Saying thanks very a lot for a 20% annual improve earlier than escalating the protest to a different stage exhibits the boldness the gamers, and their representatives, are feeling.
The common UK worker can at present count on a 3.4% annual pay rise, and with first-round losers at Wimbledon assured to take residence £80,000, sympathy among the many basic public is prone to be in brief provide.
However for the gamers this isn’t concerning the annual improve, however about getting a better share of the income they assist the All England Membership generate.
The AELTC counters with the argument that income doesn’t have in mind their prices, or funding in infrastructure and different grass-court occasions.
However the gamers really feel emboldened, and won’t mourn over misplaced media alternatives, particularly if they’ll keep away from being fined.
The French Open prize cash improve was in single digits, however gamers obtained 16% on the Australian Open and count on this 12 months’s US Open to no less than match the 20% rise they supplied final 12 months.
They’re slowly however certainly getting what they need on pay, though are asking for an additional 1.5% of income yearly till 2030.
These figures will not be delivered throughout the board, so can the difficulty be solved by negotiation, or will it revert to a recreation of bluff during which gamers threaten strike motion – and extra convincingly than they must date?
