Adam Tooze on the U.S. Open, Tennis Economics

This year, each of the men of men and women in the United States Open tennis championship in New York will win $ 5 million – an increase of 39 percent over the award in 2024, when Genik Bad and Arina Sabalinka won $ 3.6 million. But the total amount of money won by the players in the United States Open this year, as most of the high -level tennis events represents a small part of the sports earned by sports.

How do tennis assets as a sports aristocracy today? Why do tennis players only earn a small share of money? How can economic theory explain the development of individual tennis matches?

This year, each of the men of men and women in the United States Open tennis championship in New York will win $ 5 million – an increase of 39 percent over the award in 2024, when Genik Bad and Arina Sabalinka won $ 3.6 million. But the total amount of money won by the players in the United States Open this year, as most of the high -level tennis events represents a small part of the sports earned by sports.

How do tennis assets as a sports aristocracy today? Why do tennis players only earn a small share of money? How can economic theory explain the development of individual tennis matches?

These are only a few questions that appeared in my last conversation with the FP ECONOMICS Adam Tooze writer on the podcast that we participated in its host, That weight. The following is an excerpt, edited for length and clarity. For a full conversation, search for That weight Wherever you get your podcast. And check the newsletter of Adam alternative.

Cameron Abadi: Tennis has been largely determined as a high -ranking sport in Europe. Does this have to do with the history of sport, and specifically the way its origins follow the aristocratic entertainment?

Adam Tuzi: I think this is very just. The deepest origins of sports in the Middle Ages Jeu de Paume. I think the first thing called tennis is a game now known as Real Tennis, which resembles a hybrid between internal tennis and squash. In the strange place like Cambridge or Oxford, there are still a real tennis courts, a game that a person like Henry VI has played in the sixteenth century.

Tennis game in its modern form was the product of the culture of entertainment in the late nineteenth century, bourgeois, semi -Azri. It was an endeavor to women and masters in the summer in their private gardens, rural clubs and clubs in cities such as London and Paris. It required this grass, time, equipment, and white clothes that Wimbledon still insists on.

Tennis, from the beginning, was a game for men and women – but for masters and genrewomen. So it was part of a bourgeois aristocratic feminism. It was included in the modern Olympic Games from the beginning, starting in 1896. This is important because [original] The Ethics of the Olympic Games are those of amateur athletes/men: so it is not professional athletes but athletes who, for performance and their love for sport and the perfection of human physical activity, participate in their endeavors.

This early date of tennis was identified, with a deep division among the original basic players-returning amateur who managed to reach large tennis clubs in the United States, and in Paris, in London-and professionals, who were in many cases more than mixed players, from the working class, playing on a gallery and they can get money.

The Great Championship circle was in Roland Garros, Wimbledon, and the American National Championship, and Australia was originally exclusive to amateur players without permissible money. This logic dominated the game during the late 1960s. The so -called modern stage of the game began in 1968, the open era. They are “open” because they confessed to professional and amateur players.

So the shape of the game that we have now is the tormented product of these conflicts on the date of the chapter, which previously separated the four major championships from any other person specifically that they did not give any money from the award. They were like the Olympic Games. From the year 68 ascending, you will get the back of the modern game with erasing those borders and professionals who receive a prize money at the height of this sport.

This differs from the history of football, for example, which was professional from the beginning. It is closer to the history of a game like the Rakhbi game, which has long been characterized by the Rugby Union-the professional working class game, which is played in northern England and Australia-Rugby, which comes out of private schools and plays in national competitions between the great rugby countries in the world.

California: Professional tennis players seem to have only a small share of the sport generation. How to compare tennis in this regard with other major sports?

in: I think it is structurally like golf, where you have professional golf players, but there is a vast industry of golf and golf clubs that play the dwarf the amount of money earned by professionals. While in football, there is an amateur game played by adults, but it does not involve a lot of money, the football league is largely the capital and generates tremendous income.

But as you say, the really amazing thing about tennis as a competitive sport at the professional level is the small size of the portfolio. It is about 17 percent of the revenues that are created. I have seen numbers for the Bundesliga [the German soccer league] The salaries of players are about 50 percent of the revenues that are created; For basketball, I think it is about 40 percent. This is a noticeable contrast.

I think it is about the relatively late tennis history in which the high-quality four championships began to pay an ever prize. In Wimbledon in 68, Rod Lavir, the first men of men in the open era, was paid 2000 pounds – even in 68 was not much. Unlike the American Sports League championships, they have no union representation. The balance of strength in the labor market in tennis is completely different from football – where, thanks to the rulings of the court in the European Union, all European football players are free clients all the time. This was mainly transformed by the power of bargaining in football in Europe.

California: How can economic theory, or the game theory more specifically explain the development of individual tennis matches?

in: One of the things that makes tennis like genius game is that it is mainly similar to a frequent jewel, right? It is a frequent jewel, which is also due to the registration rules of these main points. It is very exciting because you have a moment of winning a point, tie, group, and match. Once again, the narration reaches peak. So the game registration system generates a drama that includes the inherent natural drama players facing.

Why is this classic the moment of the theory of the game that the theory of the game is trying to understand the way it improves a decision when it depends on your decision on the reaction of another person – another player is also trying to improve his decision.

The classic model for this is the prisoner’s dilemma: detailed prisoners from each other in the cells, and they must decide whether or not they confess. Classic conclusion is that it is very likely that both of them end with recognition. It may not be perfect because the perfect thing will not have to recognize them – but the risks are so high that the other side will admit and you do not take the entire rap. This generates proposals about possible strategies, the most classic is Min-MAX, when you try to reduce the maximum reward that your opponent can realize from the situation.

A classic counterpart was created in the case of the opening of the tennis, which in the modern game has become more dominant, especially in the game of men, as the main moment. The tennis player can serve widely, push the opponent to the edge, then try to force him to run and not be able to reach the return of the server. You can serve in the body and ignore it. Or you can serve it directly below the middle, which is often the fastest and gives them little time to respond. Each of these options depends on whether your opponent expects it.

And you will hear in the comment that when you go to the second service – which the player must serve more slowly to ensure that the ball is entering – the recipient will become more aggressive and move towards a situation through which he can hit the ball with more force. This is the theoretical position of the classic game. My best strategy is to go widely, go to the body, or move to T what is what I think is the other person to do in placing himself to receive the ball and return it. Economists have conducted these amazing behavioral studies as they wiped hundreds of thousands of performances and concluded that the optimal strategy for tennis players is close to the random distribution strategies that Min-MAX predicts in light of the theoretical conditions of the game.

Basically, what you tend to do is choose the strongest service for you and reduce the chance of the recipient to return it – while allowing the fact that the more you do, the more predictable it is, so you must determine randomly. You will see the players improve these two elements: the strongest and most successful service, unlike the most predictable service. What studies also showed is that the most successful players are almost more than the prediction of the model with the optimal strategy. Since the service is crucial in the game of men now, it is in particular men’s games that rapprochement with the optimal strategy is MIN-MAX is predicting more than success.

Increasing all this is: Yes, the game theory seems to rule, and the players by a kind of intuitive behavioral approximation of it – or in some cases, through an endless video study – are actually approaching performance on the basis of what the model will expect.