Simon Higson

Is tennis leaving billions of dollars on the table? The professional game currently generates around $4BN in revenue. Andrea Gaudenzi, Chair of the ATP, has the ambition to take that to $10BN. And the problem isn’t demand. Tennis has more than a billion fans, some of the biggest athletes in sport and broadcasters including Netflix, Apple and Amazon interested in the product. The challenge is getting tennis to sell itself as one. Four Grand Slams. The ATP. The WTA. World Tennis. Seven major stakeholders, each with their own objectives, governance and commercial interests... so does the sport needs greater alignment. One governance structure capable of shaping the product. One commercial entity able to package media, data and other central rights. And a clearer proposition for fans trying to understand where, when and how to follow the biggest players. Since becoming ATP Chair in 2020, he has already changed how the men’s tour operates. Players now receive profit sharing from tournaments. Challenger prize money has tripled. And by 2028, the ATP is targeting around $350M in total player compensation, up from roughly $190M when Andrea arrived. But the bigger opportunity sits beyond the @atptour. The difficult part is convincing successful organisations to give up some control today in return for a bigger collective opportunity tomorrow. And Andrea is clear that tennis should make a change while the sport is strong, not wait until it is forced to. A fascinating insight into the politics, economics and governance behind one of the biggest sports in the world, and why its greatest opportunity may simply be getting everyone around the same table. All on Business of Sport 🔥 (links below)