Laver Cup: The True Cost of Tennis

Laver Cup: The True Cost of Tennis

Tennis has long suffered from an image problem. Detractors claim it is a snooty, upper-class sport that is inaccessible to large parts of society.

Some of the criticism has, however, been unfair, particularly when compared to other sports. However, short-term business decisions – with little care for long-term consequences – are in danger of damaging the sport.

Ultimately, attempts to ‘open up’ the sport will continue to fall short if it’s too expensive to watch – both in person and on-screen – and tennis’s reputation as an inaccessible pastime will live on.

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#lavercup #tennis #atp

[cobra]

People just need to be willing to not go if the prices are high. The prices would drop very quickly if enough people just weren't willing to spend so much on tickets.

[Marco-rgvw]

Wanted to go to my hometown ATP 500. Even tickets for the qualifications are 30 euros, it's ridiculous. But it's not just tickets, also the prices for courts are crazy sometimes nowadays

[martinrosemary]

This is all true but what really makes tennis an elitist sport is not the price of watchig it but THE PRICE OF PLAYING IT wich is more important..,
Very few courts and hourly court fees is what keeps tennis a sport only to be played, at least on a regular basis by those whit the most money.., this happends all around the world and i don t think it should be so.., I am certain the coast of actually building and maintainnig tennis courts is not in acord whit the mentioned courts fees and memberships and it could be reduce even further but only if the willingness is there.., I doubt it.., at least as long as tennis clubs remain private bussneses their onwners will keep on looking at it from a profit stand point and not from a stand point of allowing people to actually be able to play and enjoy the sport..

[crosscourttennis]

Laver Cup tickets are extortionate, was looking into going earlier in the year until I saw how expensive the cheapest ticket was lol, pricing normal tennis fans out the stadiums

[rooberry-music]

Because of the high prices of normal tickets I got a £35 ticket to the practice day (Thursday before the weekend) and got to see the big 4 practice on together. Real shame I can't go to one of the main matches :(

[laprimaverrra]

The BBC is not really free to air, you still have to pay for a TV licence or risk a £1, 000 fine. So Wimbledon's decision to extend the TV rights deal with the BBC seems to be more about sticking with the British network rather than any free access considerations.

[goodietoes]

I'm not sure I buy the argument of the Laver Cup. The ticket prices you listed were for the 3 day package, which you can watch up to 12 matches with, which is not terrible value if you buy the cheapest package given that you're going to be watching some of the best players of all time (big 4).
Furthermore, I think that you should've mentioned that the prices you showed were ticket resale prices, which are prices that existing ticketholders are setting on resale platforms. Ticket resales are almost always higher than the original listing price, but it was especially bad for this event because it was going to be Roger Federer's final professional event. The prices shown were due to the high demand in the resale market, which in my opinion is a different issue that plagues any high demand event with a resale market (like music festivals, for example) rather than Tennis being financially inaccessible as a sport.

[grainsstuff]

Tennis is an expensive sport, facts are facts.

And youtube comments are broken.

[JeliOra]

it's always easily noticeable to me how out of the big four whenever they are mentioned, Novak is mentioned last.
media always trying to undermine Nole even though he has had the longest weeks at #1, and he has more grand slams than Roger and Andy so we know this is deliberate disrespect as usual.

Roger maybe the more popular one (as pushed by the media) no doubt his tennis is beautiful, but he hasn't played for two years and no one dares to humble him by giving more credit to Novak and Rafa who surpassed him.