MASON, Ohio — When the world’s best tennis players converge on Mason this weekend for the Western & Southern Open, no one knows who will emerge victorious.
But this much is certain: The man who wins will take home more than twice as much money as the woman who wins.
“Unfortunately, we do not determine that,” said Katie Haas, CEO of the Western & Southern Open. “All prize money is dictated by both tours. They sit down with their boards, of which there are players on those boards, and make the determination every year as to what our prize money is to be.”
The ATP Tour set this year’s prize at $970,000 for the men's singles winner, while the Women’s Tennis Association established a prize of $412,000 for the women. The WTA has eight board members, including two women. The ATP Tour has seven board members, no women. Neither tour responded to WCPO’s questions about prize money.
“There is a prize-money formula,” Haas said. “I’d need a PHd to tell you how it works. So, I just wait for the email to tell me what the prize money is going to be every year.”
The biggest factor in the pay disparity is the structure of the Western & Southern Open itself, Haas explained. It’s two separate tournaments that happen simultaneously. The men’s tournament is one of eight ATP Masters 1000 events, which top-ranked players are required to attend and are rewarded with maximum pay and maximum points toward their tour ranking. The women’s event is one of five WTA 1000 tournaments that are not mandatory, with lower point values and prize amounts.
“The WTA is actively looking for an equity investment partner with the vision in the future to make larger prize money increases for these events,” Haas said. “But right now, as we sit as a non-mandatory event, it’s really out of our hands.”
Not everyone buys that explanation.
“I would argue that shows we value the men more than women and that’s not fair,” said Nicole LaVoi, director of the Tucker Center for Research on Girls & Women in Sports at Minnesota University. “It’s the same job. It’s the same sport. It’s the same court.”
LaVoi and Haas agree that tennis is the world’s best sport when it comes to gender equity. The U.S. Open adopted equal prizes for men and women in 1973. By 2007, all Grand Slam events adopted the same policy. Two other WTA mandatory events — Indian Wells and Miami — also offer prize money equal to the men’s tournaments that happen simultaneously. Cincinnati’s total women's purse of $2.8 million this year is higher than other non-mandatory events in Doha, Rome, Canada and Guadalajara.
The Western & Southern Open took some heat on social media last year, when journalist Ben Rothenberg tweeted about the “prize money gap” being “much bigger than usual.” Last year, the men’s singles winner received 2.6 times the women’s top prize. This year, it’s 2.4 times larger.
LaVoi argues WTA is missing a sponsorship opportunity by not equalizing pay further. She recently co-authored a study showing fans of women’s sport are bypassing traditional media outlets to stream the sporting events they want to watch.
“Less than 4% of all sponsorship dollars go towards women’s sport. But now sponsors are seeing that it’s a greater return on their investment,” LaVoi said. “Fans of women’s sport are very brand loyal and will very much support the sponsors that support women.”
Haas said the tournament and the WTA want that to happen, but it will take time and money to accomplish.
The Mason tournament could get some of the money it needs from the recent sale of its ATP Sanction — which gives it the right to hold the men’s tournament at the Lindner Family Tennis Center — by the United States Tennis Association.
South Carolina billionaire Ben Navarro has agreed to purchase USTA’s 93.8% stake in Cincinnati Tennis LLC, which owns the sanction and leases similar rights to enable the WTA tournament to be held in Mason each year. Haas said the ATP also plans to expand the Mason tournament but details on that won’t be announced until the sale is finalized.
“We are really looking forward to the plans the WTA is trying to put together to potentially elevate this tournament in the future,” Haas said. “And with that elevation, that high tide will raise all boats.”
The Western & Southern Open generated a regional economic impact of $70 million in 2021 and has raised $11 million for local nonprofits since 1974, according to figures posted on the web site of the event’s title sponsor, Western & Southern Financial Group Inc.
“We sell tickets to people from all 50 states and 30 countries. I think our season ticket holder who lives the furthest away is South Africa,” Haas said. “To me, that’s really exciting in knowing that what we do here is seen throughout the world by so many.”
Haas was promoted to CEO in February after guiding the organization through unprecedented turmoil as chief operating officer since 2018.
After setting an attendance record in 2019 by selling out 15 of its 16 sessions, the tournament was forced to relocate to New York because of the COVID-19 pandemic. The tournament lost $18.8 million on meager revenue of $9.8 million in 2020, according to USTA financial statements. But it bounced back with a $7.1 million operating profit on $35.7 million in revenue in 2021.
“We had about 30% less attendance as we were running during the Delta variant of COVID,” Haas said. “But it really showed us how dedicated our fan base is because they came back. They spent a lot more money with us on site here.”
This year, Haas is plotting a “return to awesome” for the Mason event, with a goal of exceeding its 2019 attendance of nearly 200,000. New amenities include an upscale Top Deck bar overlooking the food court, an outdoor Grand Courtyard lounge and TrueTennisVR, a virtual reality system designed to improve fans’ tennis skills.
While she has taken steps to enhance the fan experience, Haas knows she can’t control the outcome any more than she can control the prize money at the Western & Southern Open.
“No rain. That’s how I define success,” Haas said. “As long as that sun is shining each and every day it’s a successful year. As long as the players have a great time and that ball goes back and forth over the net our fans are happy and they come back year after year. Those are all signs of success for me.”
