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2007-10-05 16:04:22
Appearance fees used to be a subject that tournament organizers didn’t want to talk about, as it was against the rules of professional tennis. Today, it is fully acceptable and it is common knowledge that tournaments pay large sums of money to attract the top names. However, you will not hear a lot of organizers talking about this.
One big exception is the organizers of the Thailand Open played last week. They have a huge roll of money and have no problem talking about it. A year ago, we could read in the papers about the money spent on top players such as Ljubicic, Baghdatis and Blake. In 2007, they wanted to take it one step further and spent their millions on Nadal, Djokovic and Roddick. That is a pretty amazing line up with three top 5 players. So what did they get? A night match featuring lucky loser Phillip King and Yeu-Tzuoo Wang, as all three stars withdrew because of different reasons. Was this a complete disaster?
Maybe the organizers look at it that way, but they can lick their wounds by looking at the big box of money that they have left. They can also learn a valuable lesson. Money will not buy you a great tournament. Even if the stars show up, the risk is high that they are there just for the money and will put in a lackluster effort. This has been done more than once by the highest ranked Russian at the moment, who is notorious for wanting to maximize his profits in any possible way. That is why I am not a big fan of appearance fees.
The top players make huge sums of money based on their performances. An organizer who tries to persuade a top player to show up with a big appearance fee will almost always get a player who doesn’t bring his heart to the event. Professional tennis tournaments should be competed between players who are their to compete for pride, ranking points and prize money. The stars of the game should play the events where they feel that they are 100 % competitive. Nadal, Djokovic and Roddick proved that money wasn’t everything for them when they chose to withdraw in Bangkok. That was definitely much better for the tournament than if the trio would have taken part without their normal competitiveness.
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