Vasek Pospisil Talks About the Dark Side of Tennis

Professional tennis players earn money by entering tournaments, playing exhibitions, receiving bonuses and prize money, and signing endorsements. Every tennis players earn different amount of money to make a living according to their rankings and performances. Vasek Pospisil showed the dark side of the story for the players ranked below the top 100.

We have seen whopping prize money won by players at the grand slams. However, the big prize money hides the real information about the 100s of other professional tennis players who are struggling to a living.

Vasek Pospisil, a Canadian professional tennis player, and the member ATP Player Council took Twitter to share the dark side of revenues earned by tennis players.

He wrote on Twitter, “the cost of having a coach and physio for 30 weeks? Is approx $300k-400k. Average 2018 year-end prize money earnings for players ranked 101-150? $276,410.” This suggests how lower ranked tennis players would be managing their lives.

Vasek Pospisil also wrote about where the sport if tennis stands when it comes to the revenue given back to the players. He wrote, “Percentage of revenue given back to athletes:

MLB = 54.4% 
NFL = 47%
NBA = 50%
NHL = 50%
PGA = 33% (online estimate based on available numbers)

US Open 2017 = 14% (7% men, 7% women)

Wimbledon/Roland Garros/Aussie Open = U/A
ATP Masters Events = U/A

It’s time for a change.

Earlier Vasek Pospisil said in an interview, “Just watching their presentation to the players. Every time you sit through one, you can kind of see how they bend the numbers and they don’t give you any real information. They just kind of try to keep the herd moving, not asking any questions.”

He further added, “At one point I was just tired of the misinformation, and of them playing the political game and trying to keep us completely uninformed. I was agitated at how I felt they underestimated completely – almost mockingly – the intelligence of the tennis players. … Just the fact that this issue has been discussed for so long, and we haven’t really made any significant strides.”

Many tennis players supported Vasek Pospisil by retweeting the tweet. Judy Murray, mother of Andy Murray also supported Vasek Pospisil. She said, “The harsh reality of professional tennis. In individual sports, you are responsible for all of your own costs. Many can’t afford a traveling coach. You live or starve according to your success. In team sports, the club takes care of everything plus pays u a salary plus bonuses. No stress.”

However, there were others who doubted his figures of average earnings of the players.