"I'd go down...... and thank God that Roger Federer and Rafa Nadal were born"

First topic message reminder :

Logged on to 606 fully expecting to see all manner of debate about these ahem somewhat provocative comments (albeit since retracted, it would seem).

But - unless I've completely missed it (?) - can't see a thread, or indeed any mention so far :

http://www.tennis.com/pro-game/2016/03/tournament-director-of-bnp-paribas-open-criticizes-wta-tour/57931/#.Vu9OamIaySN

You're reasoning is a little flawed Amri. If Nadal and Federer bomb early the stands and presumably ratings for an ATP match are still reasonably full. If Nadal and Federer don't make Wimbledon final, Jimmy the Gimmick still performs in front if a full house and great TV audience. If Jimmy the Gimmick doesn't make the final he gets paid accordingly.

Born Slippy wrote:

HM Murdock wrote:

MMT1 wrote: Because this is framed (by the women) as a moral/social issue, the bargaining position of the men is weak so the ball is in their court.

An interesting thing here is that although the MSM and the usual suspects make it a moral/social issue, the female players themselves tend not to.

Their first argument tends to be that their tennis has the same commercial worth as the men's.

This is currently complete nonsense (although it may, of course, change in the future).

But they can never be called on it because they are surround by the fire blanket of MSM presenting it as moral issue, thereby implying that that those who oppose it must therefore be immoral.

I'm not sure about that. Venus very much focussed on morality in her 2006 attack on Wimbledon's prize money structure. Serena's comments yesterday were in a similar vein (would Novak want to tell a daughter that she was worth less than a son...). It's an easy win and avoids dealing with the real issues.

Well said - I agree.

It Must Be Love wrote:

HM Murdock wrote:
You keep reverting to this analogy in which players are freelancers, rather than employees contracted to the ATP. They sign up to compete under the terms the ATP negotiates.

Yes, and why does the ATP not split the money fairly ? And by 'fair' I mean base it on revenue each player brings in ?

The ATP does not make payments, the tournaments do.

ATP rules say:

"ATP World Tour 500 and 250 tournaments have the option to offer fees for promotional services. No other ATP World Tour or ATP Challenger Tour tournament owner, operator, sponsor or agent is permitted to offer, give or pay money or anything of value, nor shall the tournament permit any other person or entity to offer, give or pay money or anything of value to a player, directly or indirectly, to influence or assure a player’s competing in a tournament, other than prize money, unless authorized to do so by the ATP."

This is one of the linchpins of the Master series concept - mandatory and no appearance fees. The players agree to this when they sign up to the ATP (although they really have little choice).

Why ban appearance fees? To enable a regular tour to exist. Once appearance fees come into play, the top players will care more or care less about different events depending on how lucrative it is to them personally. But having all the best players regularly at the same tournaments enables the tournaments to make more money, which increases the prize pot, which benefits all the players. It's a good demonstration of the rather odd "players union/players employer" structure that the ATP has.

It Must Be Love wrote:

HM Murdock wrote:
You'll note also, that in the non-mandatory events, players can be freelance to an extent. See the appearance fees that Federer racks up from playing at places like Rotterdam and Halle.

See, exactly my point.

Mostly covered above. But even at the non-1000 events, prize money is fixed and the 'market value' of players is reflected in additional appearance fees.

HM Murdock wrote:

MMT1 wrote: Because this is framed (by the women) as a moral/social issue, the bargaining position of the men is weak so the ball is in their court.

An interesting thing here is that although the MSM and the usual suspects make it a moral/social issue, the female players themselves tend not to.

Their first argument tends to be that their tennis has the same commercial worth as the men's.

This is currently complete nonsense (although it may, of course, change in the future).

But they can never be called on it because they are surround by the fire blanket of MSM presenting it as moral issue, thereby implying that that those who oppose it must therefore be immoral.

Who is "MSM"?

kingraf wrote:You're reasoning is a little flawed Amri. If Nadal and Federer bomb early the stands and presumably ratings for an ATP match are still reasonably full. If Nadal and Federer don't make Wimbledon final, Jimmy the Gimmick still performs in front if a full house and great TV audience. If Jimmy the Gimmick doesn't make the final he gets paid accordingly.

2 points:
Firstly people could pre-book tickets, so they could buy it expecting that they see a big star player in the final.
Secondly a lot of the revenue comes from TV viewership- and for example Cilic Nishikori in the USO 2014 had quite poor ratings apart from in Croatia and Japan. So you could argue it's extortionate for Cilic to win more prize money than Federer in that US Open.

MMT1 wrote:

HM Murdock wrote:
An interesting thing here is that although the MSM and the usual suspects make it a moral/social issue, the female players themselves tend not to.

Their first argument tends to be that their tennis has the same commercial worth as the men's.

This is currently complete nonsense (although it may, of course, change in the future).

But they can never be called on it because they are surround by the fire blanket of MSM presenting it as moral issue, thereby implying that that those who oppose it must therefore be immoral.

Who is "MSM"?

The liberal MSM and their biased agenda. Bad !

HM Murdock wrote:But even at the non-1000 events, prize money is fixed and the 'market value' of players is reflected in additional appearance fees.

HM, why is prize money fixed ? Aren't the appearance fees evidence that some players clearly bring in more revenue than others (or why else would the tournament pay these fees?).
So whoever decides the pay structure, the tournaments can come together with the ATP and decide that to make it 'fair', players should get the money that they bring in to the tournaments (i.e. what the estimated loss of revenue would be if they didn't play).
But they don't do because they don't see the idea that players should get what they bring in as an absolute principle, and in my eyes rightly so.

What has market value of a player got to do with prize money that a tournament awards?  If a player wants to capitalise on their market value they will have to sell themselves through endorsement and sponsorship and appearance fees to exhibition matches and events.

But the players gain their "market value" by gaining free publicity and visibility by appearing and competing in tournaments.  No player can be bigger than the sport because it is through the sport and the sport's tournaments that they gain publicity and recognition in the first place.

JuliusHMarx wrote:The ATP are free to do what they want. If everyone shared socal's view then very few people would care what Serena and the WTA said about them, and the ATP could simply ignore them. Charges of sexism and misogyny from a small minority, whose views are shared by very few, would not hold any weight, and would not affect them economically to any great extent. Perhaps the ATP cave in for no good reason (because they are run by the weaker sex?).

However, others hold the view that tennis is the product, not the ATP or the WTA, and that the men benefit from the likes of Serena, Venus, Steffi, Chrissie, Li Na etc. If the future of men's tennis is as bleak as some say, the ATP will be needing some female stars to prop it up pretty soon. Indeed, in the boring serve-fest 90s, which many people think was a big turn off, the women should probably have been paid more.

Obviously in some respects the women were a bigger draw at the US Open last year (given the speed of ticket sales for the respective finals) - so maybe they should have been paid more than the men in that case.

What about mixed doubles at the Grand Slams - should a popular male player get paid more than his partner, who may be less of a draw to the public?

Extortion is a criminal offense, by the way. Socal, would you like to press charges?

I know what is extortion and isn't Julius I spent a few years working in law. And this is factual extortion that is legal in our society. You can always threaten to sue someone even if you have no legal basis whatsoever, unfortunately this type of extortion is legal in America and happens all the time. But it doesn't change what it is. Extortion, yet legal.

And Serena and all these cynical lying stars in the WTA pretending they are multi-millionaire oppressed Rosa Parks or Martin Luther King are flat repulsive.

PS look at the ridiculous blowback Djokovic and this guy at IW has received, do you honestly believe that coercion isn't the fundamental weapon these lying, money grubbing, false accusers are using to siphon funds they have not earned.

As for your hypo about a declining male tour, yeah if the women were 3/4 the draw do you think any of them would demand to give up15-20 percent of their payday to subsidize the men? Please as the old Persian saying goes they "only have hands for taking."

It Must Be Love wrote:

HM Murdock wrote:But even at the non-1000 events, prize money is fixed and the 'market value' of players is reflected in additional appearance fees.

HM, why is prize money fixed ? Aren't the appearance fees evidence that some players clearly bring in more revenue than others (or why else would the tournament pay these fees?).
So whoever decides the pay structure, the tournaments can come together with the ATP and decide that to make it 'fair', players should get the money that they bring in to the tournaments (i.e. what the estimated loss of revenue would be if they didn't play).
But they don't do because they don't see the idea that players should get what they bring in as an absolute principle, and in my eyes rightly so.

Did you read my post properly?

Either you're suggesting they ditch the prize money structure completely and just give an appearance fee, which will mean the tour is no more than a series of exhibition events, where it doesn't matter if you win or lose.

Or you're suggesting a basic structure of prize money plus an additional payment to reflect a player's commercial value. The problems with this were addressed in my last post when I wrote about why appearance fees are banned at the 1000s.

socal1976 wrote:The only economic benefit the ATP gets from the WTA and the joint events is that by paying extortion to the WTA stars they won't have Serena, and all the past and present women stars tarnishing their brand with charges of misogyny and sexism. That isn't an economic "bump" to the men unless you consider protection money paid to the mafia to benefit both the mafia and the store owner, I mean the mafia gets money and the store owner doesn't get his store burned down, you see its a win win. I hate Serena and the WTA even more than before and I thought that was impossible. Frankly, her repulsive use of false charges of sexism to extort money from her male coworkers in a cynical money grab that she pretends is like some sort of civil rights or equality fight for her is disgusting. Yeah when I think of great fighters for the oppressed I think of Cesar Chavez fighting for migrant farm workers and Serena Williams extorting extra millions for herself by threatening to crap on the brand of the ATP with false allegations of sexism.

To me I lost what little respect I had for Serena and the women's tour from this whole bogus lets couch our extortion as fighting sexism nonsense. Sorry, your post is nonsensical, because I can't think of single economic benefit to the ATP tour when they are like 75-80 percent of the draw, you just made that up using an analogy that makes no sense and frankly isn't analogous.

I haven't analyzed the revenue delta between ATP only and joint events for the ATP, but I assume rational economic analysis has occurred. I could be wrong. It could be an entirely irrational analysis, like, "If we don't do these joint events we'll be branded as sexist and we'll lose money."  There is always the possibility of irrational analysis and decision making in the most unexpected of places. But I have the feeling that neither the ATP nor the WTA are generally economically irrational, nor specifically on the question of joint events.

The comparison to the BSB/Sky merger is apt if one party is stronger or has greater market share (as you have indicated the ATP does), but chooses freely to merge with another entity (as they have with the WTA at joint events) with their weaker competitor (by your analysis the WTA).  No two economic conditions are precisely the same, but the salient question of whether more is gained by equally sharing the entirety of a larger market, versus dominating a segment of it, is comparable.

It is my personal opinion that it is immoral for the women to accept equal prize money if they are not equally contributing to the attraction and promotion of the event - in this I agree with the central issue of Ray Moore's remarks.  But it is equally immoral of the men to expect more prize money, having entered into the agreement to split the prize money equally - in this I disagree with Djokovic and others who have concurred.  I offer a rational economic analysis for why the ATP have agreed to joint events and an even split of prize money. But I am open to evidence to the contrary.  

There is a rational test for your theory - the ATP could extract themselves from a single joint event (rather than all of them), and create another ATP only event and see what the gate and television money are.  If they fare worse, they would lose only on that single event, and the previously joint (now WTA only) tournament and the WTA (convening with your economic analysis) would be only too happy to welcome them back to a joint event with open arms.  If they fare better, they could either remain an ATP only event, or if the WTA seeks to join their event, insist on revenue sharing preferential to the ATP.

IMBL, how did Roger Federer and Nadal become famous? Did they do it playing Serena Williams in exhos? Did they get famous for their charity work? No they got famous by being the best players on the ATP tour. They used the ATP tours tournaments and infrastructure and brand to become famous. Now that they are famous it is not out of bounds that the tour that made them famous will reap the rewards. Roger has gotten a lot of big checks from the ATP, has ever received dime one from the WTA parasite? Why should the WTA invest nothing in the rise of Fed or Nadal and then expect to be paid evenly? Without the men's tour we would have no idea who Roger Federer or Rafa Nadal are.

Clearly the WTA is using coercion, smears, and false accusations to cynically grab money they have not earned. And what makes it infinitly worse is that they pretend (while being totally crass and self-interested) that they are some sort of civil rights fighters. Makes me vomit. I would occasionally watch a woman's tennis match, over this blackmail and false civil rights claim I will never watch or talk about a second of their tour.

MMT1 wrote:

socal1976 wrote:The only economic benefit the ATP gets from the WTA and the joint events is that by paying extortion to the WTA stars they won't have Serena, and all the past and present women stars tarnishing their brand with charges of misogyny and sexism. That isn't an economic "bump" to the men unless you consider protection money paid to the mafia to benefit both the mafia and the store owner, I mean the mafia gets money and the store owner doesn't get his store burned down, you see its a win win. I hate Serena and the WTA even more than before and I thought that was impossible. Frankly, her repulsive use of false charges of sexism to extort money from her male coworkers in a cynical money grab that she pretends is like some sort of civil rights or equality fight for her is disgusting. Yeah when I think of great fighters for the oppressed I think of Cesar Chavez fighting for migrant farm workers and Serena Williams extorting extra millions for herself by threatening to crap on the brand of the ATP with false allegations of sexism.

To me I lost what little respect I had for Serena and the women's tour from this whole bogus lets couch our extortion as fighting sexism nonsense. Sorry, your post is nonsensical, because I can't think of single economic benefit to the ATP tour when they are like 75-80 percent of the draw, you just made that up using an analogy that makes no sense and frankly isn't analogous.

I haven't analyzed the revenue delta between ATP only and joint events for the ATP, but I assume rational economic analysis has occurred. I could be wrong. It could be an entirely irrational analysis, like, "If we don't do these joint events we'll be branded as sexist and we'll lose money."  There is always the possibility of irrational analysis and decision making in the most unexpected of places.  But I have the feeling that neither the ATP nor the WTA are generally economically irrational, nor specifically on the question of joint events.

The comparison to the BSB/Sky merger is apt if one party is stronger or has greater market share (as you have indicated the ATP does), but chooses freely to merge with another entity (as they have with the WTA at joint events) with their weaker competitor (by your analysis the WTA).  No two economic conditions are precisely the same, but the salient question of whether more is gained by equally sharing the entirety of a larger market, versus dominating a segment of it, is comparable.

It is my personal opinion that it is immoral for the women to accept equal prize money if they are not equally contributing to the attraction and promotion of the event - in this I agree with the central issue of Ray Moore's remarks.  But it is equally immoral of the men to expect more prize money, having entered into the agreement to split the prize money equally - in this I disagree with Djokovic and others who have concurred.  I offer a rational economic analysis for why the ATP have agreed to joint events and an even split of prize money. But I am open to evidence to the contrary.  

There is a rational test for your theory - the ATP could extract themselves from a single joint event (rather than all of them), and create another ATP only event and see what the gate and television money are.  If they fare worse, they would lose only on that single event, and the previously joint (now WTA only) tournament and the WTA (convening with your economic analysis) would be only too happy to welcome them back to a joint event with open arms.  If they fare better, they could either remain an ATP only event, or if the WTA seeks to join their event, insist on revenue sharing preferential to the ATP.

First of all, your analogy is about someone trying to consolidate an industry and getting increased market share. This is the entertainment and sports industry, and Tennis is the only, only entertainment industry where the guy who is 3/4 of the draw gets paid the same as the guy who is 1/4 of the draw. This would be like Sally Field demanding that she gets paid the same amount as DDL in Lincoln because she acts in that movie to. The fact that she acts on the same set, in the same movie will never equate to her B list backside getting A list money.

As I said the only, only benefit to the ATP tour, and the reason they made this economic decision is that the bad publicity, the typical overreaction of the media to false charges of sexism, and loss of sponsors due to this image damage is just worth it to payoff the extortion. The extortion victim does in someway benefit, he won't have every woman star whinning in every interview and claiming how sexist and misogynist they are. Its economic duress and coercion, really what is the functional equivalent of legal blackmail.

Interesting (and sensible) statement from the ATP:

Ray Moore’s comments towards women’s tennis were disappointing and made in poor taste, as Ray has subsequently acknowledged. The ATP fully supports equality across society, while at the same time acknowledging that we operate in the sports [and] entertainment business. The ATP seeks to achieve fair compensation for its players by setting minimum prize money levels for ATP events in accordance with the revenues that are generated from men’s professional tennis. The ATP also respects the right of tournaments to make their own decisions relating to prize money for women’s tennis, which is run as a separate Tour.

The ATP players should just vote to not have anymore coed tournaments, they should divorce the WTA completely and only the slams be coed. Because their payoff for helping out the WTA is to be sucked dry of money while being slandered as sexists in the media. Dump them like a bad habit. They will still get sucked dry at the slams, but they can't do as much there. They shouldn't boycott because they would get killed in the press. Next time the contracts are up for renegotiation they should tell the tournament owners, that the ATP doesn't do joint tournaments period and end of story. No mention of money, no mention of gender equality; just drop them like a rock because they abused the situation to point of it being parasitic endeavor for the ATP.

PS it will save me time from having to Fast forward their crappy matches on my DVR

So the ATP was founded in 1972 and the WTA founded in 1973 and both are effectively "trade" unions for male and female tennis players respectively.  It is interesting that the men and women have separate "trade" unions for the "trade" of tennis player.  Tennis players have to sign up to these monopolies in order to access the "tour".  Signing up is all that is needed to call yourself a "professional" tennis player.

The ITF is the sports governing body.

The tournaments as a collective represent the "industry".

socal1976 wrote:The ATP players should just vote to not have anymore coed tournaments, they should divorce the WTA completely and only the slams be coed.

They could do that. But they haven't. No (tennis) balls?

Interesting thay Djokovic had to issue an apology though. Haven't really followed but what he said didn't seem that outrageous even if you disagreed with him. It was hardly in Simon territory, let alone Ray Moore

Interesting thay Djokovic had to issue an apology though. Haven't really followed but what he said didn't seem that outrageous even if you disagreed with him. It was hardly in Simon territory, let alone Ray Moore

socal1976 wrote:First of all, your analogy is about someone trying to consolidate an industry and getting increased market share. This is the entertainment and sports industry, and Tennis is the only, only entertainment industry where the guy who is 3/4 of the draw gets paid the same as the guy who is 1/4 of the draw. This would be like Sally Field demanding that she gets paid the same amount as DDL in Lincoln because she acts in that movie to. The fact that she acts on the same set, in the same movie will never equate to her B list backside getting A list money.

As I said the only, only benefit to the ATP tour, and the reason they made this economic decision is that the bad publicity, the typical overreaction of the media to false charges of sexism, and loss of sponsors due to this image damage is just worth it to payoff the extortion. The extortion victim does in someway benefit, he won't have every woman star whinning in every interview and claiming how sexist and misogynist they are. Its economic duress and coercion, really what is the functional equivalent of legal blackmail.

There is a market for professional tennis in Florida, which is met by two products from two producers: the WTA and the ATP. The ATP can choose to dominate the market for those predominantly interested in men's tennis - people like you. But that market, and more importantly the market of sponsors who would pay (a lot) to be associated with professional tennis, is smaller than a market including those who are interested in women's tennis or as much professional tennis as they can consume. That larger market is presumably more lucrative for the ATP. I think we can all agree it is much more lucrative for the WTA: in fact, it is so much more lucrative for the WTA that both the tournament and the ATP would reasonably be concerned about whether the WTA are doing enough to grow that market and make the pie bigger for everyone involved.

I think that in a nutshell was what Moore was intimating with his ill-formed remarks.

Your conclusion that the ATP just wants to avoid being branded sexist is, in my view, not economically rational. Again, I could be wrong, but I don't think either the ATP or the WTA are economically irrational. It is possible that the market for men's only tennis was not as strong when the joint event agreements were entered into, making a joint event relatively more lucrative for the ATP then, than it is now (given the ATP's current star power). As such, the calculus of whether joint events are worth it to the ATP now changes. If that is the case, the ATP should be advocating (and I suspect are in fact planning) to extract themselves from that agreement ex post haste. That too is rational economic analysis and decision making.

That too could be the reason Moore made his ill-formed remarks in the first place - because he can see the writing on the wall if the WTA continue to be the disproportionate beneficiary of a joint venture. That too would be a rational decision on his part (although poorly executed).

Unfortunately, because of the emotional attachment to the moral objective of perceived fairness, and the emotional response to what some see as a phony objective, obfuscates the underlying question of what is the real financial picture, is it equally satisfactory to all parties, and what are the implications if it is not.

JuliusHMarx wrote:

socal1976 wrote:The ATP players should just vote to not have anymore coed tournaments, they should divorce the WTA completely and only the slams be coed.

They could do that. But they haven't. No (tennis) balls?

So in this socal1976 vision (possibly shared by others such as Bogbrush)  Federer, Nadal etc would be downing tennis rackets and staging protests outside the Grand Slam tournaments with placards saying "No Women" ... "Women Out"  ..."Women should receive less prize money than us men" ... "Show us the money" ... "Women know your market place" ... "Get thee to a nunnery".  It wouldn't get unanimous support.  Andy Murray would be horrified.  The protest could turn dirty.  Sponsors would probably be aghast.  It could shock the general public.  The market value of Federer and Nadal et al might tumble.

HM Murdock wrote:
Did you read my post properly?

Either you're suggesting they ditch the prize money structure completely and just give an appearance fee, which will mean the tour is no more than a series of exhibition events, where it doesn't matter if you win or lose.

Or you're suggesting a basic structure of prize money plus an additional payment to reflect a player's commercial value. The problems with this were addressed in my last post when I wrote about why appearance fees are banned at the 1000s.

We could have a situation in mandatory tournaments where you get a certain amount for winning a match, and as well as that an estimate of the revenue you've brought in and players getting the proportionate amount.

I'm not suggesting that this is a good idea. My point is that the principle of being rewarded what you brought in revenue wise, should not be an absolute principle.
The main reason people oppose the above idea is that for social factors we don't want to see little known players suffer, and they should have the opportunity to earn in the same as Federer in a tournament, despite the obvious fact they won't bring in as much money as Federer.
People are applying it selectively, furious about how extortionate and parasitic the WTA is, but not applying that across the board.

socal1976 wrote:The ATP players should just vote to not have anymore coed tournaments, they should divorce the WTA completely and only the slams be coed...Next time the contracts are up for renegotiation they should tell the tournament owners, that the ATP doesn't do joint tournaments period and end of story.

In the words of Abbott to Costello in 'Who's on First': "Now, that's the first thing you've said right!"

I suspect that's precisely what they would do at the first opportunity - the question is when can they do it, and if they've passed up the chance to do that, why? (Because...Oh, he's centerfield...Baddipupdip!) Were they better off splitting a big pie with the ladies, than hogging their own? Maybe it's coming up, and Moore was in fact, imploring the WTA to pull their fair share of the load before the tournaments (like Indian Wells) have to bear the costs of separate events for the men and the women?

I hybrid solution could be to split schedules on joint events alternating men's versus ladies days. The sponsorship could still be shared, but the prize money could be weighted based on separate agreements with the two tours. The television rights could also be split, and it could be left to the licensees of the two simultaneous events to decide if they want to exclude each others content from each other's broadcasts or allow for some crossover for highlights and pre-match jibber-jabber (like in the networks do with the NFL).

Either way, I think the WTA better pay attention - they may have bobbed and weaved with their pound of Ray Moore's flesh, but if Sharapova retired tomorrow and Serena sustained a long-term injury or took up acting around the time when they renegotiate, they could find themselves in a very bad way.

socal1976 wrote:IMBL, how did Roger Federer and Nadal become famous? Did they do it playing Serena Williams in exhos? Did they get famous for their charity work? No they got famous by being the best players on the ATP tour. They used the ATP tours tournaments and infrastructure and brand to become famous. Now that they are famous it is not out of bounds that the tour that made them famous will reap the rewards. Roger has gotten a lot of big checks from the ATP, has ever received dime one from the WTA parasite? Why should the WTA invest nothing in the rise of Fed or Nadal and then expect to be paid evenly? Without the men's tour we would have no idea who Roger Federer or Rafa Nadal are.

Clearly the WTA is using coercion, smears, and false accusations to cynically grab money they have not earned. And what makes it infinitly worse is that they pretend (while being totally crass and self-interested) that they are some sort of civil rights fighters. Makes me vomit. I would occasionally watch a woman's tennis match, over this blackmail and false civil rights claim I will never watch or talk about a second of their tour.

You're right on one thing, the ATP tour and its infrastructure sure did help Federer. You can't deny that link, and yes it's closer than the link Federer has with the WTA tour.
But you know what ? The WTA tour has also helped Federer.
Let me explain- which other major sport has such a diverse fan base in terms of gender compared to tennis ? I've been around social groups where the women are more interested on average in tennis than men, and you can even see on Facebook groups and social media that a huge number of women follow the sport.
Which other sport has such a big followers of women ? Football ? No. Rugby ? No. Cricket ? No. And these women tennis fans, bring in money and buy tickets and increase the revenue for the tennis industry in a huge way.
And why is it that tennis is unique in having so many women follow the sport ? Perhaps it is because women's tennis is in itself a big industry. When people hear 'women's football', the average reaction is 'lol really'. When people hear women's tennis they think 'ah, serena, venus, sharapova'. That climate itself is a substantial reason why women follow tennis, and why women follow both ATP and WTA tour.
So the strong presence of the WTA tour has created a climate where many women follow tennis, both ATP and WTA, and this certainly helps Federer and Nadal.

MMT1 wrote:

socal1976 wrote:First of all, your analogy is about someone trying to consolidate an industry and getting increased market share. This is the entertainment and sports industry, and Tennis is the only, only entertainment industry where the guy who is 3/4 of the draw gets paid the same as the guy who is 1/4 of the draw. This would be like Sally Field demanding that she gets paid the same amount as DDL in Lincoln because she acts in that movie to. The fact that she acts on the same set, in the same movie will never equate to her B list backside getting A list money.

As I said the only, only benefit to the ATP tour, and the reason they made this economic decision is that the bad publicity, the typical overreaction of the media to false charges of sexism, and loss of sponsors due to this image damage is just worth it to payoff the extortion. The extortion victim does in someway benefit, he won't have every woman star whinning in every interview and claiming how sexist and misogynist they are. Its economic duress and coercion, really what is the functional equivalent of legal blackmail.

There is a market for professional tennis in Florida, which is met by two products from two producers: the WTA and the ATP.  The ATP can choose to dominate the market for those predominantly interested in men's tennis - people like you.  But that market, and more importantly the market of sponsors who would pay (a lot) to be associated with professional tennis, is smaller than a market including those who are interested in women's tennis or as much professional tennis as they can consume.  That larger market is presumably more lucrative for the ATP.   I think we can all agree it is much more lucrative for the WTA:  in fact, it is so much more lucrative for the WTA that both the tournament and the ATP would reasonably be concerned about whether the WTA are doing enough to grow that market and make the pie bigger for everyone involved.

I think that in a nutshell was what Moore was intimating with his ill-formed remarks.

Your conclusion that the ATP just wants to avoid being branded sexist is, in my view, not economically rational.  Again, I could be wrong, but I don't think either the ATP or the WTA are economically irrational.  It is possible that the market for men's only tennis was not as strong when the joint event agreements were entered into, making a joint event relatively more lucrative for the ATP then, than it is now (given the ATP's current star power).  As such, the calculus of whether joint events are worth it to the ATP now changes.  If that is the case, the ATP should be advocating (and I suspect are in fact planning) to extract themselves from that agreement ex post haste.  That too is rational economic analysis and decision making.  

That too could be the reason Moore made his ill-formed remarks in the first place - because he can see the writing on the wall if the WTA continue to be the disproportionate beneficiary of a joint venture.  That too would be a rational decision on his part (although poorly executed).

Unfortunately, because of the emotional attachment to the moral objective of perceived fairness, and the emotional response to what some see as a phony objective, obfuscates the underlying question of what is the real financial picture, is it equally satisfactory to all parties, and what are the implications if it is not.

Where is the ATP acting irrationally? Image is what marketers sell, if the ATP has all these famous women and the press slamming them in the media they lose money by tarnishing their image. The amount of subsidy they have to pay is less than the damage the false accusers would do in the hysterical media.  It's perfectly rational, the enlightened press practically tore djokovic a new one for his ultra mild comments and ended the career of a guy who has a 40 year association with that tournament hell he practically built it. By the way nothing the old guy said was offensive. People read to much into it, these old guys meaning prayer when they say something not sexual submission or oral gratification. 

So it isn't irrational to give in, they are protecting their most marketable asset their brand against damage, and judging by the bizarre media outcry where they rush to the defense of the false accuser and smear anyone who dares raise their voice. I mean the Italian mafia never had a protection racket this effective, they should take some lessons from the Vaginal mafia of the WTA and their Don Serena Gambino.

I sense some are conflating issues and working themselves up into a froth.

To be fair I think Nore covered it well (inadvertently?). There's really almost no way the ATP could file for separation without it looking like a "No women" rally. And if the tournaments have only $5 million in prize money, for example you'd have to say there's no motive for them to split it anything but 50-50 given the fact that anything else looks like a no women rally, and they presumably don't make a loss either way

MMT1 wrote:

socal1976 wrote:The ATP players should just vote to not have anymore coed tournaments, they should divorce the WTA completely and only the slams be coed...Next time the contracts are up for renegotiation they should tell the tournament owners, that the ATP doesn't do joint tournaments period and end of story.

In the words of Abbott to Costello in 'Who's on First':  "Now, that's the first thing you've said right!"

I suspect that's precisely what they would do at the first opportunity - the question is when can they do it, and if they've passed up the chance to do that, why? (Because...Oh, he's centerfield...Baddipupdip!)  Were they better off splitting a big pie with the ladies, than hogging their own?  Maybe it's coming up, and Moore was in fact, imploring the WTA to pull their fair share of the load before the tournaments (like Indian Wells) have to bear the costs of separate events for the men and the women?

I hybrid solution could be to split schedules on joint events alternating men's versus ladies days.  The sponsorship could still be shared, but the prize money could be weighted based on separate agreements with the two tours.  The television rights could also be split, and it could be left to the licensees of the two simultaneous events to decide if they want to exclude each others content from each other's broadcasts or allow for some crossover for highlights and pre-match jibber-jabber (like in the networks do with the NFL).

Either way, I think the WTA better pay attention - they may have bobbed and weaved with their pound of Ray Moore's flesh, but if Sharapova retired tomorrow and Serena sustained a long-term injury or took up acting around the time when they renegotiate, they could find themselves in a very bad way.

But the problem is they have the media in their corner as soon as they scream sexism. This old guy I forgot his name practically built this tournament and this is the thanks he gets for speaking the truth. I think from what we see and hear that the ATP players aren't happy. You haven't heard anyone other than Murray knocking Novak on the comments. Either way the players when peed enough will do something about it and the WTA's nasty and cynical money grab will end up with a quiet revolt that could end up hurting them more.

socal1976 wrote:Where is the ATP acting irrationally? Image is what marketers sell, if the ATP has all these famous women and the press slamming them in the media they lose money by tarnishing their image. The amount of subsidy they have to pay is less than the damage the false accusers would do in the hysterical media.  It's perfectly rational, the enlightened press practically tore djokovic a new one for his ultra mild comments and ended the career of a guy who has a 40 year association with that tournament hell he practically built it. By the way nothing the old guy said was offensive. People read to much into it, these old guys meaning prayer when they say something not sexual submission or oral gratification. 

So it isn't irrational to give in, they are protecting their most marketable asset their brand against damage, and judging by the bizarre media outcry where they rush to the defense of the false accuser and smear anyone who dares raise their voice. I mean the Italian mafia never had a protection racket this effective, they should take some lessons from the Vaginal mafia of the WTA and their Don Serena Gambino.

The ATP are not irrational - it would be economically irrational of the ATP to (according to your analysis) do joint events with the WTA, and thereby cost themselves a lot of money, just to avoid being branded sexist, which according to you, would cost them what...more money?

If they do joint events it's because there is, or at least was, an economic incentive to do so. Nobody is doing that to avoid being branded sexist - that's an emotional analysis of a rational financial choice. If the men could make more money on their own than they do with shared events they would do exactly what you proposed, and separate as soon as possible, because that is a rational choice.

The women can say anything they want from the parking lot - at the ATP only events that would replace the joint events, no more attention would be given to what the WTA or it's players have to say, than male golfers concern themselves with what female golfers have to say about them.

But we are in agreement on one thing: the men will soon separate from joint events if they think they can do better on their own, which may be the case shortly.

MMT1 wrote:But we are in agreement on one thing:  the men will soon separate from joint events if they think they can do better on their own, which may be the case shortly.

Probably left it a bit late for that. Without Rafa and Roger the mens game will be a hard sell. Especially with the direction it's going. The ATP has learned nothing and is heading back to the dark days of the nineties. Who wants to watch giants play 5 sets of tie breaks

The women's game doesn't have that problem.

MMT1 wrote:But we are in agreement on one thing:  the men will soon separate from joint events if they think they can do better on their own, which may be the case shortly.

Mark my words.  Chess Robots can now beat Chess Grand Masters,  Go Robots can now beat Go Grand Wizards.  It is only a matter of time before the Japanese reveal "Tennis Robot".  Then you will see Djokovic going it alone in a series of global events: Djokovic against the Robot.  Man versus Machine.  The market value of everyone else will tumble and become like junk stock in comparison.  Federer and Nadal will get Robot parts to help them re-find the vigour of their Golden years.  Then it will be a global series featuring Djokovic, The Robot, Federerbot and RoboNads.

hawkeye wrote:

MMT1 wrote:But we are in agreement on one thing:  the men will soon separate from joint events if they think they can do better on their own, which may be the case shortly.

Probably left it a bit late for that. Without Rafa and Roger the mens game will be a hard sell. Especially with the direction it's going. The ATP has learned nothing and is heading back to the dark days of the nineties. Who wants to watch giants play 5 sets of tie breaks

The women's game doesn't have that problem.

Actually, this is an excellent point - who knows how healthy the game would/will be without Fedal...well, very soon we might find out.

K

It Must Be Love wrote:

socal1976 wrote:IMBL, how did Roger Federer and Nadal become famous? Did they do it playing Serena Williams in exhos? Did they get famous for their charity work? No they got famous by being the best players on the ATP tour. They used the ATP tours tournaments and infrastructure and brand to become famous. Now that they are famous it is not out of bounds that the tour that made them famous will reap the rewards. Roger has gotten a lot of big checks from the ATP, has ever received dime one from the WTA parasite? Why should the WTA invest nothing in the rise of Fed or Nadal and then expect to be paid evenly? Without the men's tour we would have no idea who Roger Federer or Rafa Nadal are.

Clearly the WTA is using coercion, smears, and false accusations to cynically grab money they have not earned. And what makes it infinitly worse is that they pretend (while being totally crass and self-interested) that they are some sort of civil rights fighters. Makes me vomit. I would occasionally watch a woman's tennis match, over this blackmail and false civil rights claim I will never watch or talk about a second of their tour.

You're right on one thing, the ATP tour and its infrastructure sure did help Federer. You can't deny that link, and yes it's closer than the link Federer has with the WTA tour.
But you know what ? The WTA tour has also helped Federer.
Let me explain- which other major sport has such a diverse fan base in terms of gender compared to tennis ? I've been around social groups where the women are more interested on average in tennis than men, and you can even see on Facebook groups and social media that a huge number of women follow the sport.
Which other sport has such a big followers of women ? Football ? No. Rugby ? No. Cricket ? No. And these women tennis fans, bring in money and buy tickets and increase the revenue for the tennis industry in a huge way.
And why is it that tennis is unique in having so many women follow the sport ? Perhaps it is because women's tennis is in itself a big industry. When people hear 'women's football', the average reaction is 'lol really'. When people hear women's tennis they think 'ah, serena, venus, sharapova'. That climate itself is a substantial reason why women follow tennis, and why women follow both ATP and WTA tour.
So the strong presence of the WTA tour has created a climate where many women follow tennis, both ATP and WTA, and this certainly helps Federer and Nadal.

Yeah from my experience the WTA being strong or not has nothing to do with financial success of the ATP, if the WTA was so wonderful they could demand these pay days in their own tournaments. The ATP is the draw, and paying them equally has probably cost them a couple of hundred million dollars in prize money since this rule went into effect. None of the things you list makes up for the prejudice of losing that kind of money. I once took a date who was not a tennis fan, she asked to leave after 5 minutes of women's tennis her response was why do they hit so badly? But she was super turned on by the male players. If the women brought in all these new fans, why can't they bring them into their own events without pulling tens of millions each year unfairly from the men. Money that should go to make the product we watch better

http://m.bbc.co.uk/sport/cycling/35883294

This is brilliant. Cycling not tennis but still an hilarious difference in attitude. Quote from the organiser:

"If you won all three stages of the men's race and you took the general classification money as well, you would still be 40% worse off than the winner of the women's race. So that's a big difference."

Very positive article from the BBC.

MMT1 wrote:

hawkeye wrote:

MMT1 wrote:But we are in agreement on one thing:  the men will soon separate from joint events if they think they can do better on their own, which may be the case shortly.

Probably left it a bit late for that. Without Rafa and Roger the mens game will be a hard sell. Especially with the direction it's going. The ATP has learned nothing and is heading back to the dark days of the nineties. Who wants to watch giants play 5 sets of tie breaks

The women's game doesn't have that problem.

Actually, this is an excellent point - who knows how healthy the game would/will be without Fedal...well, very soon we might find out.  

You guys know tennis existed before federer right? And even back then the male tour garnered way more attention and way more resources. In the 1980s Miami paid the male champion 50 percent more than the women's champion. And another non factual post by HE the WTA makes a fraction now with Serena and Maria, you want to talk about a dearth of star quality on the Men's tour in comparison? Serena is way old and Maria is done as a draw basically. When fedal  leaves the men's tour will take a big hit, but they will still be by far more popular than women's tour just like they were in the 80s, 90s, 70s, and 2000s.

 But I can guarantee that no matter how popular they get they will demand to dip into the till of the men's tour and if the shoe was on the other foot they would never give up 15-20 percent of their prize money for the men. If that happened all of sudden we would find out that equal pay is sexism.

MMT1 wrote:

socal1976 wrote:Where is the ATP acting irrationally? Image is what marketers sell, if the ATP has all these famous women and the press slamming them in the media they lose money by tarnishing their image. The amount of subsidy they have to pay is less than the damage the false accusers would do in the hysterical media.  It's perfectly rational, the enlightened press practically tore djokovic a new one for his ultra mild comments and ended the career of a guy who has a 40 year association with that tournament hell he practically built it. By the way nothing the old guy said was offensive. People read to much into it, these old guys meaning prayer when they say something not sexual submission or oral gratification. 

So it isn't irrational to give in, they are protecting their most marketable asset their brand against damage, and judging by the bizarre media outcry where they rush to the defense of the false accuser and smear anyone who dares raise their voice. I mean the Italian mafia never had a protection racket this effective, they should take some lessons from the Vaginal mafia of the WTA and their Don Serena Gambino.

The ATP are not irrational - it would be economically irrational of the ATP to (according to your analysis) do joint events with the WTA, and thereby cost themselves a lot of money, just to avoid being branded sexist, which according to you, would cost them what...more money?  

If they do joint events it's because there is, or at least was, an economic incentive to do so.  Nobody is doing that to avoid being branded sexist - that's an emotional analysis of a rational financial choice.  If the men could make more money on their own than they do with shared events they would do exactly what you proposed, and separate as soon as possible, because that is a rational choice.

The women can say anything they want from the parking lot - at the ATP only events that would replace the joint events, no more attention would be given to what the WTA or it's players have to say, than male golfers concern themselves with what female golfers have to say about them.

As I stated and as we see from the toxic blowback from the brainless media that protecting their brand from the false accusers is a hugely rational decision. And I think when the fed gravy train is still going that they didn't want to rock the boat. But if and when the purses don't increase by double digits or by healthy increments at that point the men will cut the dead weight out completely. The problem is the slams which they can't do much about, but I would not doubt that in a few years when contracts are back up for negotiation that we don't either get a reduced number of coed events or no coed events at all outside the slams. Short of boycotting the slams maybe even for more than a year they have no chance of shutting off the biggest gravy train, but that is unlikely.

socal1976 wrote:

It Must Be Love wrote:

You're right on one thing, the ATP tour and its infrastructure sure did help Federer. You can't deny that link, and yes it's closer than the link Federer has with the WTA tour.
But you know what ? The WTA tour has also helped Federer.
Let me explain- which other major sport has such a diverse fan base in terms of gender compared to tennis ? I've been around social groups where the women are more interested on average in tennis than men, and you can even see on Facebook groups and social media that a huge number of women follow the sport.
Which other sport has such a big followers of women ? Football ? No. Rugby ? No. Cricket ? No. And these women tennis fans, bring in money and buy tickets and increase the revenue for the tennis industry in a huge way.
And why is it that tennis is unique in having so many women follow the sport ? Perhaps it is because women's tennis is in itself a big industry. When people hear 'women's football', the average reaction is 'lol really'. When people hear women's tennis they think 'ah, serena, venus, sharapova'. That climate itself is a substantial reason why women follow tennis, and why women follow both ATP and WTA tour.
So the strong presence of the WTA tour has created a climate where many women follow tennis, both ATP and WTA, and this certainly helps Federer and Nadal.

Yeah from my experience the WTA being strong or not has nothing to do with financial success of the WTA, if the WTA was so wonderful they could demand these pay days in their own tournaments. The ATP is the draw, and paying them equally has probably cost them a couple of hundred million dollars in prize money since this rule went into effect. None of the things you list makes up for the prejudice of losing that kind of money. I once took a date who was not a tennis fan, she asked to leave after 5 minutes of women's tennis her response was why do they hit so badly? But she was super turned on by the male players. If the women brought in all these new fans, why can't they bring them into their own events without pulling tens of millions each year unfairly from the men. Money that should go to make the product we watch better

Socal, I think you've missed my point here.
It's not that women don't like ATP, it may well be that on average they watch more ATP than WTA, or they watch both equally.  
But the fact that out of all the major sports, women's tennis is well established (compared to women's football etc.), means that many women may be inspired to follow, watch and play tennis. As I said, tennis is more popular with women than football, rugby, and cricket (which don't have established women's game). And these people follow both ATP and WTA, and thus contribute to the revenue that someone like Fedal brings in.

You miss my point, your argument is tenuous and anectodal, so I responded with an anecdote. Tennis can be more popular to women for a host of reasons that has nothing to do with the WTA tour siphoning tens of millions in prize money each year. 1. Many women play tennis 2. Many women are attracted to male tennis players who are on average a bit better looking than your average male 3. It is a graceful, non-violent sport that incorporates power with finesse; my experience many women are turned off by violent contact sports like Rugby, American football, UFC, and boxing and this has nothing to do with the WTA siphoning off extra cash. 4. Tennis is a great game. There are many reasons women follow the ATP, whether a tiny percentage ONLY follow the ATP because there is a well financed and healthy WTA that rakes the pot at coed tournaments is a bit specious and unsupported.

Its not that I dismiss what you say completely its just not supported by any facts and it assumes that some women are brought into following the ATP because the WTA is well financed. That universe of fan may exist but it is inconsequential. Most women, just like most men often follow tennis because they played at one time or another. I bet if you polled all the women on this site I doubt a single one would say I follow the ATP because the WTA is well financed.

Socal, I didn't base my case on anecdotes, and as you just acknowledged, it's obvious that women follow tennis more than they follow most major sports.

Just like you argue that Federer shouldn't necessarily be rewarded proportionately with all the revenue he raises for a tournament because the ATP tour has 'given to him', the presence of WTA tennis has also helped Federer's commercial success.
The fact the WTA is established and mainstream is one of the reason so many women play and thus follow tennis, and in turn many of these women are Federer fans; so they contribute to the revenue that Federer brings in to tournaments. So in a way, the WTA has indirectly helped Federer's commercial success in the long run.
I'm not making the specific argument that equal prize money at any tournament itself makes a huge difference to Federer's wealth- but the broader establishment of a mainstream WTA has.

Let's go through your 4 reasons as to why so many women follow tennis:
1/ Many women play tennis- I think that's linked to the point I'm making. The fact they switch on the TV when young and see women tennis players on the screen and in the news; that can have an impact on young women choosing tennis as a sport.  
2/ Many women are attracted to male tennis players- ok but we can look at football and there are many heart-throbs like David Beckham and Wayne Rooney, yet not that many women football fans.
3/ Tennis is a non violent sport- Nor is football and golf
4/ Tennis is a great game- well fans of every major sport would argue their sport is a 'great game', so ?
All your 4 reasons are valid, and your first point is closely linked to what I'm saying. You're not countering my main argument here.

So IMBL are you claiming that Women didn't like Tennis as much in 80s, 90s, and early 2000s because Serena wasn't able to rake the ATP pot? Do you have any evidence to back up your assertion that equal prize money has brought massive numbers of female fans to tennis? Tennis was popular with girls in the 1980s when male players made 50 percent or more in prize money. Sorry, if having 250 percent bigger ratings equates to equal prize money at coed events, well than that is a huge shakedown due to coercion. You can dress up the pig anyway you like but your points are unsupported and tenuous. So women will turn off the ATP unless Serena makes equal prize money? Why then did they watch up until the mid 2000s when it started to change?

Women could stop watching though if the false sexism accusers trying to coerce money they can't earn on their own, and aided by hysterical media who can't wait to show how wonderful they are by fighting non-existent sexism (in this case). I mean depending on the size of crap storm Serena, Navaratilova, BJK, and others create they could create an enough of a black eye to break this bond, that is precisely what they are blackmailing the ATP with. But unless they go down this road, ladies were watching tennis back prior to 05. This is a shakedown anyway you want to cut it, money through terror of having blackmailers crap on your brand.

socal1976 wrote:So women will turn off the ATP unless Serena makes equal prize money? Why then did they watch up until the mid 2000s when it started to change?

Socal, that's exactly what I'm not arguing. To quote from my previous post:

The fact the WTA is established and mainstream is one of the reason so many women play and thus follow tennis, and in turn many of these women are Federer fans; so they contribute to the revenue that Federer brings in to tournaments. So in a way, the WTA has indirectly helped Federer's commercial success in the long run.
I'm not making the specific argument that equal prize money at any tournament itself makes a huge difference to Federer's wealth- but the broader establishment of a mainstream WTA has.

Remember, this point is the context of you saying that Federer shouldn't get his proportionate prize money in terms of revenue brought in, because the ATP tour has 'given to him' in a general element. I accepted that. But I'm also making the point that there is also a link, although indirect, on how the women's game has 'given to him'.

Its a shakedown and you can tell that coercion is the basis of it and not a win-win for both tours. Look at the acid like blowback Novak got, look at the fact that a 40 plus year veteran who pretty much made that tournament got fired for innocuous comments even questioning this unfair system. Extortion, coercion, smears, threats and destroying people who hold a different position. Doesn't sound like a win-win to me. Look at how they destroyed this guy and went after Djokovic, I mean do you need to go to this extent if the men are winning to, if they are benefitting so much why do you need the media bum rush?

Women played and followed tennis and had their own tour that was successful enough long before the Williams sisters and Martina taught them how to shake the men's tour down for money they could not earn on their own. Your point was that Tennis has more female fans precisely because there is a WTA tour and that tour gets to rake money from the men's prize pot. That point is just wrong and not supported by history. Women had a tour prior to this rule change at tourneys from 05-07. So none of your 4 points comedown in favor of this unfair and unjust system. I can't think of many women who support tennis because the women get to rake the ATP pot at coed tourneys.

Beyond that the odious behavior of these women stars past and present using false accusations of sexism in a crass and self interested money grab makes me ten times more likely to not want to support their tour. The people who should be get destroyed in the media are Serena and Navaratilova for couching their naked money grab in the cloak of civil rights.

PS In summation if you want to prove what you are saying show me how this rule change brought a new flood of female fans to the ATP that they otherwise would not have. If you can show me for example that in 2000 we had 40 percent of the fans of the game being women and then after these rule changes in 2010 we had 60 percent women fans. And that during this period the raw numbers of fans went up and that despite the Fedal growth this more massive increase in female fans came from the decision to let the WTA rake the ATP pot. Otherwise you are just making up hypotheticals that sound plausible to you and convincing to you but aren't logical to me.

This is funny.

@Stako_tennis I played you in a Davis cup match in Ukraine and there must have been a thousand people there max!

https://twitter.com/andy_murray/status/712446525411041280?ref_src=twsrc^tfw

Perhaps 90% of them were students at Stirling University who had tickets given to them   Difficult to get people to buy tickets for a mens match when they have zero chance of seeing Rafa or Roger. When you throw stones about it's always better to be safe than sorry.

I'm against calling people sexist if they disagree with this position, and don't like the way the media handle such issues. I'm with you on that Socal.
But back to the point-

socal1976 wrote:PS In summation if you want to prove what you are saying show me how this rule change brought a new flood of female fans to the ATP that they otherwise would not have.

Socal I've made it really clear 3 times now, and even quoted myself once; I am not saying this ^. I am not claiming the rule change brought a flood of female fans. I've said it so many times, I'm going to have to look up a thesaurus and try and find synonyms so I can say it again without using the same words.

Remember what the point of contention here is. Just like you are angry on the behalf of Djokovic vs WTA; I could be angry on the behalf of Federer vs most of the tour, as the prize money even if he wins is not proportionate to what he brings in to the tournament in revenue. On the basis of an individual mandatory tournament, the other players are being 'parasites' in that the money they receive in prize money is boosted by Federer.
(Federer if he wanted to could boycott every Masters 1000 until he got an appearance fee from each one, and if he was serious, the 'mandatory' tournaments would probably oblige).
But as you fairly argued, the ATP tour has in general terms 'given' to Federer in terms of creating the structure for him to excel; so it's reasonable for Federer to give back in the form of not demanding he gets paid more at every event.
I also spotted the link in the way that the WTA tour, and the fact for the past few decades they have been well established and have decent infrastructure, has also indirectly helped Federer's commercial success. So just like you argued above, it's reasonable that Federer doesn't boycott joint events for financial gain, to 'give back to the game'.

HM Murdock wrote:Pathetic. Symptomatic of so much that is wrong with our culture.

Looks at the given responses:

"offensive and very inaccurate"
"extremely prejudiced"
"no place for Moore's antiquated, sexist or uninformed ideologies"

No use of facts or logic. No attempt to disprove the argument. No attempt to appeal to reason.

Just a blanket claim that he is wrong.

And yet Moore is the one with the "ideology".

FWIW, I happen to think there are some sensible arguments that could be used to counter Moore's view. But the usual suspects are more concerned about convicting someone of thoughtcrime.

Pathetic.

Absolutely brilliant.

Utter bigots happily think of themselves as epitomes of open-mindedness, because open-mindedness is no longer about the ability to look at things with an open mind, but rather about espousing the "right" opinions.

That said, I will admit that compared to the quality of discourse that was generally allowed in public and in the media in the communist Eastern Europe while I was growing up there, our current status is still reasonably good.  Though of course that is a very low bar to clear.

With posts like this, it is hard to believe you are a Nole fan.  I guess nobody is perfect.

IMBL, the AtP provided Fed with a forum when no one knew who he was and in 2001 and 2002 maybe Sampras and Agassi could have said who is this Federer guy riding our coattails. You understand that Fed's relationship to the ATP tour is and you also understand that the WTA has nothing like that relationship with Fed. Yet you keep trying to use amorphous anecdotal evidence to argue that Fed has benefitted from women. Great, so have we all, no one is saying half the population doesn't have value and great value. What we don't get is why millionaires with their own tour that makes money must get paid as much as the men even though the men's tour outdraws them by 250 percent (tv deal). That is the whole point. Serena Williams using false allegations of sexism to raid ATP tour prize money. Sexism and women's rights are not involved. It is a group of cynical, coddled millionaires deciding that they are like the Rosa Parks of sports, and they will show how great and egalitarian they are by using coercion to take money they can't earn on their own through smears and false charges of sexism. If this is supposed to make a statement to young women, whatever that statement is I want to do the opposite. Fed has gotten 100 million dollars in checks from the ATP tour events, has he received dime freaking fing one from the WTA and their events. If not it isn't apples to apples like you try to make it and pie in the sky arguments about self esteem of young girls and some amorphous benefit to the men's tour that you refuse to cite any fact for is supposed to make up for hundreds of millions in subsidies over the years. Well it doesn't. Why don't we all just mail 20 percent of our salaries or bonuses to our female coworkers to make a statement against sexism or make them feel better about themselves?

I mean you keep talking like this is a win for the ATP tour and Federer, how, where is it, how much is it, how does it make up for a couple million in pilfering at each event through threats of blackmail? I have read hundreds of words from you on the issue and have yet to figure out what benefit the men, Federer or anyone on the ATP gets for being shaken down. Next you are going to tell me that the students at Trump University got something for their investment, Trump University was more beneficial than the supposed benefit that you talk about that no one but you can see. If the WTA had less or more money how would that have impacted the rise of Federer? I mean don't you state yourself that women like tennis and it has nothing to do with the WTA raking the ATP prize pool at events, so what benefit?

Djokovic under the 80s rules which reflected the ratings and bigger draw of the male tour would have made about 500,000 dollars more last week, he has probably lost close to ten million in prize money due to this nonsense extortion. Tell me how he benefits? Tell me why he doesn't have a right to speak out. Novak has been a gentleman. If it was me that lost ten million to commercial duress and false allegations of sexism then I would be taking a photo of Martina, Serena, and BJK in to every press conference and freaking defecating on it.

hawkeye wrote:This is funny.

@Stako_tennis I played you in a Davis cup match in Ukraine and there must have been a thousand people there max!

https://twitter.com/andy_murray/status/712446525411041280?ref_src=twsrc^tfw

Perhaps 90% of them were students at Stirling University who had tickets given to them   Difficult to get people to buy tickets for a mens match when they have zero chance of seeing Rafa or Roger. When you throw stones about it's always better to be safe than sorry.

Yeah because the Men's tour after Roger or Rafa is relying on Stakhovsky to sell tickets. Are you drinking crazy juice or something? Like Tsonga or Gazza aren't draws in France. Like Djokovic and Murray aren't draws. Like Del Po isn't a draw in Latin America or Kyrgios or Dimitrov; no once Fedal is gone we will be left with Stakhovsky. Please, the women's game has had the greatest player in its history for the last 15 years, longer than the Men's game has had its GOAT, and most of their tournaments pay like freaking challengers. Right now if the women's game had drawing power with Maria (prior to ban) and Serena (probable GOAT or GOAT shortlist) but instead they have to get by coercing money that they could not earn on their own. You heard it here first after Fedal we have to rely on Stakhovsky to sell seats. Wow HE, all I have to say is WOW!

summerblues wrote:

HM Murdock wrote:Pathetic. Symptomatic of so much that is wrong with our culture.

Looks at the given responses:

"offensive and very inaccurate"
"extremely prejudiced"
"no place for Moore's antiquated, sexist or uninformed ideologies"

No use of facts or logic. No attempt to disprove the argument. No attempt to appeal to reason.

Just a blanket claim that he is wrong.

And yet Moore is the one with the "ideology".

FWIW, I happen to think there are some sensible arguments that could be used to counter Moore's view. But the usual suspects are more concerned about convicting someone of thoughtcrime.

Pathetic.

Absolutely brilliant.

Utter bigots happily think of themselves as epitomes of open-mindedness, because open-mindedness is no longer about the ability to look at things with an open mind, but rather about espousing the "right" opinions.

That said, I will admit that compared to the quality of discourse that was generally allowed in public and in the media in the communist Eastern Europe while I was growing up there, our current status is still reasonably good.  Though of course that is a very low bar to clear.

With posts like this, it is hard to believe you are a Nole fan.  I guess nobody is perfect.

You got a problem with Nole fans chum? Because by far the biggest aholes I have met on tennis forums are all but exclusively fans of a certain swoosh wearing pomposity.