Novak Djokovic believes tournaments that are sponsored by betting companies should award at least 50 per cent of revenue generated from such deals to players.
The world No.1 has called for an overhaul of tennis’ current policy regarding betting companies to help improve the financial situation of his peers. As it currently stands players are prohibited from having betting sponsorships on their clothes. Even though tennis is one of the most bet-on sports in the world. It’s not uncommon for governing bodies to have deals with the industry. For example, the ITF recently appointed Infront Bettor as their distributor of global data and betting streaming rights.
Many tournaments are also sponsored by betting companies which has prompted criticism for Djokovic who is the co-founder of the Professional Tennis Players Association (PTPA). An association that campaigns for players to have a greater say when it comes to decision-making in the sport.
In a recent video uploaded on the PTPA YouTube account, the 24-time Grand Slam winner says players should receive a greater share of the revenue generated from deals with betting companies if the governing bodies are not willing to change their stance on the clothing policy.
“Personally I probably would not get a betting sponsor on my sleeve but I know that probably 95-plus percent of the players would do that,” Djokovic said. “I would support that but if that’s not allowed then what we would deserve to have is the 50 per cent of the share that the tournament gets from these sponsorship deals with betting houses.”
Some of the money generated from such arrangements goes towards player’s pension schemes. However, Djokovic has urged his peers to ‘push more’ to receive a larger proportion of the money whilst they are still playing. A full breakdown of where the money is distributed from deals with betting companies is not known.
“I know that a pretty significant chunk goes to the player pension which is something that I always support of course but we have to remind ourselves that you only become eligible for pension when you are 50 or 55 [years old],” Djokovic said.
“So a player that retires when he or she is 30 or 35 has to wait for 20-plus years to actually start receiving the benefits from that deal.’
“I think that it’s obvious that that’s probably one of the biggest sources of income for tennis – the broadcasting rights, the TV rights and the data – I think players are probably not either fully aware or maybe they just are not pushing enough for their fair share from the betting. They are giving much more than they are receiving. They’re literally receiving nothing from it.”
Djokovic adds that ‘awareness’ needs to be raised about the issue as there is a ‘very significant value and chunk of the money that is out there for players to get a hold of.’
A former member of the ATP Players Council before leaving to form the PTPA, Djokovic claims the topic of betting companies was addressed but in a somewhat different approach.
“Whenever we would address this subject, what would normally surface in the discussion is the integrity,” he said. “It’s like ‘We’ve got to fight to make sure that the sport stays clean. We got to make sure that the players are not cheating, they’re not betting, they’re not compromised,’ which of course I support and agree with, but there’s kind of a psychological game right that you focus on that and you don’t really talk about the main issue here, that us players need to be aware of.”
