Follow the Money: The Wimbledon business model

**Hannah Mullane** (0:04)
Tennis season is in full swing, and Wimbledon is the jewel in the crown. The oldest and most prestigious tournament watched by millions around the world each season.
I'm Hannah Mullane, and this is Business Daily from the BBC World Service. And today we're heading to Wimbledon.
How does the tournament stand out in the tennis world? What commercial decisions does it make to guarantee success? And how do the players feel about how much they're being paid for competing there? We'll follow the money behind the deep-rooted tradition, the history and those lush grass tennis courts. This is the strategy behind the elegance. How has the tournament become about so much more than tennis? And what has led to that success?

**SPEAKER_3** (1:01)
It lies among the tidied trimness of suburban Surrey, only eight miles from London. But what is the bewitchment of Wimbledon that draws its disciples from all over the world?

**Hannah Mullane** (1:13)
When you picture Wimbledon, the oldest tennis tournament in the world, there are certain things you think of, and it's not just tennis. You think of strawberries and cream, players in white, and that long queue of well-dressed fans waiting to get tickets. It's an elegant image that Wimbledon has built over many years, and it involves considered commercial decisions that mean it continues to make serious money. This year, the two-week tournament is set to make around half a billion dollars in revenue.
Let's hear first from the person responsible for making some of those decisions, Sally Bolton, the chief executive of the tournament.

**Sally Bolton** (1:47)
We are very clear that the visual of Wimbledon, the athletes wearing white on a grass court with a largely green surround, is iconic, and it is hugely important that we protect that. And so the partners that we work with absolutely understand that, and actually buy into that cleanliness of the image, that the lack of busyness around the court, that sanctity of what the championships looks like, is highly valuable to those partners. And so ironically, the less we are doing in that space, the more value there is associated with that space. And those partners, as I say, very much buy into that, and are part of us helping to grow our brand and our image worldwide.

**Hannah Mullane** (2:29)
Wimbledon maintains a highly curated portfolio of official sponsors and partners, fiercely protecting its legacy and sponsor-free courts. And you look at some of those sponsors, and they've been around for a long time. Rolex has been the official timekeeper of the event since 1978
IBM has been the technology partner since 1990, powering the digital infrastructure and providing data on matches. And Slazinger has been providing tennis balls for the tournament since 1902, the longest running sports partnership in history. This comes at a time where sports events around the world are really cashing in on sponsorship. We wouldn't know different, but it does have a very different approach. It controls the number of brands it works with, and it also controls the prices. In many ways, it's an exclusive event, and some pay thousands of dollars to be there. Tickets for the men's finals on Centre Court can cost as much as $12,500.
In contrast, grounds passes, those ones you famously queue for, are $43, up by just 10% on a decade ago. Here's Sally Bolton again.

**Sally Bolton** (3:30)
We're striving to ensure that Wimbledon is for everybody. And so whether that's the pricing of our food and drink items, whether it's the pricing of our tickets. So if you are queuing up, you can access a grounds ticket for £33 for a day's worth of tennis. The play starts on the outside courts at 11am and can, across the show courts, as you know, go on until 11 in the evening. And that's really about protecting the ability to have the type of experience you want. So whether that's you're here as a hospitality guest in one of our amazing hospitality facilities, or whether you've queued up and you can access our really affordable strawberries and cream and other food products, we are keen to make sure that we have a choice of experience for all our guests.

**Hannah Mullane** (4:16)
When you're keeping prices low in some areas, they have to go up in others for growth. Matt Lines is here with some of those numbers.

**Matt Lines** (4:23)
Yeah, let's start with those ticket prices. As Sally mentioned there, there's plenty of accessible tickets, day tickets to get into the grounds for around $43. But Wimbledon or rather the All England Lawn Tennis Club is choosing to up its prices for the very top bracket of tickets. So take their premium Centre Court debenture ticket holders. They get guaranteed Centre Court tickets for every day of the championships for a five year period, plus benefits like hospitality access and parking. And what would they be paying for the privilege? Just over $150,000.