By Richard Pagliaro | @Tennis_Now | Friday, January 3, 2024
Photo: TennisTV
Novak Djokovic I know tennis is a cutting edge business.
The Grand Slam king is not only the GOAT, Djokovic is also the HENDOR.
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The Serbian superstar is the all-time pro tennis earnings leader, earning more than $185 million during his illustrious career.
Asked for his assessment of Nick Kyrgios’ claim that tennis players are “absurdly” underpaid, Djokovic fully backed Kyrgios’ claim.
Compared to other major sports, tennis players are not getting a good share of the sport’s pie, Djokovic said.
“I’m just going to state a fact. It’s not my opinion,” Djokovic told media in Brisbane. “The fact is, that’s true, what (Kyrgios) is saying. The split between governing bodies in major sports, all major American sports, like NFL, NBA, baseball, NHL, is 50% maybe more, some less, but about 50%.
“Ours is much lower than that. It’s true. Obviously it’s a little bit — well, different sport because it’s international, it’s played globally. We’re under different rules and regulations of different countries and legislation, taxes , etc., etc. Each tournament is independently governing their prize money distribution is quite fragmented from this point of view”.
Former Wimbledon finalist Kyrgios called the players’ prize money “a joke” compared to other sports, especially given the fact that tennis is international.
“The tournament is ridiculous compared to any other sport,” Kyrgios said. “It’s absurd, really, the amount of travel we do, considering we don’t even get paid what we should be paid, too, which is a joke.”
Djokovic, a former President of the ATP Players Council, and Vasek Pospisil founded the Professional Tennis Players Association with the goal of giving professional players full representation in the game’s decision-making process.
In Brisbane, Djokovic reiterated his long-held contention that the structure of the ATP Board of Directors is broken and does not adequately represent the interests of players.
“We have a problem in ourselves – how can I say–the structure of the ATP is that as players we only have 50% of that organization,” Djokovic said. “There have been many times a conflict of interest between the tournaments and the players. We wanted something different.
“We are part of the same system and cannot do without each other, but we often find ourselves in conflict situations.
“We want more money, they maybe don’t want to give us that much money when we talk about prize money. There are so many different layers of prize money that you have to look at. It’s not that simple.
“Essentially what Nick was talking about is true. If you look at it from a kind of overall picture of the pure percentage that the players get from the revenue share, it’s much lower than most other global sports, especially American sports.”
