Craig Tiley - "The price for the Australian Open was high"
Craig Tiley, Head of Tennis Australia, emphasized the enormous costs for his association in his balance sheet of the Australian Open 2021. And dared a more pessimistic outlook into the future.
by Jörg Allmeroth
last edit: Feb 19, 2021, 01:52 pm
When Craig Tiley was asked on Friday about the financial loss balance for the Australian Open, he was still unable to understand the full extent. The bustling tournament director of the Melbourne Grand Slam competition has often had to look into an uncertain and unpredictable future in the past few months, and the final accounts have been a bit nebulous up to now - the big accounting after the most complicated and ambitious competition, which was set up in times of the pandemic. The loss will probably amount to at least 100 million Australian dollars, or around 65 million euros, said Tiley: “But it can also be more. The whole thing is very hard for us. We have to use our reserves. ”Especially if the speculations that were made in the Australian media prove to be true, there was even talk of a loss of 140 million dollars (90 million euros), not least because of the five-day lockdown in the middle in tournament operations.
Tiley and his troop fought for this tournament for months with almost desperate determination, often enough against all expectations in the traveling circus itself. Often enough also against the majority of the Melbourne population, who were concerned about the entry of tennis professionals from all over the world and the possible importation of the feared virus largely defeated in Australia. Tiley sees the event as a “model that the sport can continue with good concepts even in pandemic times”, but he is also aware that not every tournament, every sports series can be held under similar conditions. "The price of the Australian Open was high," said Tiley, who also admitted that you had to borrow $ 40 million to $ 60 million to keep the business going. No wonder that not everyone in Australia's tennis scene is happy with the decision by the Grand Slam organizers not to cut the prize money for the Australian Open - a whopping 80 million Australian dollars (51.5 million euros).
Tiley - "Look into the Great Uncertainty"
Qualification tournaments far away from the actual Grand Slam venue, charter flights from several continents to Melbourne, a 14-day quarantine with and without special regulations, spectators in separate zones - for most tour competitions this is not a viable and profitable business model. And so the question arises how things can go on in the second Coroona season in world tennis. "It is a look ahead into the great uncertainty," says the tournament director of a top European competition. On the one hand, there is the calendar that the player organizations ATP and WTA have set up for the next few weeks and months, but on the other, according to the manager, “nobody can say whether these dates will all stand up to reality.” This is especially true for Europe - with a wide variety of corona restrictions, an impending further wave of pandemics due to mutations in the virus.
But also because it is not clear whether all tournaments have a financially sustainable structure. Is the prospect of TV revenue alone enough to compensate for losses caused by a lack of sponsorship money and ticket sales? It will be difficult for many organizers to achieve a “black zero”, says an ATP manager himself, many could just go to the start “so as not to disappear from the map.” At the Australian Open, front man Novak Djokovic and Germany's top player Alexander Zverev recently questioned the usefulness of the usual travel business in tennis, both suggested playing several tournaments in a row at one location. However, that would mean that competitions planned elsewhere might turn out to be the same as in 2020 and their existence would be threatened, especially smaller events with a rather tight budget anyway.
In addition to the Grand Slam tournaments, the other top competitions on both tours have greater chances of surviving the crisis moderately. But the situation there is also tense because long-term sponsors have to hold their money together. And because many tournaments are unable to finance expensive hygiene concepts and at the same time also pay entry bonuses for players. At the virtual meetings of the tournament directors, these questions were often the focus of attention recently, says one of the bosses who was there: “Are the players willing to accept cuts in the prize money, even deep cuts. And are inaugural bonuses affordable at the moment? "
Tiley, the Australian Open boss, has also expressed skepticism about hosting the Olympic Games in Tokyo in the summer. This will "not work" with the previous hygiene concepts, said Tiley: "The plans are not determined and consistent enough."