Saturday 5 July 2014

Wimbledon Fortnight A Money Spinner

Wimbledon Final Weekend and not a Brit in sight as a Czech and a Canadian play out the women's final and a Swiss and a Serb contest the men's.
British tennis has been in disarray for decades and the only success we did have, Andy Murray, learnt how to play in Spain and owes his success to the Sánchez-Casal Academy more than anything he learnt here.
A ticket for Wimbledon isn't cheap but the prices are justified by the explanation that each year the All England Club who run Wimbledon help the LTA to develop British tennis.
Wimbledon fortnight is a roaring success, as a sporting event and financially with last years tournament income making £149.2 million.
This weekend at Wimbledon, the winners of the men's and ladies' singles titles will each pocket £1.76 million and the players they beat will each collect £880,000 as runners-up.
The entire prize fund for all players is £25 million which is the smallest of the prize funds of the four Grand Slams in Australia, Paris, Wimbledon and New York.
Although the All England Club makes the majority of its annual income in the two weeks in June and July, it also raises £40 million per year from a range of official suppliers such as Slazenger, Robinson, Rolex, IBM, Hertz and Ralph Lauren.
Factoring in the total cost of the tournament, prize funds, staff and ground maintenance amounting to £111.2 million,  the All England Club profit last year was £38 million pounds which is a lovely little money spinner in anybody's language.
Doesn't explain why Brits suck as tennis so bad though, maybe the All England Club should dig a little deeper into it's very deep pockets and spend a bit less on the Pimms.

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