ATP boss Andrea Gaudenzi: No comparisons with the NBA, please!
Andrea Gaudenzi took stock of his first 14 months as head of the ATP in an interview. And a similar bubble system as in the US NBA is excluded.
by tennisnet.com
last edit:
Mar 13, 2021, 08:18 am
The enthronement of Andrea Gaudenzi as the new boss of the ATP did not go silently at the end of 2019. Some prominent players had voted for Chris Kermode to remain at the head of the players' association. And in addition to the corona pandemic, which hit tennis as well as all other branches of the entertainment industry, Gaudenzi also had to deal with the Professional Tennis Players Association founded by Novak Djokovic and Vasek Pospisil from the US Open. An association that wants to give players more power within the ATP.
In an interview with ATPTour.com, ex-professional Gaudenzi primarily refers to his successes. Especially with regard to the amount of prize money that will be paid out despite the pandemic. "This season we are on the way to reaching 77 percent of the prize money level of 2019," explains Gaudenzi. "And that number will continue to grow when hopefully the audience numbers go up in the second half of the season."
Gaudenzi - "The NBA has invested $ 180 million"
In addition, the ATP has invested 14 million US dollars in 2021 alone to keep the ATP Challenger Tour going. “We are proud to have held 32 Challenger events in the first quarter alone.” In 2019 there were 40 in the same period, but at a time when nobody was thinking of a global pandemic. “Overall, the players who are classified between positions 51 and 250 have for the most part earned as much or more since the tour returned in August 2020 to February 2021 than in the same period of 2019/2020.
Andrea Gaudenzi also knows that the ATP Tour continues to have problems. Considerations that the players would pursue their profession in a bubble similar to that of the National Basketball Association for several weeks, even months, shielded from the public, gives Gaudenzi a refusal.
“The NBA has reportedly invested $ 180 million in building and operating the Bubble in Orlando. That's a huge amount of money justified by the fact that the NBA would otherwise have lost $ 1.5 billion in TV revenue and sponsorship money if the season hadn't been played out. The economic situation is different in tennis. Each tournament has regional sponsors. So if you change the tournament venue, you not only lose the audience income, but also the sponsorship money. And then you also have to renegotiate the broadcasting rights because you may be in a different time zone. "