During the last week, it was Félix Auger-Aliassime‘s turn to denounce the length and heaviness of the schedule imposed on players by ATP leaders.
Knocked out. in 2023 by a series of injuries resulting from an obvious overload of work, the Quebec tennis player explained to The Presse his decision to skip the Davis Cup final at the end of November.
Regardless of the sport, athletes need time to return to a normal rhythm of life, recharge their batteries, then start a new cycle of physical preparation before starting the following season. However, tennis players have become a bit like hamsters who constantly run inside a wheel and who never see the end or the beginning of their journey.
How much time do we have between the end of the season and the start of next year? It starts already at the end of December with the United Cup, which gives ATP points, which begins on December 27. And the Davis Cup final is on November 24. So it’s just three weeks. To give an explanation to the general public, I think everyone understands that [ça n’a aucun bon sens]
explained FAA.
The Quebecer’s comments echoed a theme addressed by several other players on the ATP circuit this season, including the young and formidable Carlos Alcaraz.
In a sense, they (ATP) are killing us. Right now, there are several players who are injured due to the tough schedule and other factors. But at a certain point, there are players who will have to skip tournaments to take care of their body, their family and other aspects of their life outside of tennis.
lamented the Spaniard last September.
When we take a close look at the world of sport as a whole, however, we see that tennis players are not the only ones paying the price in the frantic race for income generated by their talent.
In recent days, FIA President Mohammed Ben Sulayem has said that the workload imposed by the F1 calendar has reached its limits. Additionally, if the company that owns the World Championship, Liberty Media, were to add a 25e Grand Prix on its calendar, the FIA would no longer be able to supervise it with a single team of employees.
The F1 World Championship previously consisted of 17, 18 or 19 events per season. Since Liberty Media acquired it in 2017, the number of Grand Prix has increased to 24, not counting the events sprints
which have been added to F1 weekends in some countries.
Between 2017 and 2023, revenues generated by F1 increased from $1.7 billion to $3.2 billion.
Instead of concluding in early October as was once the case, seasons now conclude in early December, just before the holiday season. The teams must then complete the assembly of the new single-seaters and test them at speed before being able to restart a new season at the beginning of the following March.
I covered F1 in the early 2000s when the calendar was more convivial
and I often spent more than 100 days a year abroad. Already, the people who worked there seemed to me to be making enormous sacrifices. The fact that we have gone to 24 Grands Prix simply seems amazing to me.
Let’s be sensitive and logical. Could the pilots take the load of a 25e Grand Prix mentally and physically? I want to know and I’m going to ask them. And what about the team employees (mechanics, engineers and others)?
demande I am Sulayem.
In recent weeks, NFL commissioner Roger Goodell has also declared that it would be possible to see the teams in his league play 16 international games per year after the adoption of an 18-game schedule.
What is incredible about this story is that the NFL schedule was increased from 16 to 17 games in 2020 during the tumultuous negotiations of this collective agreement.
Additionally, two additional teams were added to the playoff bracket. This means that each season, 14 teams are guaranteed to play at least 18 games per season.
If we add an 18th game to the schedule as Goodell wishes, this will mean that 14 teams will now be guaranteed to play at least 19 games each year.
We are talking here about an extremely violent sport where, with a season of 16 games, careers last on average only 3.3 seasons, a sport which generates hundreds of retirees struggling with serious degenerative brain diseases.
Moreover, the NFL Players Association has already brandished a study predicting that the addition of a 17e match would reduce the average career length to 2.8 seasons. However, barely four years after making this significant gain at the expense of the players, the owners of the NFL are aiming to obtain the holding of an 18e match.
The $20.5 billion in revenue the NFL generates, it seems, is still not enough. In the eyes of owners, hamsters should therefore run a little more inside their wheel.
In the MLB, teams already play 162 games per season and it would be ridiculous to add more. However, this does not prevent owners from negotiating, from one collective agreement to another, the addition of new teams in the playoffs.
Since the negotiation of this employment contract (in 2022), the MLB series pit 12 teams instead of 10, and the play-off matches involve teams holding a fourth ace card (wild card) gave way to series two of three.
Since the mid-2000s, the MLB has also appropriated the international aspect of its sport by setting up the World Baseball Classic.
This tournament, in which MLB players participate every four years during the training camp period, is starting to generate interesting revenue.
The NHL is no exception to the rule.
League officials are already in discussions with the Players’ Association to increase the number of games played in the season from 82 to 84. We thus claim to want increase regional rivalries
which is laughable.
The treat offered to players, a reduction in the number of matches on the preparatory schedules, is just as laughable.
The best players from the 32 NHL teams are not required to participate in all preseason games. However, they will obviously have to take part in the two additional matches that we hope to add to the schedule, in addition to having to participate in preparatory matches before the season starts.
Like the owners of the MLB, the owners of the NHL (and the leaders of the NHL Players’ Association) also intend to generate new revenue by creating their own international competition: the Cup of hockey world. It is obviously the best players in the NHL who will play these games.
With the Russians excluded from any international competition due to the war in Ukraine, the NHL will keep the cash register ringing this winter by presenting a four-nation tournament between Sweden, Finland, the United States and Canada.
At the end of the day, it’s extremely easy to constantly squeeze the lemon by adding races, tournaments or matches to the calendar, but few leaders seem to care what that means for those who have to compete in them.
