Andrea Gaudenzi, President of the ATP, has two major challenges ahead, which occur in a stage of enormous change in consumer habits. The first has to do with digitizing all the structures of the ATP and tennis in general to adapt to the times, the other is, and does not depend so much on it, trying that tennis can travel together with the place it wants to go, unifying criteria, projects and organizations. That is why in his global strategy, presented when he arrived at the position, the Italian intends to sell tennis in a much more efficient way.
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In an extensive interview with ‘SportsPro’, the ATP President touches on issues, which are both intentions and concerns, about the future of the tennis industry, one in which the first message to send and the first objective that is marked to achieve it is from the synthesis.
“It’s all about unity. First, to find a way that players and tournaments can work together and grow in the same direction, rather than spending 90 percent of the time in toxic conversations, which ultimately drain all energy, the time and money. If we have to discuss the prize money every two years, it is very difficult to look and think long term about how we solve our problems and how we improve. “
“That is first. The second is trying to convince everyone to shift their focus to the fans, who are ultimately who we serve. They are the ones who are buying the tickets, watching the games on television, reading the media, and they are the target audience of our sponsors. So instead of having this tournament or player-centric approach, I think we need to shift our focus to our fans and try to provide a better and richer experience by working together. “
For Gaudenzi, tennis is facing a unique opportunity to extract the strength of the present through digital platforms that manage to generate a complete user experience. “Tennis, as a linear television proposal, was not a great product in the 90s because you don’t know when a match starts, you don’t know when it ends, you don’t know who is playing the day before. In today’s digital and OTTs, it’s perfect: you have multiple courts, it’s being played every day, you have multiple games for different time zones; it is global. We have men and women, which I think is a huge power that we have, not only in terms of the product, but also our audience can be divided because we have a solid product for men and women. “
According to a YouGov poll cited in the new strategy paper, tennis is the fourth most popular sport in the world with just over a billion fans. Yet a 2018 Sports Business Consulting report gives it just 1.4% share of the global media rights market, with an annual grossing of less than $ 700 million from ATP, WTA, ITF and the four Grand Slams.
“Now we have an income per fan of $ 0.50. Golf has a $ 3 one, six times more. How can we really increase that by providing a better experience to the fan who maybe wants to have more tennis, wants to participate more, wants to pay more, but can’t? They just give up due to different weak points. Because we do not have the digital properties to fit into a central database, we do not collect the data. We can’t provide a single sign-on experience right now, where you go in one place and all your tennis is there, because we don’t have those platforms. “
In order to reach the user in the most efficient and direct way possible, Gaudenzi points out that diversity in the form of consumption that in his opinion is negative to sell the sport in its entirety. “Right now, at the moment, we have four Slams, the WTA, the ATP, about 250 tournaments and the ITF coming out on completely separate paths, independently, so we are not in sync. I live in the UK and you need three or four subscriptions to follow tennis. It is complex. You have to be aware that linear television is very relevant and cable is still very relevant. We see that the trend is down, but as it has happened in music, believe it or not, it still remains; 20 percent of sales are still on CD, for example. It took about 15 years to go from an 80/20 model where digital was 20. Therefore, it takes time and you have to be smart in that transition because it doesn’t happen overnight and you have to consider all the actors “.
“The problem we have is that now everyone has a different strategy and goes to market in a different way. We need to reach the fans through the media, by collecting the data, and we need to invest in technology to do so. Less than one percent of our fans go to stadiums. And it’s beautiful, I love going to Wimbledon, it’s one of the best experiences you can have and I really enjoyed it a lot more as a fan than as a player. But it is not for everyone. We want to make a product focused on more than a billion people and we can’t get everyone to go to the slopes. “
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