ATP wants to follow PGA Tour model with guaranteed prize money amid breakout threats

Carlos Alcaraz is a rising star on the ATP Tour. Credit: Getty Images/Pau Barrena

Men's tennis plans to emulate the PGA Tour with a new fee structure, with guaranteed income streaks for the world's top 250 or 300 players.

Just like golf recently increased its prize packages to reflect the breakaway scheme backed by Saudi Arabia. LIV Golf — Every PGA Tour card holder is guaranteed a minimum annual salary of $500,000 (£400,000) — ATP aims to reduce the stress and uncertainty of professional tennis players on the tour.

The idea is that any player ranked high enough to play on the ATP Tour or the optional Challenger Tour will earn the expected income based on their position on January 1st.

< p >The fine print is still being worked on, but the aim is to cover the cost of funding your career, which for a top player like Barcelona weekend champion Carlos Alcaraz, who comes to Madrid as the #1 seed, could be around $100,000 per year for travel, plus $75,000 for a full-time coach and $50,000 for coach travel.

The Challenger player will obviously expect significantly lower expenses and, thus, will be entitled to a much smaller guaranteed payment package.

ATP, whose chairman Andrea Gaudenzi was re-elected this month for a new three-year term, is making an estimated $200 million a year from a combination of its Turin final, sponsorship deals, sanction fees for the tournaments it certifies, and a share of media rights.< /p>

That's not enough to pay the salaries of 250-odd players at the start of the year without a substantial overdraft. So the plan is to offer extra end-of-season payouts to those whose income has fallen way below what was expected — whether it's due to injury or catastrophic loss of form.

By taking on some of the risk outside of season planning ATP executives hope to encourage players to invest in their own development, which in most cases means hiring staff to assist with training, fitness training, or physical and mental well-being.

Because of the structural differences in how these two sports, the ATP Tour has a much lower revenue than the PGA, which hosts its own events rather than using intermediaries, and thus earns about $1.5 billion a year.

But these the two sports increasingly share ideas about how to take care of their players, especially after the wake-up call that came with the separation from LIV Golf.

In tennis, the ATP has a close eye on professional tennis. The Players Association is a rival union led by world No. 1 Novak Djokovic, although the PTPA has yet to come up with a clear plan of its own to grow the game or player income.