Last week ATP announced prize money increases

The ATP has announced significant increases over the next four years that will see overall player compensation on the ATP World Tour reach US$135 million by 2018.
The biggest increases in player compensation come at the ATP World Tour Masters 1000 category, with tournaments providing annual increases of 11%, and with the ATP contributing a further 3% increase, resulting in a 14% annual increase in that category through to 2018. Player compensation at the ATP World Tour 250s is set to increase at an average of 3.5% per year during the same period.

Reactions were not exactly enthusiastic

because we are all happy if top players will gain more and more but the prize money problem of modern tennis was surely not that top 50 players were not earning enough!

However, you can read different points of view about the ATP announce (pro and against).

In my opinion prize money incomes are going in the wrong way: the difference between top players and “the others” is increasing year after year and this is a specific problem of tennis as the WSJ showed a few days ago.

I calculated the ratio between top 3 players and top 50/100/200 players average income in last 15 years.

For top 3 I considered the top 3 average income.

For top 50 I considered the average income from 47th  to 53rd ranked players.

For top 100 I considered the average income from 97th  to 103rd ranked players.

For top 200 I considered the average income from 197th  to 203rd ranked players.

It is more than evident that the distance is becoming bigger and bigger.

Maybe it’s just Rafa/Nole/Roger being too good? So if you enlarged the comparison from top 3 (the ones too good) to top 10 the data would be completely different and we wouldn’t see this distance increasing

Well, nothing changes.

Even if the priority has been given to top players, fortunately we know that ATP is working on the Challengers prize money increase and we hope we will be able to see soon something “real”, not just good intentions for 20XX.

I discussed a lot also on the necessity of restructuring prize money at ITF level and finally we can see something moving on.

I am glad to read that ITF is going to meet the first need I underlined

ITF/ATP should assure players that ITF/Challenger hospitality will be free of charge.

as they proposed

Men’s Pro Circuit: Initial two levels rise to 15K+H* and 25K +H*

By the way, I read the players survey conducted by ITF and I found the female answer pretty surprising

However, below we have the survey conclusions

Taken together, the data show significant similarity in the perceptions of
the male and female players. The vast majority of players responding to the
survey are not able to cover their expenses. They are finding ways to cut their
costs, often to a level they consider unacceptable. Alternatively, or in addition,
they are often finding financial support from family, or paid work. Most would
like to see a substantial increase in prize money. Travel, and the associated
cost of accommodation is the greatest expense for players, and this appears
to influence choice and location of tournament played; sometimes meaning
players must play a less preferred event. Despite these responses, players
understand that prize money cannot support all players: whilst the male
players were somewhat undecided, female players perceive that they should
be able to earn a living once they reach a top 300 ranking. Tournaments in
one’s own country are clearly valued by players, for several reasons,
particularly the opportunity to progress, and this is understandable given the
responses provided regarding their expenses.
Players perceive that the best opportunity to raise funds for increased prize
money is from sponsorship. If prize money were to be distributed differently,
they would prefer that lower prize money was paid to those most successful in
the tournaments, with more paid to those successful in early rounds. They
would not want doubles events to be eliminated, and whilst none of the
options to reduce tournament operating costs were popular, reducing the
length of tournaments was most preferred. Reductions in the budget for
site/court maintenance and savings made on tennis balls would not be
welcomed.

I would like to underline the last sentence, as something similar was said by Conny Perrin during my interview with her:

Few tournaments shouldn’t be on the calendar due to their conditions courts, organisation, the good of the player, cause if you organise a tournament that should be the main things you should really care to give the players the best chances to compete in good conditions

Players want to compete in good professional conditions, not the ones we saw in Sousse earlier this year.

I really hope that in March 2015 ITF will approve some significant changes and we will never read again stories similar to the Oliver Golding one, rising junior that gave up with tennis:

“It’s a hell of a tough life. The rewards are very limited. I can understand that the LTA want to have targets but I think it’s tough enough as it is. When you look at the conditions at a Futures, it’s below the minimum wage. I entered one 128-player draw, qualified and won a round, and reached the semis of the doubles. I was there from Thursday to Thursday and after tax my pay packet was 88 Euros. Considering how much money there is at the top level, more should filter down.”

This is something that Eric Butorac, the president of the ATP Player Council, should be aware of, as he said

 We don’t want a guy going to Futures and Challengers for 15 months and then quitting due to lack of finances, when they were actually moving up and getting closer to the ATP Tour.