What tennis does wrong
Tennis is one of the most popular sports in the world. She has an estimated one billion fans worldwide. But there is still a lot that could be improved.
by Victoria Moser
last edit:
Nov 13, 2022, 12:41 pm
The tennis tour is always trying to keep up with the times and introduce new regulations. Concrete examples of recent times would be the introduction of digital "line judges", the discussion of mental health in sport and the permission of on-court coaching. Even in the past, the sport set an example with the same prize money at the Grand Slam tournaments. And yet there are still many things that could be done better...
women tour
Same prize money at the Grand Slam tournaments? Check! Equal prize money in WTA Tour 250/500/1000 events? Mmh... Transmission of the games outside of the Grand Slams on TV? Hardly. Media attention? Upgradable! The WTA players are still neglected in many ways. The men's sport gets more attention, attracts more spectators and brings in more money. Sure, the men play faster, but that doesn't necessarily mean that it sometimes seems almost impossible to follow female tennis matches.
Transfer of the matches
Speaking of tennis match availability and tracking; Digitization enables us to access content from anywhere at any time. It doesn't matter whether it's on the train, in a café or at home on the couch - from all these places you can root for your favorite players, right? Well, if you have enough financial means, definitely. The competition between streaming providers is now making it difficult for us to watch tennis. Apart from Grand Slams and the occasional big tournament, almost nothing is shown on free TV. Even for Wimbledon you need a sky subscription. In order to be able to see the tournaments of the entire calendar, you either buy a relatively expensive subscription or organize new streaming platform subscriptions for new tournaments.
Do you want to get more people interested in tennis? Then tennis should become even more equal, media-friendly and accessible!