that is joint mens and womens and also takes its entries just on points earned in those top masters plus slam events. 

we dont know the detail and it may be misrepresented in the press but if entry is still based on a 52

week ranking as now, and the race is used to represent performance in those top events and qualification for the finals , that is for me a good thing. the tour finals dont need to have points from 250 events or whatever in them- they become de facto a

World Championships of the players who do best in the biggest and best events- and they create a

narrative around those events if those points leagues are promoted and broadcast regularly. The entry system could remain below it to ensure entry to those events is kept fluid and similar to now.

if they land on something like that, Id support that - I dont want Saudi involvement , for sure, but an elite level tour can work if set up properly, IMO. 

Coup Droit wrote:

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Andy, you make really good points, which are broadly along my way of thinking. I hate the idea of a premier league and, as someone said previously, find it depressing.

Just interested, although snooker has 'stagnated', as in the top players are pretty much entrenched, how is it doing financially?

I know nothing about snooker (nor golf, really) and am just curious/worried that the system you describe - which sounds just awful to me - is actually quite a commercially successful system

Which, of course, is the root of the problem

The WTA is in financially dire straits - they can barely give away the TV rights - and, as such, are very susceptible to a bailout offer, no matter what it contains.

And if the Premier League idea has worked in snooker (in terms of dollars, not in terms of diehard snooker fans' approval), then tennis is scuppered

So if you know the figures for snooker (or any sport, pre and post introducing a premier league style system), I'd be really interested

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 You asked about snooker's finances. Well, they aren't that great. The top players earn reasonable amounts, but an average player on the tour will earn around £100,000 per season. As an ex journalist, I can tell you that in terms of what it costs to buy the rights to televise a sport and then how many viewers you then get to watch it, snooker is the cheapest to watch per viewer return. This suggests that the sport is in some ways underselling itself and it makes most TV schedulers try to buy snooker rights, as it  is cheap and will always get reasonable viewing figures. When for instance BBC Wales shows the Welsh Open on TV, they get a huge spike in viewing figures, as snooker fans from the rest of the UK  either use the red button or tune in to BBC Wales to watch.

Snooker rankings go on a rolling year and currently the top player has £1,075,000, 19 players have earned £250,000 or more, the average is £65,500 and 81 players on the main tour have earned £100,000 or less. If you went back 15 or 20 years ago, you would find that most players were earning similar sums - so snooker has failed to grow financially, I think.

To see the full financial figures, type in snooker.org for the best snooker website, then on the home page look for rankings and all the snooker rankings and financial figures for every snooker player on the tour are there in full.  The money and ranking adjusts after each event on a one year rolling basis.

The big problem though that you see from snooker is how many really old players there are on the tour and how few youngsters are coming through. Virtually every top 16 player is over the age of 30 and a great many are in the early 30's or 40's and that is because of the system that they have set up means that lesser players do not easily get relegated.

Snooker is the second most popular spectator sport in China too, so again there should be more money coming in to the sport from there, and although the majority of the good under 30's players in snooker are Chinese, for a country that regularly gets TV audiences of over 100 million for snooker events, it still feels as if the sport should do much better.

Others have made the point that the tennis proposals are at an early stage and I think they are right to say that, but I still can see obvious pitfalls in suggestions of some kind of league system and it wouldn't surprise me if it does happen.

-- Edited by Andy Parker on Friday 15th of March 2024 11:12:09 PM

For any system to work it has to allow player progression. Otherwise all that will happen is players will quit sooner. The principle of mandatory events is a good one - tennis does need the top players playing each other more often - but the number and schedule of events needs to be appropriate.

I am old enough to remember the Avon sponsored US indoor circuit of the 70s/80s where there were three tiers, Avon events (tour level), Avon Futures (including qualifying) and Pre-Qualifying events. Anyone could enter the pre-qualifying to earn spots in Avon Futures qualifying. And the two finalists at an Avon Futures event earned a main draw entry at the next two Avon Events where all the top players played.

Realise the sport has mobed on since then but at least an example of a circuit that saw the top players competing against each other on a regular basis that still allowed progression.

Andy Parker wrote:

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Coup Droit wrote:

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Andy, you make really good points, which are broadly along my way of thinking. I hate the idea of a premier league and, as someone said previously, find it depressing.

Just interested, although snooker has 'stagnated', as in the top players are pretty much entrenched, how is it doing financially?

I know nothing about snooker (nor golf, really) and am just curious/worried that the system you describe - which sounds just awful to me - is actually quite a commercially successful system

Which, of course, is the root of the problem

The WTA is in financially dire straits - they can barely give away the TV rights - and, as such, are very susceptible to a bailout offer, no matter what it contains.

And if the Premier League idea has worked in snooker (in terms of dollars, not in terms of diehard snooker fans' approval), then tennis is scuppered

So if you know the figures for snooker (or any sport, pre and post introducing a premier league style system), I'd be really interested

---

 You asked about snooker's finances. Well, they aren't that great. The top players earn reasonable amounts, but an average player on the tour will earn around £100,000 per season. As an ex journalist, I can tell you that in terms of what it costs to buy the rights to televise a sport and then how many viewers you then get to watch it, snooker is the cheapest to watch per viewer return. This suggests that the sport is in some ways underselling itself and it makes most TV schedulers try to buy snooker rights, as it  is cheap and will always get reasonable viewing figures. When for instance BBC Wales shows the Welsh Open on TV, they get a huge spike in viewing figures, as snooker fans from the rest of the UK  either use the red button or tune in to BBC Wales to watch.

Snooker rankings go on a rolling year and currently the top player has £1,075,000, 19 players have earned £250,000 or more, the average is £65,500 and 81 players on the main tour have earned £100,000 or less. If you went back 15 or 20 years ago, you would find that most players were earning similar sums - so snooker has failed to grow financially, I think.

To see the full financial figures, type in snooker.org for the best snooker website, then on the home page look for rankings and all the snooker rankings and financial figures for every snooker player on the tour are there in full.  The money and ranking adjusts after each event on a one year rolling basis.

The big problem though that you see from snooker is how many really old players there are on the tour and how few youngsters are coming through. Virtually every top 16 player is over the age of 30 and a great many are in the early 30's or 40's and that is because of the system that they have set up means that lesser players do not easily get relegated.

Snooker is the second most popular spectator sport in China too, so again there should be more money coming in to the sport from there, and although the majority of the good under 30's players in snooker are Chinese, for a country that regularly gets TV audiences of over 100 million for snooker events, it still feels as if the sport should do much better.

Others have made the point that the tennis proposals are at an early stage and I think they are right to say that, but I still can see obvious pitfalls in suggestions of some kind of league system and it wouldn't surprise me if it does happen.

-- Edited by Andy Parker on Friday 15th of March 2024 11:12:09 PM

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 Im not sure snooker is a good comparison though, it is not really a worldwide sport and is only played in UK and China to any extent. Agreed, the commercialisation of it is poor, but it doesnt compare well, for me, with tennis.

And tennis now has major financial worries (see WTA) and I am not sure competes well at all for player remuneration. Compared to golf for example:

2023 - 139 golfers won $1m or more on the US PGA Tour; I dont know tennis was, to be honest, but it was way less - less than 40? This is men alone, add on women and it is starker; 2024, 46 golfers have already won $1m in the first part of the season, 5 have done so in tennis. I realise seasons dont align properly, but the point is made. A run of the mill US PGA TOur event pays $10m or so a week, as prizemoney. A mens run of the mill 250 event is around $800k prizemoney (yes, fields are 32 versus 128 or so, but even quadrupling it or comparing per player shows golf is way more per player).

And we all know that for players below about 150 in the world, tennis players struggle enormously, certainly on the ITF tours.

Golf has its own problems but this whole debate about the new proposed structures for tennis are about money and currently tennis isnt doing it for its stakeholders from a money perspective. 

As said, I dont want the Saudis running tennis, totally against their agenda and involvement.

 

But I like the idea of an elite circuit of 14 top events, whether it be run by the ATP or Slams, with those events being the ones that lead to a year end joint finals and a real narrative around those finals - the ATP and WTA do a poor job at promoting those events and making them a season long "story". They should be branded as the World Championships of tennis, IMO and sold as such, maybe expand the draw to a 16 player knockout event or 12 player event, I dont know, but a different story would be powerful. And held in a city that makes sense globally; Turin and Cancun dont do that. London, New York, they do. 

But , yes, there needs to be a progression from the lower tiers through and a ranking system for entry's behind the "race" or "LEague" or whatever it is branded as (mark my words it will become the Champions League or Champions Race in due course!), so totally agree with the call for promoting progression and new names          

However the tours evolve - and I am really hoping for a system that includes a pathway for the up and coming- I would like to be able have more network options to watch than via Sky.

IMO there is a need to ensure that as many fans as possible can enjoy the sport - I along with many others on the board havent signed up to Sky 

There is a thread in this section called Links to Internet streams. It's a sticky thread, so at the to of the list. It does need updating though as streams do come and go.

I'll go and add the site that someone posted recently - I used it for Charleston

-- Edited by the addict on Sunday 17th of March 2024 05:28:56 PM