Tim Henman: 'Players are just interested in what they can earn'
Tim Henman believes that tennis is becoming too much of a business. In an interview to The Telegraph, the former British player said: "I think it’s becoming more and more disjointed. There’s a lot of elements that are pulling in different directions. The optics from outside are not good.”
"Players have a very short window of opportunity and they’re just interested in what they can earn. It was the same when I sat on the player council in the 1990s – it was often acrimonious. But you also need to step back and say, ‘What do the next 10 years look like? How do we build revenues and TV audiences?’ The investment going into Wimbledon is huge. We’re moving into the golf course and the second roof is opening this year. They’re comparing tennis to baseball and basketball. Players in those environments give up their sponsorship and their clothing rights and then they’re employed by a club, so is that a relevant comparison? The players talk about supplying a great product, but we might come back and ask, ‘Why haven’t you got good endorsement deals? Why haven’t you got good patch deals?’”
"There are another 44 weeks of the season out there, and tennis needs to be less reliant on the slams. For the women, the percentage of prize money is something like 65 or 70 per cent from eight weeks. Whereas you hear golfers saying they would play the majors for nothing because they are so well paid for the rest of the year.”
from Tennis World USA https://ift.tt/2YlTl6f
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