Are Tennis Players Underpaid?
During the summer, Sports Illustrated came out with its list of the Top 50 highest earning athletes in the U.S. and the Top 20 internationally. One tennis player, Andre Agassi, made the Top 50 U.S. list in 13th place. Two players, Swiss star, Roger Federer, and Russian, Maria Sharapova, made the Top 20 international list in 7th and 4th places respectively. Agassi earned almost $25 million of which $23 million was from his myriad endorsements. Sharapova also banked $25 million last year while Federer earned $22 million. In contrast to many of the top team sport athletes on the list, the tennis players garnered most of their earnings from off-court endorsements. Tennis players’ on-court “salaries” are not guaranteed like most team sport athletes and so they need to not only play regularly, but also win regularly to earn their prize money. As a result, they can maintain their rankings and popularity which leads to their off-court endorsements. Obviously, prize money is a function of the tournament/tour sponsorship money tennis can attract in the marketplace, but do tennis players deserve more prize money as the top athletes in their sport worldwide? There was a lot of talk at Wimbledon regarding equal prize money for men and women, but what about paying tennis pros as much as other top athletes?
Related post: Show Me the Money!
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Paying women equal prize money is ludicrous because the quality of their playing is MUCH lower than that of the men (dink, dink for two out of three sets, compared to BANG, BANG, BANG, BANG for three out of five sets). It's not the same game at all.
Players should not have to rely on endorsements to get more money, but it's probably the necessary result of economics (each player is an independent contractor). Their low pay is the result of terrible promotion through the years. Tennis is far superior to golf in all ways (playing AND spectating), yet golf has been promoted far beyond its intrinsic appeal, while tennis has remained unpromoted and unknown through the years, except during the four major tournaments (even then, it's broadcast on backwater TV channels). Half the stadium seats are empty except for a few players who attract the most interest. Without large amounts of cash
floating about, prize money can't be high.
Tennis and tennis players deserve a whole lot more than they're getting. (although that grunting Russian woman who "earns" 25 million dollars just because she has nice legs is a notable exception to my statement).
Posted by: Charlie S | January 16, 2008 06:40 PM