[OC] At just 17.5%, tennis players receive the smallest share of total revenue of the sport, compared to all other major sports.

Posted by frayedreality

39 comments

  2. I guess cycling isn’t considered “major” here, because holy shit, those guys get a pittance comparatively speaking

  3. No union/players are all out for themselves in tennis (and golf?).

  4. I’d be interested to see a per capita slide for the same sports.

  7. Team sports vs individual sports.

    In Team sports, teams pay more and more to get the best players.

    In tennis, the French open (for instance) has no incentive to pay the players more has all the best players already show up.

  8. is this comparing salary of all players as a percentage of revenue? if so doesn’t it make sense that sports that have matches between few ppl needs to spend less on players vs a sport that needs 2 teams to put on a match?

  9. Interesting comparison though. There are far fewer players relatively, right?

    With the NFL for example, at any moment, 22 players are on the field, and each team has a roster of 53 players.

    So when two teams get together… that’s 106 athletes who need to be paid. It makes total sense that as a percentage of the money coming in, more players would mean more of the money has to go to them.

    In a tennis match, it’s 2 players. There are no subs, there’s no bench, there’s no other position. It’s 2 people.

  10. You should see professional mountain biking, even successful racers can partly self fund.

  11. If you list “tennis,” a unisex sport, then you should list other women’s and unisex sports for reference. UFC, LPGA, WNBA to name a few.

  12. Interesting. I know with MLB that this came up a lot during the most recent CBA negotiations because while MLB contracts have grown (& can be among the largest in American sports) the share of revenue that players receive overall had fallen over the past ~20 years.

    It is a situation where the top earners have continued to do better over time but the non-top earners have seen fewer opportunities than previously across the board. The ‘middle tier’ largely because teams are far less inclined to commit to longer free agent deals than they have been in the past (again unless the player is a ‘star’). The ‘lower tier’ because teams see those players as increasingly expendable in the first place. The number of players used in any given season has been steadily increasing as teams swap pitchers in & out of rosters constantly. So more ‘fringe’ guys get to MLB but are far less likely to have a career that is more than a cup of coffee.

    The league over this time period put measures in place to democratize revenue in order to protect teams that aren’t as lucrative. But those types of protections largely haven’t been extended to the players.

  13. The consequence of several market dynamics:

    Team vs solo sports
    Unified leagues vs world tours
    Unions (big 4) vs non union
    Direct competition (european football) vs protected status (grand slams)
    Sharing of wealth (a substitute earns millions in BPL and the NBA) vs huge discrepeancy at the top (ie : tennis in the TOP100, perhaps even TOP50)

  16. Does “Men’s Golf” include LIV? Because I think LIV operates at a loss so it’s possible for those golfers it’s more than 100% of the share

  17. I don’t know about soccer (football). Does the Premier League have the highest salaries?

  18. Important information is missing in order to assess these figures correctly.

    Tennis is probably one of the smallest sports in this list. The costs represent a larger proportion of revenue.

  19. Gotta say, not including La Liga, Ligue 1 or Serie A makes this graph kinda pointless, as you could add or subtract random soccer leagues and have totally different numbers in the end…

  20. Interesting how they left out women sport. Not very inclusive.

  22. Fck me golf must generate a lot of money cause those players as far as I’m aware get paid pretty good even those that don’t make the cut.. Not that I’m saying they shouldn’t be paid more just surprised at the low %

  23. If this is the past year, do you reckon the Bundesliga got an increase due to Harry Kane joining Bayern Munich? Maybe also Leverkusen’s invincible season?

  24. Now do boxing… That’s a sport that produces rather fat-tailed results.

  25. Goofy comparison. “Tennis” and “Golf” aren’t leagues. You’re comparing a sport with over 30,000 professionals to top-tier leagues composed of the top 1500 or fewer professional players of their respective sports.

  27. Comparing tennis and golf to team sports is pretty ugly data. This is the type of data that needs explaining and reasoning to make any sense. I’m sure there’s a very good reason tennis is so low. 

  29. While the chart may be somewhat questionable, it seems to be a fact that tennis players can’t earn that much. It is said that only the top 100 players can make a living from tennis.

  31. Does this just compare men’s tennis? Or both? Because female athletes get paid less in almost every sport, and most of the other leagues listed are, de jure or de facto, men’s leagues. I don’t think that explains all of it, but it could explain a big chunk.

  32. Source: Professional Tennis Players Association (PTPA). Tools: Datawrapper / Excel

    Tennis players take home just 17.5% of the sport’s total revenue, the lowest share across most major sports. Several reasons contribute to this. Firstly, it’s a broken system. Unlike the NFL or the NBA, tennis lacks a unified governing body. The Grand Slams govern themselves, the ITF governs the Olympics and the Davis Cup, and the ATP manages other men’s tournaments. Tournaments are left to fend for themselves, without the financial support of a centralized body.

    Professional players in other sports like basketball, football, and baseball are considered employees; this guarantees them certain rights like healthcare insurance, pension, among others. Tennis players, however, are considered independent contractors, not employees. This means no healthcare, no pension, and no labor protections. While players can decide their own schedules, they must also bear the financial burden of travel, housing, healthcare, and training.

    Lastly, leagues like the NBA and the NFL also negotiate Collective Bargaining Agreements (CBAs) through player unions. These agreements help ensure fair compensation for the players. There’s no CBA in tennis. All of this results in an economic model that can only support tennis’s top stars, while the majority of lower-ranked players struggle.

  33. Still way better than something like badminton or track and field.

  34. Individual sports allow for a lot more visibility of the athlete which translates to more sponsorship opportunities, which usually compensates for the lower salary.

  35. so 1 tennis player should take the same amount 18 players take to play football? with tennis player + staff circa 10 people? how much staff have a football team? 100-150 per team?

  36. Seems like the two lowest are individual sports, compared to all the others being team sports.

    So yea, if you have to pay teams of 20-30 people, compared to ‘teams’ of 1… the solo players get less of the overall pie. Is this supposed to be some sort of revelation?

  37. Tennis and golf are traveling sports with a new venue every week so I imagine overhead is on the high side

  38. Wimbledon has 126 spots.

    The premier league has 500 (20 teams x 25 man squads) + under 21’s (another 400/500).

  39. Getting paid to play vs winning prize money. How can that be even compared!?! LOL

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