Tennis merger a boon for all

NEW YORK • When Roger Federer floated the prospect of merging the men and women's tennis tours, Billie Jean King saw potential for her 50-year dream to come true.

"I'm thinking, 'Yes! Maybe there's still hope'," she said. "I'm 76, but I'm hoping before I die that the men and women are together."

King, a 39-time Grand Slam champion and a long-time crusader for women's rights and women's sports, founded the Women's Tennis Association (WTA) in 1973 after failing to persuade the men to create a joint venture.

"It was really rough times," she said. "But I think this is a new generation of men, and they are probably second or third generation of the women's movement.

"I think the men today are so different. I think they are uplifting. You look at the basketball players, what Kobe (Bryant) was doing with women's basketball. These guys want their daughters to have the same as their sons."

Combining the tours could create more leverage for unified deals with sponsors, broadcasters and data companies. Plus it might streamline the calendar and eliminate differences in the rules. The WTA, for example, allows in-match coaching; the men's ATP does not.

There is still strong resistance to a merger from some male players, including outspoken Nick Kyrgios, who remain convinced that their tour, which generates more prize money and attendance, should continue to go it alone.

But Federer's tweet hardly emerged from the blue. Andrea Gaudenzi, a former player from Italy who became chairman of the ATP Tour in January, was hired in part because he was pushing for greater cooperation in a long-divided sport, emphasising the commercial benefits of joining forces.

He wants not only to bring the tours together, but also to fold in the Grand Slam tournaments, which remain the sport's focal points and most powerful financial engines.

For now, the Grand Slam events operate independently.

"If you only talk about the WTA and ATP together, it's probably one plus one equals four," Gaudenzi said. "But if you add the Grand Slams into the equation, it's probably one plus one plus four equals 20."

Before the Covid-19 pandemic, he presented his ideas to all of tennis' leaders, emphasising a report from SportBusiness Consulting that estimated the value of global sports media rights for 2018 at about US$49 billion (S$69.8 billion).

Professional tennis accounts for less than 1.5 per cent of that figure, said Gaudenzi, who considers that far too low in the light of the sport's international reach, its collective star power and a fan base that is about equally balanced between men and women.

Male stars Rafael Nadal and Stan Wawrinka have joined Federer in expressing support for exploring a merger. So have leading female players such as Simona Halep, Petra Kvitova and Garbine Muguruza.

Darren Cahill, Halep's coach, also weighed in yesterday.

"I think, hypothetically, it would be a pretty good position for a tennis player to be in, because you know that every single decision being made is made in the best interest of the game," the Australian, who previously worked with Andre Agassi and Lleyton Hewitt, told the National newspaper.

Cahill, winner of two ATP singles titles, also believes that a merger can provide a more coherent experience for fans, who now typically need multiple cable and digital subscriptions to follow the men and women's games.

"At the moment, as a fan of tennis, if you want to try to follow tennis, whether it's Davis Cup, Fed Cup, the WTA, the ATP, smaller events, there are so many different platforms a fan has to subscribe to, and it's confusing," he said.

NYTIMES, REUTERS