$43,000 goes to each 1st round LOSER (round of 128) at the U.S. Open tennis tournament

Consider this.... wrote:

Lose in the round of 32, WIN $140,000.

http://www.usopen.org/en_US/event_guide/prize_money.html

And the Diamond League gives only $40,000 to the winner of the entire series. Pitiful.

Read up on capitalism and the free market son.

All professional sportsmen and womenare hideously overpaid, especially the women athletes. A professional sports person does nothing constructive for society and society needs to be focusing on solving its problems rather than obsessing about sports. It is absurd that society has decided to reward sports people financially over the last 70 years or so when this was never really done in human history before this.

A way of solving this problem is to make all sports amateur again or to tax anyone earning money from sports very heavily and put this money into funding solutions to important problems such as healthcare research etc ...

Outside the top 100 (automatic majors qualification), it's pretty bleak on the pro tennis circuit(s).

Really, they upped this so that the bottom of the top 100 afford to bring a coach.

Travel can easily total $100K at the ATP level.

Crazy. Are most tournaments that way? A "no height" gets you a check?

Golf, most weeks, half the field gets cut and goes home empty handed.

Yeah, transporting all those tennis racquets alone must run about $20K.

the future wrote:

All professional sportsmen and womenare hideously overpaid, especially the women athletes. A professional sports person does nothing constructive for society and society needs to be focusing on solving its problems rather than obsessing about sports. It is absurd that society has decided to reward sports people financially over the last 70 years or so when this was never really done in human history before this.

A way of solving this problem is to make all sports amateur again or to tax anyone earning money from sports very heavily and put this money into funding solutions to important problems such as healthcare research etc ...

Don't single out athletes. Your criticism is equally applicable to actors, musicians, fiction writers, etc., all of whom entertain people without doing anything else that is "constructive". Don't you think that in an advanced society there is room for people who do things that don't contribute directly to our survival but only to advancing our quality of life through entertainment?

the future wrote:

All professional sportsmen and womenare hideously overpaid, especially the women athletes. A professional sports person does nothing constructive for society and society needs to be focusing on solving its problems rather than obsessing about sports. It is absurd that society has decided to reward sports people financially over the last 70 years or so when this was never really done in human history before this.

A way of solving this problem is to make all sports amateur again or to tax anyone earning money from sports very heavily and put this money into funding solutions to important problems such as healthcare research etc ...

I don't understand the logic by which you conclude that the players have not earned the money, but "society" has. If the person who played the tennis match does not deserve a large piece of the revenue produced by the tournament, then people who had no part in the event certainly don't deserve it.

Anyway, total tax revenue would fall if we taxed these events "very heavily" because they just wouldn't happen in the US anymore. Taxing a piece of the economic activity generated by the US Open is better than taxing 100% of nothing.

I'm totally going to enter the US Open next year! Thanks for the tip.

Adam S. wrote:

Consider this.... wrote:

Lose in the round of 32, WIN $140,000.

http://www.usopen.org/en_US/event_guide/prize_money.html

And the Diamond League gives only $40,000 to the winner of the entire series. Pitiful.

Read up on capitalism and the free market son.

But the DL series champ is such a higher level of elite athlete in their sport than the typical 1st Round U.S. Open loser, it's laughable. Also, the DL winner is generating way more public attention and interest than the female tennis player who makes more $ on a poor performance in one freakin' 2 set match that no one is even watching! There's no pressure on the tennis player whatsoever. They can do whatever the hell they want out there and they're still gonna walk away with $43K. Ridiculous.

Consider this.... wrote:

Adam S. wrote:

Read up on capitalism and the free market son.

But the DL series champ is such a higher level of elite athlete in their sport than the typical 1st Round U.S. Open loser, it's laughable. Also, the DL winner is generating way more public attention and interest than the female tennis player who makes more $ on a poor performance in one freakin' 2 set match that no one is even watching! There's no pressure on the tennis player whatsoever. They can do whatever the hell they want out there and they're still gonna walk away with $43K. Ridiculous.

The DL winner generates very little public attention. But someone has to be available to play Serena or Nadal or the other highly seeded players. Those first round matches generate way more public attention than any DL champ. That is why there is way more money available in tennis than in track. And as a bonus, every once in a while upsets happen.

I just think our kids deserve to be rewarded a little better. That's all.

Consider this.... wrote:

Lose in the round of 32, WIN $140,000.

http://www.usopen.org/en_US/event_guide/prize_money.html

And the Diamond League gives only $40,000 to the winner of the entire series. Pitiful.

The fact of the matter is that track does not generate enough interest or revenue to pay the athletes much money. Compare what the US Open revenue is versus Diamond League and you have your answer.

No one gives a damn about track except for during the Olympics

From Forbes:

The Open is the largest annually attended sporting event in the world with more than 700,000 fans in attendance and ticket revenue of roughly $100 million. Total revenue for the event from tickets, sponsors, television and concessions has risen steadily and hit $253 million in 2013, according to the most recently available financial statements for the U.S. Tennis Association. But revenues are expected to soar thanks to a renovation of the Billie Jean King National Tennis Center and a new TV deal.

Women tennis players do generate a LOT of attention. First round losers have to make it to the U.S. Open in the first place. If they are not already ranked, they go through series of qualifying tournaments to make it. In the U.S. qualifying tournament alone, 128 men and 128 women compete for 16 spots each in the tournament. So, they alone have to be in the top 12.5% of the qualifying tournament, where they would play three matches just to get to that opening match. I don't know what the prize money they get there is (the qualifying tournament has $1 million in prize money total), but now it is more like $11k/match for those fortunate enough to make it to the first round of the open.

And here's a link to the Sectional qualifying that precedes this. Entry fee here is $108.

http://tennislink.usta.com/tournaments/tournamenthome/tournament.aspx?T=169587

Consider this.... wrote:

Lose in the round of 32, WIN $140,000.

http://www.usopen.org/en_US/event_guide/prize_money.html

And the Diamond League gives only $40,000 to the winner of the entire series. Pitiful.

1) That isn't all the diamond league pays, it's still way less but you are being misleading.

2) That's each, for multiple events. We can give up every event that the common person doesn't care about and just let Bolt and co race if you want it more equal.

3) Fans like you won't even pay to support track, so you're to blame.

the future wrote:

All professional sportsmen and womenare hideously overpaid, especially the women athletes. A professional sports person does nothing constructive for society and society needs to be focusing on solving its problems rather than obsessing about sports. It is absurd that society has decided to reward sports people financially over the last 70 years or so when this was never really done in human history before this.

A way of solving this problem is to make all sports amateur again or to tax anyone earning money from sports very heavily and put this money into funding solutions to important problems such as healthcare research etc ...

^

Exactly, the only people that should be paid money should be farmers and doctors (and then, only if they are healing experienced farmers). Anyone else is not really contributing anything important,

Consider this.... wrote:

Lose in the round of 32, WIN $140,000.

http://www.usopen.org/en_US/event_guide/prize_money.html

And the Diamond League gives only $40,000 to the winner of the entire series. Pitiful.

ESPN is paying $825 million over 11 years for the rights to show the US Open on its channels. How much does anyone want to pay the Diamond League for the right to show their series?

Where is the money coming from to pay the tennis players? Where would the additional funds come from to pay track athletes? Where is your brain?