The tennis world, or more precisely the ATP players’ association, is reorganizing the financial flows. From next year there will be a kind of basic income for players – depending on their world rankings.
The ATP would like to give tennis players more financial independence and will introduce a new monetary system called “Baseline”, i.e. a kind of minimum income, next year.
“This assurance will allow players to plan their season with greater certainty, to focus on their game and to invest in their teams. This includes covering the costs of coaches and personal physiotherapists as well as travel expenses,” wrote the ATP as justification.
In concrete terms, this means: The players from the top 100 will receive 300,000 US dollars from 2024, unless they exceed a set limit in prize money. The further you drop in the world rankings, the less the fixed basic income becomes. Between places 101 to 175 it’s $150,000, up to place 250 it’s still $75,000. But whoever is behind it is looking into the tube.
Criticism of the tennis basic income
Now the introduction was not only praised, but also criticized – for example by Nick Kyrgios. The Australian, who was never at a loss for a word, got excited on Twitter: “Still not enough,” he commented on a post that detailed the distribution of the money. For this he received a lot of approval in the network. The tenor is that younger and poorly ranked players in particular need more support.
The criticism of the British tennis coach Calvin Betton, who trains many young players, goes in the same direction. “It’s aimed at the wrong people: it’s the ones outside the top 250 who really need help,” he told the British Telegraph.
After persistent injury problems, Kyrgios is also out for the US Open, which starts next week.