Djokovic ahead of Rafa in 2012 earnings

For quite a while we have been saying Djoko not as popular among fans as Rafa is, but sponsors didn't see that way and Djoko's earnings [Prize money and sponsorship] seized ahead of Nadal. We can argue Nadal's prize money for 2012 is way too little as he took more than 1/2 the year in injury time out from the sport but that seemed to have affected his sponsorship as well.

Djoko is at 28 and Nadal is at 30 and no strange Fed sits a top of Tennis players and 2nd only behind Tiger woods for a whopping 70 + million income for last year.

For all those who think Fed should quit the game, think twice he makes 10 times more money in sponsorships just for playing the game, I guess he is doing the right thing by continuing his job, no wonder he wanna play for 5 more years, I am not saying he is money greed and playing for money, but what I am saying is this is his job and he does it to perfection. As long as as he plays the sponsors will still be queued up for him and whats wrong in it?

For more Information visit - atpworldtour.com/News/Tennis/2013/06/23/Federer-Forbes-Top-100-Athletes.aspx

Good point about Federer playing on, hard to give up those sort of numbers.

Wow 70 million!

Over four years thats close to 300 mill. Now there's an incentive to keep going.

emancipator wrote:Wow 70 million!

Over four years thats close to 300 mill. Now there's an incentive to keep going.

Some of them are long term contracts like 10 years, so may be Fed is forced to play who knows or he might have to shell out some damage cost.

Unless Fed makes this much money its close to impossible for him to use all those private jet maintenance cost, Fed should have made close to a billion earnings, roughly he is making 70+ millions for the last 8 years add all his business incomes he would become a billionaire quick.

To be honest it's an absolutely obscene amount of money. The guy is super talented and deserves to be well off for his success but I'd far rather the bulk of the money was somehow pumped into the lower echelons of the game so guys ranked below 100, who in the scheme of things are very talented themselves, can eek out a sustainable living at this game Federer is able to sit atop.

Interesting numbers.

As you say, Rafa is only behind Novak because his reduced winnings last year.

I'm surprised that Rafa's endorsement money is as "low" (and course I'm talking in relative terms here!) as it is.

His $21m is only $7m ahead of Novak, who's still the new boy on the block in endorsement terms, and way behind Federer's colossal $65m.

Perhaps his somewhat limited English restricts the offers he receives?

Federer has 12 million fans on Facebook. Nadal has 11 million. Djokovic? just short of 3 million. Federer just joined twitter, so his numbers shouldnt be considered, but Djokovic has 1.8 million followers on twitter vs Nadal's 4.4 million. Are we really still doubting the bigger draw at this stage of the movie?

Interesting sponsor stats though, Nadal made $25 mil in 2010, so maybe sponsors are worried about his longevity?

I'm not really keen on this taking twitter followers as a measure.

I have a twitter account and I follow loads of tennis players. Why? Because I like tennis and you get interesting news and photos from twitter.

The twitter numbers show that, at the very least, more than half of Rafa's followers do not follow the current number 1 tennis player.

That suggests to me that many of them are not really interested in tennis. They are following out of fandom or for other reasons (he's cute?).

Of course, that doesn't disprove your point about Rafa being the bigger draw. In fact it backs up that point.

But if the attraction is not for tennis reasons, well, it all seems a bit pointless to me.

I follow Nadal, and not Djokovic. Is that to say I'm not a genuine fan? I must admit though, I actually want to follow Nole, but he posts some really naff things on twitter about

Kingraf, that does surprise me. If you like tennis, why would you not want to follow a guy who's at the business end of most tournaments? He's not a prolific tweeter, so it's not like it clogs your stream up.

As for naff things on twitter, I follow Rafa and I think his tweets are amongst the worst!

He used to be good value but now there's loads promoting online poker and Bacardi.

Everytime I look up Djokovic's timeline, "Its competion time Djoker family". Nadal has recessed in his tweet quality, but he rarely tweets, and he does send messages of support/condolences to various athletes in the sports world, which is pretty cool. Plus its Nadal, and twitter is normally the place where he announces any injury updates.

I also follow Murray, and he is pretty much my favorite celeb on twitter. His tweets when he was learning to drive were hilarious.

To illustrate my point:

Novak Djokovic
@DjokerNole
Who's still in the game?we are getting closer #
Gift4MyNoleFam pic.twitter.com/tS68nJFEDc
7:37 p.m. Tue, Jun 4

Novak Djokovic
@DjokerNole
Well done #NoleFam , you are paying attention
“ @merotarek: O,N,A the 3 letters of #
Gift4MyNoleFam @DjokerNole ”


I competely understand giving your fans gifts etc. And it is a nice gesture, I just dony go on twitter to win prizes.

PseudoFed twitter makes me laugh from time to time.

Ha! Yes, that competition has been dragging on a bit. Parts of it have been quite good - he wrote a clue on the Roland Garros camera - but, yeah, enough now.

Although, I also have to highlight this from Rafa:

27th May
Want to get in this club? Use ~KingOfClayClub, The 7 people using both more times will win a unique jacket.

28th May
Proud of my followers. You are very active with #KingOfClayClub. You can participate until 24:00 (Paris time)

29th May
The #KingOfClayClub is closed

29th May
Thanks to all for your participation. I'll send a message to the components of the #KingOfClayClub to receive the jacket.

Sound like winning prizes to me!

Andy's tweets during RG have been good. You can tell he's watching the tennis as a fan (and that he has a lot more time on his hands!).

Federer will still be able to get some sponsorship money after retiring, it won't dry up completely.

Maybe if he is looking for an incentive he could play for charity. It is thought that if you give $2,000 to the against malaria foundation, you will save a life. If he decided to give all his career earnings from now on to the against malaria foundation, he could possibly save thousands of lives by playing tennis.

Oh, didnt realise it was a competition (Im not on twitter unless Im following a match, and the live text is painfully slow) I thought it was a new fan club for RG!!!

But on a different note, Nadal has the most followers on twitter of any tennis player.

Nadal had a competition called "KingofClayClub"? Ew! What happened to that legendary humility?

Wouldn't Nadal's time out would have affected his sponsorship because these things are generally performance related? His ranking dropped to 3 half way through the year and 4 for the last quarter.

All these twitter things are part corporate covers for advertising, PR, etc.
Sure the guys themselves use it from time to time but do you really think Rafa, or any of them, can be personally bothered running competitions via Twitter? I wouldn't read much into it.

Murray sure does. and its pretty damn funny. Judging by his tweets its a wonder he ever got his drivers license. Federer also uses it personally, I think. Only tweeted 13 times though.

Very glad to see these players are making good money, perhaps obscene by some standards. All of them pump money back via charities, businesses, etc. They spend many hours honing their craft and should not be castigated for deserving the money.

Are they personally responsible for the well-being of every player, perhaps not, IMVHO. They do their part in keeping the business of Tennis healthy and ticking for availability of money.

Should Fedalovicurray be handing cheques to players in 1000+? IMVHO, absolutely no. Teach a person to fish, not catch fish for them should be very apt for Tennis.

Stakhovsky deserves a hug and a cheque from Fedalovicurray, though.

It should be noted that while tennis players are paid in abundance, its not as if the sponsors/tournament directors are retrenching workers to pay Federer his share. There was an article on LeBron James a few months back. He's on a $14 million-a-season contract. Signed. 7-year, $90 million contract with Nike, amongst his deals. When you consider the revenue these guys generate MASSIVE revenue for the companies associated with them, they are actually underpaid.

I have no problem with tennis players (or any players in a mostly solo sport) being paid ridiculous sums of money. They have the talent at they have the right to earn it. If they play well, the win more money and get better sponsorships. If they play poorly, they don't earn money. Team sports where players have contracts and get paid ridiculous amounts of money in wages (not including sponsorships!!) no matter how well/poorly they play or how injured they are rile me.

As for Nadal, someone mentioned his injury record as a reason why his sponsorship money might be down. I'd agree with that; would you, as a company, get him to sign a long term contract when there is no long term guarantee about his fitness?

That's all very well and altruistic but its a little simplistic view on things because the devil is in the detail. The lions share of money is going to a very select few.

Do most of you know how tough it is for a player ranked 150 in the world, not their country, to survive in pro tennis? They're winning $5,000 for a Challenger with next to no sponsor deals, etc. If they lose mid event they're lucky to get $1,000. What use is that? Sponsorship from Nike is one thing, they're free to spend their money as they see fit but the prize money is still too uneven across the ATP/ITF. Yes its all about results, that's pro sport, but for these guys who are staple top 200 they need to be rewarded better for their talent too.

Within the pyramid of players underneath them the top guys simply wouldn't be earning all that money because the game wouldn't have the same appeal across the board. I'd like to see prize funds go up to 50-60% of revenue (not 20%ish) and R1-R4 losers get an increase of another 50-60%. Rememeber, not every one can win all the time. If we want our sport to prosper then we need to reward the pros at large better or else they're having to play almost every week of the year to make ends meet - and it becomes a vicious circle to break out of that cycle into the upper echelons for many. Just saying.

Lydian, is your son looking to make a career in tennis?

Would your comments above influence your advice to him?

I don't begrudge the top guys the prize money or the sponsorship deals - both Federer and Nadal (despite injury lay off) have actually had a long spell at the top of game and so have maximised their earning potential - but it might have turned out otherwise.

The trouble is that alongside the competition that is sport, modern sport is a huge business not just for the competitors but for a whole host of coaches, physios, sports psychologists, sports PR agencies, fitness gurus, dieticians, sportswear manufacturers (no more haute couture Teddy Tindling tennis dresses) competing for a very large market. Everyone wants a share of the top guys whether for the wages they can afford to pay, or for the publicity/income they generate. There are just too many market forces at work, and while we are told athletes are more professional nowadays, it certainly does take a little away from sport in general imo. I think the guys ranked 5-50 probably do pretty nicely, but below it must begin to get tough.

There is a fair amount of advertising around the RG show courts - coupled with healthy box office returns, then there really is no excuse not to pay the 1st round losers much more.

Indeed HMM, I've actually heard senior tennis coaches deflatingly tell a boys parents they would do better to push him down the football route as he'd have a better chance of making it a living out of that than tennis. That's a tennis coach saying it.

This is the problem lack of prize money for all but the regular top 30 or so creates. It demotivates kids and their parents into thinking they can never make good money at it. At 12-16 years old you have no idea how good your child is going to be...so what do you do? SPend a huge amount of money to help them become a pro to find out they can hardly make any money even when being a very credible 150 ranking say? Or do you push them into other sports instead? Good tennis players tend to be good at most sports due to the multi skills needed, so in the UK most able sports juniors end up elsewhere than tennis unless their parents are insanely rich or prepared to remortgage their house.

If there was a better incentive in terms of people could see £40-50,000/year can be made out of the sport up to say 300-400 ranking then more people would actually come into the sport in the UK for sure. On this forum we tend to focus on the top 10 players or so but when you look at someone like Dan Evans, our #3 player, he can hardly survive without handouts from LTA and family - and he's ranked around 250 which is pretty amazing out of all the players across the globe. In contrast, the 250th footballer in the UK alone probably earns nearer £150,000/year, never mind the 250th best global player.

For example look at this Challenger taking place in Germany at the moment. The draw features guys ranked 104 down to around 200. That's a high standard remember. Then look at the prize money on offer.

If you win the 4 matches you'll get $4,300. If you lose at SF stage you'll get $1,500. How is that going to play for the flight, 4-5 days of hotels, food, etc. Never mind taking a coach with you, etc. All these events should have prize funds that are quadrupled and be subsidised by the ATP Tour. The amount of money needed to do this isn't huge in reality...if you look at global prize money for tennis its probably taking 10-15% from the big events and redistributing to the smaller ones. The current situation is not encouraging our best sports into tennis.

Even at the higher level, I seem to recall Davydenko saying not so long ago that he actually made a loss over the IW/Miami period (IIRC).

Stands to reason though.

For a Europe-based player to travel to US, stay there for a fortnight and also take a coach, the winnings are soon eaten up if they go out in the first round.

On a related note, does anyone know if Rafa pays Toni anything? I believe at first Toni didn't accept any payment? Or have I dreamt that?

I think he gets a basic salary but doesn't take bonuses.
I'm sure Rafa rewards him well...

Going back to the ATP circuit, if you look at the Challengers they typically offer 80-125pts for the winner. That's nearly up to 50% pts you can win at a tour 250 event.

So look at the prize money of 2 nearby events:
ATP Challenger: 80 pts & $4,300 1st prize
ATP 250 Stuttgart: 250 pts & $64,000 1st prize

So the Challenger winner gets 33% of the points of the 250 but only 6.7% of the prize money. Its ridiculously imbalanced.

At full ATP level, each ATP point is worth $250, at Challenger level $50. But most pro tennis players have to survive on the Challenger and even lower Futures circuit. Only the top 30-40 get into the main ATP 250/500/1000 events. This is the problem tennis faces in attracting future top sporting talent.

I agree with Lydian's posts we need to pump some money into the challengers from the tour as a whole and make sure that a top 100-200 guy can stick around in the game and improve himself. We may not watch him play till he gets up there but if only the absolute best can make a living it is a major disincentive for talented athletes who could possibly be good enough to enter the sport. We may lose the next Federer or Nadal to football, and probably already have and don't know it, because being 1000th best footballer probably pays better than being in the top 50 in terms of tennis. I mean think about all the leagues there are in so many countries so that is not an exaggeration. A starter in the Mexican or Japanese league probably makes more money than your 50-100 tennis player.

lydian wrote:For example look at this Challenger taking place in Germany at the moment. The draw features guys ranked 104 down to around 200. That's a high standard remember. Then look at the prize money on offer.

If you win the 4 matches you'll get $4,300. If you lose at SF stage you'll get $1,500. How is that going to play for the flight, 4-5 days of hotels, food, etc. Never mind taking a coach with you, etc. All these events should have prize funds that are quadrupled and be subsidised by the ATP Tour. The amount of money needed to do this isn't huge in reality...if you look at global prize money for tennis its probably taking 10-15% from the big events and redistributing to the smaller ones. The current situation is not encouraging our best sports into tennis.

The prize money is pathetic, seriously the runner up guy will make a loss, considering his flight chargers,hotel charges, staying cost and coach fees etc,..

I guess tournament is making money from players pocket

Realistically speaking, the ATP is under paying the players, at least in line with what other spots are coining. But the biggest issue is, you cant make a Challenger financially viable. We aren't going to have a situation as in golf whereby there are million-dollar tournaments on every continent. Roger said in a interview challenger level players are a little too desperate for their big breaks, they don't tailor their schedule to peak properly, maybe not a slam, but a 250.

Unless the players demand better pay splits (I think post-USO is the perfect time to down tools, no Slam for four months), the only other option is to reduce the increases at the top, to subsidize the hikes at the bottom. Doing that will in my opinion, allow for more players to consider life in the journeymen lane.

Lydian... for the specific challenger what is the budget for the tourney?

Challenger events are run under the rules and regulations of the ATP World Tour and are fully administered under the umbrella of the ATP. Challenger tournaments are assigned Emirates ATP Ranking points according to the on-site prize money of each event. Prize money ranges from $35,000+H to $125,000+H.

In 2012, 149 Challenger tournaments were held in more than 40 countries throughout the world. The total prize money was $9.3 million.

http://www.atpworldtour.com/Tournaments/Challenger/ABOUT.aspx

That is an average of USD 62K per challenger tourney.

http://www.atpworldtour.com/Rankings/YTD-Challenger-Rankings.aspx

Based on ATP 2013 rankings, 2013 Prize Money for Top 5, in the first six months of the year, is

Mannarino - $66,730
Bogomolov Jr - $86,801
Przysiezny - $29,872
Dutra Silva - $40,551
Sela - $82,520

Granted they will not be Millionaires and it is tough but not unmanageable.

PS: The PDF version of the Challenger calendar is here - http://www.atpworldtour.com/~/media/CA69850320F640BAB05D9DE9D0667C61.ashx

lydian wrote:Indeed HMM, I've actually heard senior tennis coaches deflatingly tell a boys parents they would do better to push him down the football route as he'd have a better chance of making it a living out of that than tennis. That's a tennis coach saying it.

I've seen this happen too, at a local club (not the one I coach at, thankfully). You can understand the argument, but it's still depressing to hear. After all, how is the talent pool going to grow at an exponential rate, particularly in the UK, when that's the prevailing attitude in some areas? I don't want to go on another rant about the grass-roots coaching infrastructure here either, but that doesn't help.

Lydian's already covered everything else I wanted to say, tennis is far too top-heavy and money needs to be filtered down. Trouble is, changing public perception isn't that easy - I seem to remember there being widespread derisory comments about how much cash 1st round losers get at Wimbledon. But of course, the slams aren't the problem; Futures/Challenger Tour need to be focused on for the good of the game.

Will putting more money in Futures/Challengers produce better Tennis at that level?