Tennis Players Make Money: Tennis Players take on a huge risk in deciding to turn pro – the odds of earning a stable income through tennis, let alone vast riches, are vanishingly small. Our research suggests it’s this very riskiness that drives tennis players to turn professional.
How Much Money Do Tennis Players Make (US Open 2019)
| Exit Round | Prize Money (in US Dollars) |
| Runner-Up | $1,900,000 |
| Quarterfinals | $500,000 |
| Semifinals | $960,000 |
| Winner | $3,850,000 |
At the point when we consider tennis players, we ordinarily consider abundance and extravagance – living in a chateau in Monte Carlo, possessing a decent yacht, and going all throughout the planet.
While this way of life is undoubtedly feasible for a select number of players, the truth for by far most of the players is something more like “driving an old vehicle to the following competition at a distant nation club, resting on a companion’s lounge chair, and pondering where the cash for the following week’s competition will come from.” much less rich than the principal way of life, I know.
With the ascent of web-based media as of late, tennis players who contend at the lower levels of the expert visit have been acquiring their own space and their own voice. With this recently discovered voice, a few of them have been attempting to carry attention to the fantastic imbalance that exists in tennis today, expecting to begin a development that will change how these players are dealt with and redressed.
The normal tennis player compensation somewhere in the range of 2015 and 2019 was $113,478 each year (or $1,940 per match) in prize cash. The normal compensation for the #1 positioned player was $14,406,932 each year.
This normal number above is very misleading, as just 195 (13%) players made more than $100,000 each year, another 69 (5%) made more than $50,000, and 124 (8%) others made more than $20,000. That implies that 76% of all players made under $20,000 every year.
The Average Tennis Players Salary
Tennis players can bring in cash in 6 distinct ways, with prize cash and supports being the most productive ones. Prize cash is the sum players get for tackling their work – playing tennis – well. Contingent upon the kind of competition played and on the round came to by the player, this sum changes fundamentally.
While the top players make a large portion of their cash from supports, these arrangements are not available to bring down positioned players – which implies that they depend for the most part on prize cash.
Hence, while deciding the normal tennis player compensation, I will just contemplate the prize cash sum they get. I’ll address how much players can make from support bargains toward the end, yet for reasons for a reasonable correlation, I’ll keep them out of the estimations.
HOW TENNIS PLAYERS MAKE THEIR MONEY
Tournament Prize Money
This is the most basic form of earnings for all tennis players; by winning tennis matches on the ATP and WTA tours along with Grand Slams. Whatever is the player’s rank, and whichever tournament one is participating in, the organizer’s award prize money to the participating players, and depending on where a player finishes in that tournament, he/she is eligible to earn that big a check.
Grand Slam tournaments like the Australian Open (prize money here), French Open (here), Wimbledon (here), and US Open (here) pay the most, with even the first-round losers in the singles draw at Wimbledon earning a whopping GBP 45,000.
Below this is the second rung of tournaments, like the ATP 1000s (or the Masters) and WTA Premier Mandatory, and WTA Premier. The others like ATP 500s and ATP 250s on the men’s tour and WTA International competitions on the women’s tour pay even lesser.
Sponsorship & Endorsement
In terms of the highest-paid tennis players out there, the majority of their money is made through endorsements and brand deals. Those like Roger Federer, Rafael Nadal, Novak Djokovic, Serena Williams, and Naomi Osaka have extraordinary deals with the Nikes and the Rolexes of the world. The lower a player is ranked, the lesser is the amount of money exchanged and beyond a certain point.
Travel
Travel is a huge drain on a tennis player’s income. It can be tiring jet-setting around the world entering lots of tournaments. There are plane tickets to buy for coaches, family members, and hotel rooms to book. Travel costs can range between $50,000 and $150,000 a year.
Bonuses
These are usually a part of a player’s sponsorship contracts and depend on how deep a player went in a competition, how many tournaments he/she participated in, in a country, and other factors.
Appearance Fee
The top tennis players aren’t just paid by the sponsors and given prize money cheques, but also offered appearance fees to feature in the tournaments. Depending on the marketability of the player, they are offered more or less to play in the lower-level, ATP 250 or 500 tournaments in the men’s calendar or the WTA Internationals on the women’s tour and that adds to their overall income.
Again, this isn’t something a lower-ranked player will be given and it’s more or less restricted to only the highly ‘visible’ ones.
This could work at the lower-level tournaments too. Like for example if a Challenger competition attracts players ranked between 100th and 200th on the ATP Rankings, and the organizers can get a 65th-ranked player to sign up to play in the tournament, they might have to pay him a decent sum of money over and above the prize money.
Exhibition & Club Matches
Playing Exhibitions is when a player gets paid for participating in a tournament. Usually, there are popular tennis players like, Rafael Nadal and Roger Federer that get paid for coming to a tournament. The tournament directors pay these popular players to draw in more fans and media attention to the tournament.
A normal exhibition fee for a player like Roger Federer or Rafael Nadal would be something around 1-3€ million, depending on the tournament.
Coaching
Some active players coach kids on the side for a fee in order to boost their income during off times like when the tour is shut (this period is becoming shorter and shorter) or when there are no tournaments a player has played for self or during injury rehabs.
This earning pales in comparison with others but it’s something to allow players, especially the lower-ranked ones, to keep going. Now that we have the ways of earning for tennis players out of the way, let’s look at how much do they make.
We will be looking at only the prize money earnings here and while sponsorship makes for a huge chunk of earning for the top stars, that is not the case for the lower-ranked players.
How much does it cost to be a professional tennis player?
€35K/year may seem to be a dream income for playing tennis Your team of coaches and measures that needs to get paid, isn’t that much left.
Playing tennis as a profession isn’t as glamorous as it seems for most players. Only the top-ranked players are wealthy. The average player is competing in different tournaments around the world just to get the economy around.
The amount Do Tennis Players Make Per Tournament
The inconsistent prize cash conveyance occurs because of the distinction in payout for various competition levels. As you can find in the table underneath. The prize cash for Grand Slams and ATP competitions is amazingly higher than Challenger or Future competitions.
The victor of the US Open makes $3,850,000, which is 1,782x what the champ of a Futures 15K makes ($2,160). Indeed, even a first-round washout in a Grand Slam makes $58,000, which is approximately multiple times what a Futures 15K champ makes.
| Ranking | Average Prize Money / Year | Job With Similar Pay |
| Top 5 | $7,973,904 | CEO of Chipotle |
| 5-10 | $3,314,918 | CEO of Columbia Sportswear |
| 11-15 | $2,105,633 | CEO of Carvana |
| 16-20 | $1,613,983 | CEO of Chase Corp. |
| 21-25 | $1,419,484 | CEO of Exela Technologies |
| 26-30 | $1,191,946 | CEO of Ingles Market |
| 31-35 | $1,058,999 | CEO of Axsome Therapeutics |
| 36-40 | $992,805 | CEO of NextDecade Corp |
| 41-50 | $858,914 | CEO of Lululemon |
| 51-60 | $708,794 | CEO of KEMET Corp |
| 61-70 | $639,344 | CEO of Miller Industries |
| 71-80 | $478,822 | CEO of Premier Financial Corp |
| 81-90 | $373,679 | US President |
| 91-100 | $351,638 | CEO of Park Aerospace |
| 101-120 | $298,359 | High-Paid Doctor |
| 121-140 | $217,381 | Lawyer / Finance |
| 141-160 | $157,616 | Corporation Manager |
| 161-180 | $120,832 | Controller |
| 181-200 | $106,215 | Programmer |
| 201-233 | $88,089 | Physician’s Assistant |
| 234-266 | $60,978 | Entry Level Financial Analyst |
| 267-300 | $41,671 | Athletic Trainer |
| 301-350 | $30,238 | Bookkeeper |
| 351-400 | $21,370 | Substitute Teacher |
| 401-450 | $16,955 | McDonald’s Crew Worker |
| 451-500 | $12,832 | Living on SS Disability |
| 501-550 | $11,313 | Part-Time Substitute Teacher |
| 551-600 | $8,965 | Part-Time Grocery Bagger |
| 601-650 | $11,271 | Below Minimum Wage |
| 651-700 | $7,589 | Below Minimum Wage |
| 701-750 | $9,554 | Below Minimum Wage |
| 751-800 | $5,191 | Below Minimum Wage |
| 801-850 | $5,362 | Below Minimum Wage |
| 851-900 | $3,753 | Below Minimum Wage |
| 901-950 | $3,615 | Below Minimum Wage |
| 951-1000 | $3,347 | Below Minimum Wage |
| 1001-1100 | $2,726 | Below Minimum Wage |
| 1101-1200 | $2,403 | Below Minimum Wage |
| 1201-1300 | $1,863 | Below Minimum Wage |
| 1301-1400 | $2,763 | Below Minimum Wage |
| 1401-1500 | $1,108 | Below Minimum Wage |
| 1501-1927 | $828 | Below Minimum Wage |
Costs of Being a Pro Tennis Player
€35K/year may seem to be a dream income for playing tennis. Which it undoubtedly is. But, if you consider the travel and accommodation costs of getting to all the tournaments around the world and your team of coaches and measures that needs to get paid, it isn’t that much left.
Playing tennis as a profession isn’t as glamorous as it seems for most players. Only the top-ranked players are wealthy. The average player is competing in different tournaments around the world just to get the economy around.
