Game Over for Kosmos?
After the termination of the cooperation at the Davis Cup by the ITF, the investment group Kosmos around the former soccer star Gerard Piqué is about to close the subsidiaries Kosmos Tennis and Kosmos Management, combined with an immediate withdrawal from tennis.
by Dietmar Kaspar
last edit: May 13, 2023, 11:06 am
The promises were big in 2018, when the consortium of investors led by former Barcelona player Gerard Piqué, together with the ITF, announced the new Davis Cup deal, which should generate a total of $3 billion for the member associations over 25 years. But even the change in the game mode caused trouble worldwide and was pushed through despite fierce resistance from the big tennis nations such as Great Britain, Australia and Germany.
Financial disaster due to missing spectators
Right from the start, the scheduling of matches without home spectators showed the negative effects, which often led to games in front of real ghost scenes. You don't need a lot of imagination to realize that the refinancing and thus compliance with the agreed deal could not work under any circumstances. In January this year, the ITF had had enough of the tragedy and announced Kosmos' cooperation in the most traditional team competition after 5 years with immediate effect. Two months later, the world tennis association announced the cooperation with the tennis agency Tennium for the upcoming Davis Cup finals, which will also host the ATP tournament at Rothenbaum in Hamburg from 2024.
Top players as clients
In addition to marketing the Davis Cup, Kosmos also acted as a management agency for professional players. The Austrian Dominic Thiem, who joined the Spanish agency after separating from the Emotion Group, was landed as a major draft horse. Shortly after the cosmos bang with the ITF, Lichtenwörther repositioned himself in terms of management and has been represented by his brother Moritz ever since. With Andrey Rublev, Elina Svitolina, Borna Coric, other top players belonged to the customer base, which was also expanded in the spring. In addition to the U16 European champions Joel Schwärzler from Austria and Serbian Mia Ristic, the Spanish champions in the children's and youth sector should also secure the agency's future as stars of tomorrow.
Blanco with a new agency
Responsible for the tennis management area at Kosmos was the former professional player Galo Blanco, who now appears as managing director of the newly founded 72SportsGroup and is already advertising with the former Kosmos clients Rublev, Svitolina and Coric. So it seems that Piqué is completely saying goodbye to the yellow felt ball business.