Novak Djokovic is not happy about how players are treated on the ATP Tour, which is part of why the PTPA was born.
While tennis players do have organizations that are supposed to look out for their best interests, such as the ATP, the reality is a bit different. Over the years, we've had a couple of players speak out on those matters, but very little has changed.
That's why the PTPA was born: to give players control over their narrative as a sort of union. The Serbian spoke about his goal with the PTPA passionately many times, and part of his just sharing the spoils of war among everybody.
In a video posted by the PTPA, Djokovic talked about how that might be achievable, especially when it comes to betting and selling data in tennis. Players are often directly influenced by people betting on their matches, yet, they don't benefit from it in any way.
Betting is officialized and the betting houses are earning hundreds of millions of dollars, maybe billions from tennis. So there's a huge value there. And then lots of interest sides in the tennis ecosystem are also benefiting from there through that data deal.
But the players are getting a shorter end of the stick and are getting literally crumbles or nothing almost. So that's what I think the focus should be. Because being in the player, council of ATP for almost a decade, whenever we would address this subject, what would normally surface in the discussion is the integrity, right?
Most professional sports thread very lightly about betting and such topics because of the nature of the thing itself. Many players get harassed daily on social media mainly due to betting, and there is a stigma attached to the industry.
It's like we got to fight to make sure that our game, that the sports stays clean. We've got to make sure that the players are not cheating and are not betting. They're not compromising the tournaments et cetera. Which, of course, I support and agree with, but there's kind of a psychological game, right? That you, you focus on that. And you don't really talk about the main issue here. That us players need to be aware of.
Subscribed successfully
0 Comments