Tennis Grand Slams are attempting to partner with a collection of the sport’s other, better-known tournaments in what could become the most revolutionary transformation of the game since the 1990s.
Its goal, according to five people who have been involved and informed about those discussions, is to form a partnership with at least the 10 major tournaments and its own events (Wimbledon, the US Open, the French Open and the Australian Open ). to create a premium circuit that resembles a tennis version of Formula 1.
The move comes as the sport’s most powerful entities, executives and top players have come to accept that tennis in its current form is not working as well as it should. Among his criticisms: it is confusing for fans to follow; of hundreds of millions of dollars that could be earned remain on the table; Its almost endless schedule overloads the best players, whose careers are cut short by injuries and mental fatigue.
Those factors, officials fear, have left tennis prone to the kind of aggressive disruption that has plagued golf over the past two seasons, when the Saudi-backed company LIV Golf separated top players from the established PGA Tour and drove to a costly legal battle that forced a merger whose details are still being worked out. Avoiding a similar turn of events has become a priority for the seven governing bodies that oversee tennis and b.Bringing together the sport’s most valuable and well-known properties to create a collection of elite events and a streamlined season is widely considered the best defense.
Coco Gauff celebrates her victory at the 2023 US Open. On a new tour, she could choose to play less (Liu Jie/Xinhua via Getty Images)
“We all know that premium drives business,” Steve Simon, executive director of the Women’s Tennis Association (WTA) tour, said in an interview Tuesday.
For a week in Turin, Italy, earlier this month, top tennis officials eagerly awaited the proposal from the sport’s largest and most powerful entities after roughly six months of debate and discussion. The organizations that operate the four Grand Slam tournaments have come together with unusual unity.
Several of the The officials interviewed for this article asked not to be identified to avoid jeopardizing their professional relationships.
In the end, officials from the other governing bodies who were in Turin, site of the ATP Tour (Association of Tennis Professionals) men’s final, left without receiving the long-awaited proposal. Grand Slams executives, who declined to comment publicly for this article or did not respond to messages seeking comment, told officials on the men’s and women’s tours that they needed more time to finalize their proposal. The goal is to have a plan ready to present when the sport gathers in Australia in January for the Australian Open.
In A sign of how serious the Slams are about forcing changes is that they have yet to sign the next three-year agreement with the tours that codify the ranking point awarding system. That move signals their view that a significant transformation is coming, so signing a multi-year deal based on the current schedule doesn’t make sense, even if it means starting the 2024 season without a deal.
Executives involved in the discussions have described them as fluid and largely positive. All said there was a significant chance they would fall apart, or that the premium tour could be expanded to include more than just the Grand Slams, top-level events and a few others deemed worthy. In recent years, tennis executives have worked with major consulting and investment firms that presented proposals similar to the one now being considered, only to fail to move tennis beyond its status quo.
A more focused premium tour over which the Grand Slams had partial control could also protect them against significant changes to the calendar leading up to their events. In recent months, this has become a major concern for Craig Tiley, CEO of Tennis Australia, as the men’s and women’s tours considered adding a top-level event in Saudi Arabia during the first week of the season, to starting January 2025.
A high-profile event in January in Saudi Arabia would likely doom the series of tournaments in Australia and New Zealand that, along with the Australian Open, constitute the first tour of the year. It could also mean the end of the United Cup, a mixed team event that Tennis Australia launched last year.
The plan for a premium circuit formulated at the Slams aligns, at least theoretically, with one of the main objectives of Andrea Gaudenzi, the executive director of the ATP Tour.
Gaudenzi has always wanted to close the gaps in prestige, importance and financial power between the Grand Slams and the most important events on the men’s and women’s circuits. The men’s circuit often refers to these events as the “Masters” events and the women’s circuit as “the 1,000”, because of the number of ranking points the women receive.
Medvedev defeats Sinner in this year’s Miami final (Al Bello/Getty Images)
Those tournaments include mixed events in Indian Wells, Miami, Madrid, Rome, Toronto/Montreal and near Cincinnati. More than half of the major events have already been extended from one week to 12 days, compared to two weeks for the Grand Slams.
“We want to grow our premium product and that is a fact we have talked a lot about,” Gaudenzi said during a meeting with a small group of journalists in Turin two weeks ago. “For the sport, closing the gap between the Masters and the Slams is good for everyone. Now there is a very big gap.”
While Gaudenzi and the Slams may share a vision of what is best for tennis, it is unclear what role he, his WTA Tour counterpart Simon, or the tours themselves would have in the future. They may be left in charge of overseeing a collection of small and medium-sized tournaments, known as 500s and 250s. Under one scenario, developing players could largely occupy the fields at those events, while players ranked among the Top 100, who could win a “tour card” valid for the season and a specific guaranteed salary, would be concentrated on the high-level circuit but can still participate in smaller events if they wish.
An important question, Simon said, is: “How do you create a calendar that’s easier to follow?”
Players who have begun to learn the details of the plan the Slams are trying to formulate have so far been generally supportive of the concept, especially those involved with the Professional Tennis Players Association, the players’ organization that Novak Djokovic helped launch ago. three years.
Tennis players compete in the longest season in professional sports. Among his highest priorities is earning more money and having to compete less, so he can rest and maintain his health. A premium tour could achieve both goals and produce a more streamlined version of the sport than exists now.
Iga Swiatek has dominated the French Open (Julien De Rosa/AFP via Getty Images)
If the top 100 players were to focus primarily on the Slams and about a dozen high-level tournaments, that would represent about 32 weeks of competition and leave them enough time to play some smaller events, where they could receive lucrative appearance fees. , while maintaining sufficient time for rest and an appropriate off-season.
Sports executives say revenue would likely increase if the Slams and major tournaments could sell their television and sponsorship rights more collectively, rather than shrinking the market by competing with each other, although the partnership structure has not been finalized. It may not include all commercial rights to all tournaments, officials said.
The changes would likely take at least a year or two to begin and longer to take full effect as executives work to undo or renegotiate long-term sponsorship and media deals and figure out how to divide revenue among high-profile tours. and the other tournaments.
(Top photo: Adrian Dennis/AFP via Getty Images)
