Rome brings drama, but boycott talk dominates

**Catherine** (0:11)
Well, hello, and welcome to The Tennis Podcast here on this fine Sunday evening to talk all things Rome and the final Clay Court 1000 event before Roland Garros. Joining us from sunny Solihull, the Rome of the West Midlands, David Law.

**David Law** (0:27)
That's got to be the first time that that has ever happened, that it has been called that, but I'm going to go with that and see if I say it out loud to people, whether they're up for it.

**Catherine** (0:39)
They're welcome to quote me on that on the Tourist Posters if they like. Joining us from actual Rome, it is the Athletics, Charlie Eccleshare. Charlie, how are you doing? I already know the answer to this. I know you're absolutely buzzing as an Arsenal fan. I'm expecting peak Eccleshare this evening, please.

**Charlie Eccleshare** (0:59)
I'm good. I will do my best, yeah. Don't ask me anything about how many in the tennis between the hours of 5.3 and 7:30 PM local time today because for me and a few others, I will say in the press room, all eyes were on what was going on in East London.
But yeah, I'm doing well. Thank you.

**Catherine** (1:17)
And our eyes as well, quite frankly, all sports fans' eyes, I think. Before we get into the tennis and there is a lot of tennis to get into, we always bitch about the slow starts that these two-week long 1,000 events have. But it does feel like a lot has happened already. So we do have a lot to talk about. But just before we get into all of that, I feel like we should start with the big news story that broke on the eve of the tournament, fueled by some pretty punchy quotes from a number of top players, from the men's and the women's side, threatening in a very nonspecific way a boycott. If their complaints about grand slam prize money are a ramble that we've been hearing at various different volumes for a while now, if their complaints about prize money and player benefits at the slams are not listened to and acted upon. So despite an overall year on year prize money increase of 9.5% for 2026 that Roland Garros announced a couple of weeks ago, that brings the total prize money pot to $72.3 million, the top 10s of the WTA and the ATP expressed what they called collective disappointment because of the percentage of tournament revenue that that prize money total represents. The percentage of revenue that that $72.3 million represents is 15%, which is very often compared to US sports leagues where the players' revenue shares is often close to, if not more than, certainly hovering around the 50% mark. Aryna Sabalenka was the punchiest of the lot. She said, at some point, we will boycott.
And then lots of other players echoed those sentiments. Quite a lot of them said, well, if there's a boycott happening, I'll definitely join in.
Rebecca said, yeah, I mean, if there is one, then I'm up for it. Koko Goff said that. Novak Djokovic echoed those sentiments as well. Charlie, I know that The Athletic, you and Ava Wallace have done a lot of reporting on this over the last week. And look, they are, anytime the B word comes up in tennis, even if it is an empty threat, who knows? It's a big deal.
The question that I always want to know the answer to, and maybe it's impossible to answer, I don't know, is how fair that comparison to the US sports leagues is. Because on the face of it, you hear the complaints in the top players and you think, what are you on about? They're increasing prize money at most slams by a minimum-ish of 10% every year. You're earning gazillions of pounds or dollars. What have you got to complain about? But on the other hand, when you hear that comparison, 15% to 50%, you think, right, yeah, get marching in the street, get paid your dues. So I guess, yeah, how fair is that comparison? Are the financial structures of grand slams comparable to the financial structures of those US sports leagues that are held up as the benchmark?

**Charlie Eccleshare** (4:28)
I mean, first of all, as well, you're right that people aren't going to have sympathy towards the top players, but also the grand slams are doing all right themselves too. They're not doing badly when it comes to how much they bring in. They're doing very well.

**Catherine** (4:45)
To the extent that, let's say, hypothetically, they all increased their prize money to 50% of their revenue, would they all still remain in profit?

**Charlie Eccleshare** (4:54)