Tennis đ€ Football
Septuagenarian's want to save the youth from their pesky attention spans (again)
A short one today, touching on why many sports, tennis and football included, seem to be going through a bit of an existential crisis.
(To catch you up) TL;DR - Some of the top football clubs in Europe had agreed to form a âEuropean Super Leagueâ (ESL), which would have seen 12 elite clubs from European leagues (Premier League, La Liga, Serie A) supplant the UEFA Champions League, and play amongst themsleves in an effort to generate more revenue and âsave footballâ. Those elite clubs still wanted to continue playing in their domestic leagues, World Cup and European Championships. And they would also have had no fear of relegation or qualification hurdles within the ESL.
The tennis equivalent is a bit like if the top 20 players, from only the biggest tennis federation nations (ie Britain, France, Spain, Germany, Italy, US etc), formed their own tour, and played amongst themselves with no threat of dropping out of the elite group of competitors, and with no ability for lower ranked players or poorer federations, to join. For comparisons sake, those 20 elite players would still seek to play in the normal ATP Tour (Premier league or La Liga etc) and the Slams (World Cup & Euroâs).
Unsurprisingly, many, many football stakeholders and fans had an issue with these plans, and the experiment imploded at the first hurdle.
The most interesting element to all this however, is the similarity of rhetoric across so many traditional sports at the moment. Letâs see if the following feels familiar to you tennis fans, proudly declared this week by Real Madrid President Florentino Perez and Juventus Chairman Andrea Agnelli (two of the three main spearheads of the ESL movement):
Perez: We have to save football⊠We have to analyse why young people, 16-24 year olds, 40% of them arenât interested in football. Why? ⊠They say the games are too long. If young people donât want an entire game itâs because it isnât interesting enough, or weâll have to shorten the games.â
Agnelli: âThe attention span of todayâs kids, and tomorrowâs spenders, is completely different to when I was their age.â
Given the European Super League lasted just a day or so, you have to applaud both Perez and Agnelliâs method-level commitment to the attention span bit. Both have somehow achieved the speedrunning world record for formation and destruction of a sporting organisation. The zoomers would be proud.
Iâm not going to debate the legitimacy of Perez and Agnelliâs claims about format and attention spans, as Iâve already written at length about that argument and its merits in tennis (part 2 is coming out soon). While itâs not necessarily wrong, format changes always feel like the easiest, surface-level solution to what is a complex, multifactorial problem of shifting consumption habits, demand curves, and streaming platform innovation. And frankly Iâd be concerned for anyone that places too much faith in septuagenarian Florentino Perez when it comes to acutely understanding what Gen Alpha, Zoomers and Millenials want.
What is fascinating is the degree to which their comments echo similar machinations in tennis. Just last year Patrick Mouratoglou, coach of Serena Williams and founder of a new type of short tennis called âUltimate Tennis Showdownâ, blessed us all with this enlightening soundbite:
âTen years ago the average age of the tennis fan was 51 years old. Today itâs 61. In ten years itâs going to be 71⊠Tennis is not able to renew its fanbase⊠The world has evolved in the last 10-20 years but tennis has never changed. Tennis is in trouble, I want tennis to surviveâŠ. We see that their attention span is much shorter than before, people donât have time.â
Again, some parts of this arenât wrong (although some are), but it should be especially telling that football, the most popular sport in the world, is struck with a similar panic when it comes to its future.
There are a few ways in which tennis currently wants its own internal revolution, although comparisons to footballâs European Super League fall flat. The PTPA, a sort of tennis player union but not really a union, wants to put more power in the hands of the players. The uneasy power balance between the four Slams, the ATP, the WTA, and the ITF continues to split this sport into too many pieces to make consistent movements forward. And tennisâ own Laver Cup is an interesting if very loose comparison to footballâs ESL (however given the Laver Cup event is just three days per year, is part owned/operated by the ATP & Tennis Australia, and at least selects global competitors based on fluctuating ranking, itâs not a good comparison). Therefore none of tennisâ movements, despite considerable current motion, even come close to being as outwardly greedy and self-serving as the proposal of footballâs European Super League. The ESL was essentially seeking to transfer power away from one entrenched set of elite â UEFA, FIFA, Premier League, La Liga et al â into the hands of another â top European clubs â while not sharing the extra wealth with its players thanks to a proposed salary cap. Itâs baffling how those proposing the ESL thought they would get sufficient buy-in from both players and fans.
There is however a reasonable bigger-picture argument that suggests that this whole experiment, successful or not, will serve as a bargaining chip in the ongoing desire to overhaul the UEFA Champions League.
As a result, tennis politics and structures for once look vaguely functional in comparison to another major sport. A rare and refreshing turn of events. But as we look forward to whatâs in store for the old fashioned collective of hundred-plus year old sports, tennis included, that have gotten used to cushily dominating global attention for much of the last century, we should expect more and more of these existential epiphanies. The next five to ten years is going to see an extraordinary amount of change in world sport, and some of that change will inevitably be better thought out and justified than others.
At the end of the day we all just have to hope that the executives in charge, with their penchant for patronising the youth, donât fuck up cause and effect too badly. After all, it would be particularly sad for these sports to have a misguided race to the bottom of attention spans just because Florentino Perezâs grandkids would rather play fortnite than football. Perish the thought.
Tennis đ€ Football
â MW
See you on Sunday for match analysis.
Twitter @MattRacquet
If you have any questions or thoughts about what you just read you can leave a comment below and Iâll answer it. No question is dumb.
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Analysis of the Nadal Medvedev US Open Final Final:Â https://theracquet.substack.com/p/the-racquet-the-5th-set
My problem with the 'reform tennis' movement is that, at least from my selfish perspective, atp tennis seems to me pretty optimal right now. We have a single global tour where all the best players play. We have a system where 14 tournaments have been successfully established and, injuries aside (that's a problem!), the very best players choose to play in 12-14 of them. We forget that Sampras only played in 5-6 masters 1000 and that was typical. The success of establishing 'big tournaments' (major, masters, atp final) as a recognized category in which the big 3 and others are compared is pretty new and a big largely unacknowledged success.
It would be nice if tennis channel were a better service but as someone currently confined to my sofa while recovering from achilles surgery I'm enjoying my ability to watch Rune, and Alcarez and Mussetti, also a big plus, and hopefully tc will respond to Matt's suggestions and improve.
For me, the threat looming over the sport is the rise of the tall servebot and the ugly tennis that goes with it. For the time being, the returners are holding their own. But the height of players, velocity of first serves and, most important, the % of first and second serves won are rising inexorably. At some point, the sport could tip to the servers and be ruined. I can imagine an Opelka-Zverev no-break Wimbledon final with over a hundred aces. I think some rule tweaks should be taken to prevent this.
Wow hereâs to hoping old guys r not making lasting decisions for sports! Regardless if itâs short or long term success! Ugh