Bills, Wealth and Poverty and Business: The Cruel Tennis Workplace | Literature City

On October 27, 2024, Zheng Qinwen won the WTA500 Tokyo Championship. Careful netizens observed an interesting detail in the camera: During the competition, Zheng Qinwen only hadwhite wristbandbut when awarding the award, she had an extra one on her handrolex watch。

It’s not a secret that Rolex is Zheng Qinwen’s sponsor, but many people think this “implantation” is a bit deliberate. After all, no player will really wear a heavy watch when playing. I deliberately went to put on my watch during the break, which gave me a feeling of being “forced to go into business”.

Zheng Qinwen at the WTA500 Tokyo Station Awards Ceremony, 2024

But regardless of whether the business is “forced”, Zheng Qinwen has long been out of the state of “one person is full and the whole family is not hungry”. The team around her has formed a small commercial company, with the support of sponsors and competition bonuses The same is the source that Zheng Qinwen uses to pay various bills.

And looking around, most of the professional players active in the world of tennis today improve their skills and physical and mental quality by forming professional teams. They use event bonuses and advertising sponsorships to pay for transportation, venues, catering and team wages, and deduct After paying taxes, you still have to keep development funds to resist risks, and finally your own net profit.

Therefore, for a professional player, playing basketball is like starting a business, with the risk of losing money. Zheng Qinwen flies all over the world to participate in various competitions, not only to be a good Queen Wen, but also to be a good Boss Zheng, earn bonuses and sponsorships, and provide funds for the entire team.

As the world ranking rises, Zheng Qinwen becomes more and more familiar with the position of “boss”. For example, in the quarterfinals of the US Open in September 2024, Zheng Qinwen had just won the Olympic women’s singles championship and was gaining momentum, but still lost to Sabalenka 0:2.

After the game, Zheng Qinwen criticized the sparring coach mercilessly, believing that his frequent mistakes led to low training efficiency, and he was dissatisfied with the coach’s “harmony” style mediation. After that, she fired the Spanish sparring partner without hesitation and showed her side as Boss Zheng to the outside world.

On November 10, 2024, Zheng Qinwen won the runner-up in the WTA year-end finals and received a tournament bonus of 16.54 million yuan (US$2.3 million). His personal annual bonus was also close to 40 million yuan. With various sponsorships, Zheng Qinwen and Her small commercial company has surpassed many A-share listed companies in terms of revenue.

Most of the star players like Zheng Qinwen also play the role of athletes and CEOs at the same time – they not only have to train hard to improve their skills, but also handle the team’s personnel, finance and business planning, taking into account both aspects. Only in this way can we continue to “do business” in tennis, a sport with the most serious “rich-poor” divide in the world.

So, what kind of business is professional tennis?

01. The arena of wealth

Tennis, an aristocratic sport that began in monasteries in the 14th century, entered the Open Era in 1968 and eliminated restrictions on participation status. Since then, its professionalism and globalization have rapidly increased, gradually forming today’s complex and complete event system.

Today, any citizen over the age of 14 can register as a professional tennis player on the ITF (International Tennis Federation), and then earn points and gold coins through various tournaments, while the world rankings are refreshed every week. For once, fair and open.

The ITF, founded in 1924, is the highest authority in the global tennis community. It is responsible for formulating global tennis rules and supervising the organization of events. The most famous ones are the Australian Open, French Open, Wimbledon and the US Open. Additionally, it manages men’sdavis cupandWomen’s Confederations Cup(Billie Jean King Cup), which represent the highest honors in the men’s and women’s team competitions respectively.

In addition to the ITF, there are two major tennis authorities, namely the ATP (Professional Tennis Association), which manages men’s tennis events, and the WTP (Women’s Professional Tennis Association), which manages women’s tennis events.

Among them, ATP was established in 1972. The original intention of this organization was to safeguard players’ rights and organize competitions. However, with the rise in the commercial value of women’s tennis and the more than twice the difference in prize money between male and female players, the legendary women’s tennis star Billie Jean King launched and established the WTA in 1973, aiming to Fight for a fairer distribution of bonuses for female players.

Since then, the WTA and ATP have been in charge of men’s and women’s professional tennis events, and organize multiple levels of tours every year. The higher the points, the richer the prizes, and the higher the entry threshold.

Among all tennis competitions, the four Grand Slams are regarded as the highest honors by all tennis players, with top points and bonuses. Six weeks before the start of each of these four tournaments, players ranked among the top 100-120 in the WTA and ATP world will be eligible to enter the main draw; players ranked lower will have to compete in as many tour events as possible. It is possible to earn more points and strive to reach the threshold to enter the four Grand Slam qualifying tournaments before the next qualification statistics come.

Top players who accumulate enough points can also participate in the ATP and WTA year-end finals. Taking the WTA 2024 Finals that Zheng Qinwen just participated in as an example, a total of 8 singles players and 16 doubles players got the opportunity to participate in the finals, and together they shared a bonus of up to 15.25 million US dollars.

The four Grand Slams, plus the year-end finals of the ATP and WTA, make up the six tournaments with the highest prize money in tennis.

The six tournaments with the highest prize money in professional tennis

In addition, players with high enough points ranking throughout the year will also have an attractive year-end benefit:Receive year-end dividends from ATP and WTA.But the prerequisite is that you must participate in enough games and accumulate enough points.

Taking the ATP in 2023 as an example, the year-end dividend is as high as US$21.3 million. However, Djokovic, who won three Grand Slams and the year-end finals championship this year, is not eligible to participate in the dividend because he does not have enough points. The second-ranked Alcaraz received a bonus of US$4.44 million, which is only one step away from Djokovic in terms of total bonus.

Top 10 highest-paid men’s tennis players in 2023

These generous event prizes and dividends mainly come from event broadcast fees, tickets, sponsors and peripheral product sales. However, for professional tennis players, the money earned on the court is only the beginning of the journey to team funding and personal wealth. Off the court, the growth of wealth has no climax.

Since tennis is an individual sport, a player’s personality, appearance and even nationality can create popularity, which is conducive to creating a personal profile. It is not subject to the personal restrictions of group activities and can participate in commercial activities more flexibly. At the same time, tennis events are basically open year-round. Hugh, constantly creating new champions and new topics. All this means that compared to the Olympic champions who come out every four years, tennis players are obviously more valuable advertising carriers for cooperation.

Roger Federer is the ultimate example.

In the past 15 years, thanks to generous endorsements and sponsorships, Federer has been the only tennis player to be ranked among the top 10 highest-paid athletes in the world almost every year. Even after retiring in 2023, he will only have a game income of 100,000 US dollars, but he still has a commercial income of 95 million US dollars, becoming the ninth among the top ten most profitable athletes in the world.

It is worth mentioning that in Forbes’ 2023 global female athlete income list, 9 of the top 10 are tennis players, and the sponsorship fees they receive exceed the event prize money. Japanese tennis player Naomi Osaka took a break this year to give birth, but she still ranked fifth in the world in terms of income among female athletes with sponsorship fees of US$15 million.

Global female athlete earnings rankings in 2023

In the huge and mature commercial market, professional athletes who have personally experienced the soaring fame and fortune will start preparing for their own brands and invest in them early, so as to extend the more lasting commercial value of their personal IP.

Tennis player René Lacoste founded the eponymous brand LACOSTE in 1933 and became the godfather of cross-border fashion. In the late 1940s, tennis player Fred Perry’s eponymous brand was also launched, and it is still a highly sought-after British fashion brand. Maria Sharapova, the former world No. 1 tennis player known as the “Pink Skull”, founded her own high-end candy brand Sugarpova after winning the Grand Slam, which is sold in more than 30 countries.

Sharapova endorses her own brand Sugarpova, 2014

In addition, the Williams sisters, Nadal, and Djokovic have also established their own brands and made diversified investments. Zheng Qinwen has also registered her portrait, name and nicknames given to her by fans as trademarks in the past two years, including but not limited to “Queen Wen”, “Taomi Sister”, “Taomi Sister”, etc. The international classification covers convenience foods, Design research, edutainment, advertising sales and more.

However, the wealth stories in the tennis world are only exclusive to the top players in the spotlight. For professional tennis players more broadly, the business has an extremely cruel side.

02. Bills and rich and poor

Tennis has a high popularity rate and is easy to get started with, but if you want to turn your hobby into a career, it takes more than just swinging a racket.

For example, for a professional tennis player playing on tour, his basic expenses include: participation fees, equipment fees, practice venue rentals, hotel air tickets, team members’ wages, food, accommodation and transportation expenses, and these expenses will increase with income and ranking. rise and rise simultaneously.

Although tennis is nominally an individual event, the probability of a lone wolf winning alone is extremely low. The strength, dietary structure, psychological quality of the coach behind him, and even the way he handles injuries and fatigue are all crucial to the players’ performance on the field. Therefore, the tennis court is more like a team development game that burns money and swallows gold.

Therefore, an excellent professional tennis player is more like a businessman, able to divert profits between self-investment and tournament bonuses. Those athletes who are new to the tennis profession will quickly realize one thing: there are also classes in the world of tennis. and rich and poor.

A tennis player from a wealthy family can bring money to join the team and hire the top team to fly to play games around the world to earn points. Even if he loses, it is just one more thing to talk about. However, a talented player who is short of money cannot pay himself When you have to pay for a match ticket or even have to live in your car, you often don’t have enough money to hire helpers. Years of physical strain and psychological anxiety will inevitably affect your performance on the field.

Currently ranked 15th in the world, female tennis player Paula Badosa’s highest ranking was No. 2 in the world. In the interview, she recalled her embarrassment while playing on tour[2]：

Before I reached the top 100 in the world, I was struggling with my financial situation. I come from an ordinary family, and I understood very early that I shouldn’t let my family bear the burden for me, because tennis is really expensive and it’s not suitable for everyone. I have been facing my financial problems independently since I was 15 years old.

Many people only see the exponential returns leveraged by the high investment in professional tennis, but ignore that not everyone has the same initial capital.

Usually, only athletes who can stabilize their ranking in the top 100 in the world can make ends meet by earning bonuses from playing on the tour. Most of the time, low-level players encounter a vicious cycle of low income-low skills-low bonuses, and are eventually dragged into the quagmire of poverty and failure.

This situation is quite common, and one of the reasons is the huge gap in bonus income among tennis players. Taking the four Grand Slam tournaments as an example, in the main draw, the difference in prize money between the player who is eliminated in the first round and the player who wins the final is up to 45 times.

The disparity in prize money distribution among the four Grand Slams is astonishing

At the same time, even if they are the same champions, the prize money they can get is very different.

Taking WTA events at different levels as an example, the winner of the WTA250 Linz Championship only has a bonus of US$36,900; in the WTA500 Stuttgart Championship, the winner’s bonus is US$120,200; in the high-level WTA1000 Madrid Championship, the winner’s bonus is as high as US$1,226,500.[3]which is 33 times the WTA250 championship prize money.

Such a distribution ratio is rare in the entire sports world. For example, an ice hockey player ranked 300th may earn over a million dollars, but a tennis player ranked 139th, such as Chris O’Connell,Even though he won 82 games in a year, he still had to rely on boat cleaning work and part-time job as a Lululemon store clerk to maintain basic living expenses.[4]。

And even if they work hard to reach the top 100 in the world rankings and gain the qualification to participate in top events, according to VOX reports, about 80% of the players in the world’s top 1,000 (women and men are ranked separately) cannot pay by playing tour games. Travel expenses at top competitions[1]——The professional nature of tennis gives athletes freedom, but at these times, freedom also means there is no retreat.

Tennis media Perfect Tennis sorted out the average annual bonuses of the world’s top 1,000 male tennis players in 2021. The average annual bonus for the top 10 players is about US$6 million, and the top 31-40 players can earn more than US$1 million through competition. This number is half to US$545,000 for the top 91-100 players, and drops directly to US$139,000 for the top 201-300 players.

The more intuitive gap between the rich and the poor is: in 2021, Djokovic, ranked No. 1 in the world, earns $9,100,547, and Michal Mikula, ranked No. 1,000, earns $4,273. The former is 2,130 times the latter.[6]。

But is the plight of the bottom players really due to the champions taking away too much money?

If you look at the complex management organization of the tennis world, you will find a more systemic problem – there are many organizations and event organizers such as WTA, ATP, ITF, etc. in the tennis world. They all work independently and spend a lot of money on maintaining the organization and operation. Therefore, they are relatively There is much less that can be put into the prize pool.

At the U.S. Tennis Open, the player bonus pool accounts for approximately 14%-18% of the total revenue of the event; in comparison, nearly 50% of the NBA’s total revenue will be distributed to players, the National Football League, and the National Hockey League and Major League Baseball are both above 45%.

Prize distribution ratios for various professional sports events, VOX

Former Wimbledon men’s doubles champion Vasek Pospisil said this in an interview: “There is a lot of money in tennis, the pie is huge, but the piece we professional players get is very small.” This sentence It’s like directly piercing the window paper.

Perhaps due to pressure from players, the ATP announced in August 2023 that it would trial a “Baseline” policy starting in 2024, such as giving bonuses to players who are ranked in the top 250 each season but whose income is below a certain level. Offers a guaranteed bonus of US$75,000-300,000.

Is this “bottom line” high? For reference, there are approximately 700 players in the National Hockey League. The guaranteed minimum salary in 2019 is US$700,000. More than half of the players earn more than US$1 million per year. Coaching, transportation and medical care are all free. , players will be paid even if they are injured and absent.

So, even if tennis begins to make some changes, the gap between rich and poor players is still far greater than in other sports.In the foreseeable future, professional tennis will still be a cruel ashram.

03. Institutions and markets

In China, the professional path of tennis players is somewhat unique.

Before 2009, tennis players under the national team only had to concentrate on training and play wherever they wanted, with all expenses borne by the state. Most of the time, institutional cultivation is a kind of support.Of course, whoever pays has the final say, and it is inevitable that athletes have relatively limited autonomy.

Li Na once wrote in her autobiography “Playing Alone”[10]: In March 2008, her knee injury was very critical and she had to undergo surgery immediately. However, in order to prepare for the Beijing Olympics five months later, she had to obey the organization’s arrangements and return to China for conservative treatment.

At the same time, the Tennis Management Center, as a management unit, has a very limited budget. It only has more than 30 million disposable funds a year. It has to provide for the food and clothing of more than 10,000 registered players across the country, and it also has to take care of the team behind Li Na whose annual expenses exceed 5 million.[11]it is indeed stretched.

In 2009, with the promotion of Sun Jinfang, the director of the Network Management Center at the time, four players including Li Na and Zheng Jie were able to fly solo. Athletes began to enjoy the rights of independent coaching, independent bonuses and independent participation. They only need to invest 8% of commercial development income and 12% of the competition prize money will be turned over to the state, and the players will obey the arrangements of the Tennis Association during competitions.

Li Na later wrote in her biography[10]: “To put it a bit exaggeratedly, this is the ‘household guarantee’ in the history of Chinese tennis. In the past, eating ‘big pot rice’ could guide the growth of newcomers and ensure that young people get more training opportunities, but it is also helping mature players enter higher-level fields. “This system seems to be weak.”

It was this year’s “reform and opening up” in the tennis world that brought Chinese tennis players to the global professional stage.

From this, Li Na changed from a rebellious employee to a “private enterprise” boss who knew how to settle accounts. In 2011, Li Na’s tournament prize money was 3.7 million US dollars, which was more than double the total prize money of the previous 12 years. After winning the French Open, she received sponsorship from 7 more brands. In the 12 months after the French Open, her total income reached 18 million US dollars, approximately 126 million yuan[14]。

According to estimates by Forbes magazine, Li Na has endorsed as many as 18 companies, with a cumulative sponsorship income of more than 58 million U.S. dollars, a total competition bonus of 16.709 million U.S. dollars, and a cumulative income of more than 450 million yuan.

On January 25, 2014, Li Na received the Australian Open women’s singles championship trophy. Thousands of miles away in her hometown in Hubei, 11-year-old Zheng Qinwen was cheering for her with her friends from the Wuhan tennis team. Ten years later, at the age of 21, Zheng Qinwen became the first Chinese player to win an Olympic tennis gold medal.

Zheng Qinwen and Li Na, 2024

Although Zheng Qinwen has not yet won a Grand Slam championship, his prize money income from various competitions has ranked among the top in the world. After winning the runner-up place in the WTP year-end finals, Zheng Qinwen’s total prize money in 2024 exceeded US$5.5 million, equivalent to nearly 40 million RMB.

Does Zheng Qinwen need to pay money to the Internet Network Association like Li Na?

In 2022, when Zheng Qinwen’s team was strapped for funds, the Wuhan Table Tennis and Badminton Tennis Management Center signed the “Zheng Qinwen Training and Advancement Agreement” with her, providing certain funding within four years, while Zheng Qinwen registered with the China Tennis Association on behalf of the Wuhan Tennis Association. , the expenses for participating in competitions such as the Olympic Games and Asian Games are also borne by the China Tennis Association. As a “consideration”, Zheng Qinwen will pay 11% of the bonus to the China Internet Association membership fee[14]。

On the other hand, due to China’s huge consumer market, Zheng Qinwen’s off-field income has far exceeded his game income even though it has not been fully tapped.

From 2023, after Zheng Qinwen entered the top 20 in the global rankings, cooperation with big names such as Nike, Alipay, McDonald’s, Yili, and Rolex came one after another, helping Zheng Qinwen earn US$7.2 million that year (event income of US$1.7 million + off-site income of US$5.5 million) Her annual income ranks 15th on Forbes’ list of global female athletes’ highest income.[18]becoming the second Chinese tennis player to be on the list after Li Na.

Nike billboards on the streets during the Olympics, 2024

This year, she has been favored by brands such as Lancôme, Bawangchaji, and VIVO. VIVO has even become the third brand to be printed on jerseys after Nike and Alipay. The investment behind it must be tens of millions or even higher. Although there is no publicly available data on Zheng Qinwen’s total income in 2024, the industry estimates that this number may exceed 100 million yuan and will continue to rise in the future.

Over the past fifteen years, with Li Na starting the game and Zheng Qinwen taking over, this “professional tennis path with Chinese characteristics” that was born out of the system and integrated with the world has finally become a career path with traces and clear rules.

04. Ending

In the Chinese sports world, world champions like Zheng Qinwen who have strong commercial value in mature commercial projects have always been very rare.

For example, table tennis is the sport with the most champions in China, but its low commercial value has always been a problem for the Table Tennis Association. In basketball, there is no world-class player with the same influence after Yao Ming. As for football, with the national football team With the continued malaise and the collapse of the league in recent years, there will only be fewer and fewer sports stars to be produced in the future.

For strong Olympic sports such as diving, shooting and even swimming, it is difficult to support large-scale traffic through the World Championships and Asian Games during the quadrennial Olympic cycle. As for niche sports such as ice and snow, their mass participation is far lower than that of tennis. ——Gu Ailing, who became famous in this project, is largely a special case that cannot be copied.

Therefore, tennis has a unique advantage in China. It is naturally a fertile soil that can incubate high-value sports stars.

The temptation to become the next Zheng Qinwen is huge: because China’s top athletes are backed by a huge consumer market, their income is usually much higher than that of overseas athletes of the same level. Of course, the premise of all this is to adapt to the rules of the local market:You must have upright views, be tight-lipped, and avoid chaos in your private life. You must stay away from all social and current political topics. Brand endorsements must be cut off at the speed of light. When major events or festivals come, you must log on to Weibo in a timely manner to repost your comments.

The industry is prosperous, the rules are transparent, and the returns are generous. Such a track is inherently attractive to Chinese parents who love playing with their children. Therefore, in the future, there will definitely be more and more young tennis players in China trying to copy Li Na and The trajectory of Zheng Qinwen.

However, like most competitive sports, hard work is worthless in the face of talent, and talent is only the first threshold to meet the gods on the mountaintop. Countless people would like to be Zheng Qinwen, but only very few people can get close to her, let alone become her.

Champions win everything, while most people who try their best will only be the denominator of flowers and applause. Charm and cruelty coexist. This is the most touching and coldest reality in the tennis world.

The full text is complete, thank you for your patience in reading.

References

[1]Why most tennis platers struggle to make a living？VOX

[2]Does professional tennis have to make money off the court? Sports Economic Observation

[3]What Is The Difference Between WTA 250 500 And 1000？Tennis
Time

[4]A Few Tennis Pros Make a Fortune. Most Barely Scrape By，New
York Times

[5]How Serena Williams Makes Money, WSJ

[6]How Much Do Tennis Players Make？PerfectTennis

[7]The World’s Highest-Paid Tennis Players 2024，Forbes

[8]ATP Unveils ‘Baseline’, A Pioneering Financial Security
Programme For Players，ATP TOUR NEWS

[9]How tennis inequality lets women down, NYT

[10]Play alone, Li Na

[11]Reformist Sun Jinfang, The Paper

[12]Li Na ranks among world’s most dazzling, richest tennis players, Forbes

[13]Li Na’s total career income exceeds 450 million yuan, The Paper

[14]Zheng Qinwen, champion! champion! champion! Wuhan Radio and Television Station

[15]WTA official website data

[16]”Top match” Zheng Qinwen’s gold medal background, China Business News