USTA Wanted Long-Term Agreement With Players

Written by: Staff on 21st March 2013

USTA Wanted Long-Term Agreement With Players |

The USTA felt that it had to increase prize money at the US Open by a record amount because top officials felt they needed a long term agreement with the players to move ahead with their other plans.

They agreed with the ATP Player’s Council that lower ranked competitors needed more money to be able to make a proper living.

The USTA announced it will provide $50 million in US Open prize money annually by 2017 to both the men and the women and will increase base prize money for the 2013 US Open by an additional $4.1 million above the previously announced increase of four million dollars in December 2012. Base prize money for the 2013 US Open will now total more than $33.6 million, a more than $8.1 million increase over the $25.5 million available to players at the 2012 US Open, a whopping 31.7% increase.

“It was important for us to get some long-term stability in this important area because we’ve got some big things to do,’ said Gordon Smith, USTA Executive Director and Chief Operating Officer. “We’ve got to really get more kids on the courts playing tennis, and we’ve got a big job ahead of us in transforming the tennis center into the type of facility that we wanted it to be. So that was a major impetus for making this move…This discussion with the players that’s gone on now for over a year really allowed us as partners to create a predictable future for both them and us. Now we can go about our financial planning for the other significant items that we have to do.”

Smith said that they were not confronted with a threat of player boycott and characterized the discussions as spirited.

“We knew that we would be going up on prize money, as our income increases and frankly as the needs of players have increased,” he said. It’s difficult for lower-ranked players to make a living on the tour, and we realized that this needed to be done both for the Open and for the players. We have to recognize that the players mean everything to the Open and they’re incredibly valuable to the sport and valuable to the success of the Open, and we have to reward them accordingly.”

ATP Players Council President Roger Federer was heavily involved in the discussions. Daily Tennis has learned that Federer called USTA President Dave Haggerty directly over the matter. At the Miami tournament on Tuesday, Smith and US Open tournament director David Brewer made a formal presentation to the ATP Players Council. Federer called into that meeting from Switzerland.

ATP Board of Directors member Justin Gimelstob was also heavily involved in the talks.

A source told Daily Tennis that unlike the ATP Players Council, the WTA Players Council was not as heavily involved in the discussions and it was WTA CEO Stacy Allaster who took the lead. The WTA has acknowledged that the ATP has been at the forefront of negotiations with the Grand Slams. A source also said that the WTA asked its players to personally thank Federer for leading the charge.

However, the WTA claims that its Player Council and top players were informed and at Indian Wells last week, Player Council representatives Samantha Stosur and Lucie Safarova ( as well as world No. 3 Victoria Azarenka and others) did meet with the USTA and expressed support for the proposal.

“We know that this announcement is going to cost the USTA more money, and I think that we certainly know that it’s going to affect some of what we do, some of our programs, so from an expense perspective, we’ll take a look and be diligent at what we do there,” said Haggerty. We’ll also look at revenues and see if there are ways to improve what we’re doing. What we will not do is we will not drastically increase the ticket prices for our fans and spectators to pay for it. Certainly inflationary increases over years may be what you see, but we’re not going to put it to the fans.”

The US Open also announced that it will go back to a Sunday men’s final in 2015 and that the women’s final will be played on Saturday. Also, the tournament will no longer play its first round over three days.

The tournament has yet to decide how it will distribute its prize money round to round, but will do so in consultation with the players.

The ATP and WTA are still involved in discussions with Roland Garros and Wimbledon over how much those two Grand Slams will increase prize money. Roland Garros is said to be close to making an announcement.

©Daily tennis News Wire

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