Why tennis is such a mess sometimes. Some thoughts in light of the PTPA lawsuits.
These last days, with the news that the Professional Tennis Players Association is suing the governing bodies of tennis, I've seen all the takes from "why can't we just have a proper union" and "the PTPA has some good points but they're pushing their own agenda" to severe mistrust of the PTPA leading to straight up defending tennis governing bodies for all the things people on tumblr usually -rightfully! - give them shit for.
Most of us here are tennis fans just trying to have a good time, so if you've never really thought about the governing structures of tennis, that's very understandable in my book. I have, too often, because I see parallels with things I am familiar with in my own life. So I thought I'd share a few thoughts that might help understand the situation of professional tennis players and the structures that surround them better.
The first thing to be very aware of is that these players are self-employed and work in what's most often called an 'independent profession' and/or a 'liberal profession'. What that means is that a) they are their own boss, often at a very young age, cover all their expenses themselves, manage their finances, accept responsibility for mistakes, and employ their teams and can hire and fire them at will and b) their profession is not regulated, which means that (in theory) any old idiot can become a professional tennis player, you don't need a degree or an apprenticeship or anything else to call yourself a professional tennis player.
Now if you are self-employed, you are encouraged (and depending on the legal system of the country you are registered in) to a certain extent obliged to find your own clients - and i mean clients in the plural here, because if you only work for one client, you might be guilty of what's called "bogus self employment", i.e. you are behaving like an employee and thus should be employed by your client, who then e.g. needs to pay social benefits (insurance, pensions etc.) on your behalf.
Already you can see that this is different for tennis players. There are several organisations a tennis player works for, so to speak, - the Slams, the Tours (ATP and WTA), the ITF - but they aren't competing with each other or contracting you for the same thing. Rather, they have the market divided amongst themselves and each have their own "product" (Slams, tour level tournaments, Davis Cup events...). The only organisation that comes to mind that is to a certain extent competing with them (but also not really) is UTS which calls itself "the world's newest tennis league." Tennis players can't really pick and choose and e.g. only play Slams or only play on the Tour, which is due to the ranking system which these organisations share. To a certain extent the governing bodies seem to notice (or maybe have been pressured into noticing) that this is a problematic situation, what with e.g. the WTA recently announcing paid maternity leave for their players. (Important to note here is that while this situation is certainly problematic, for various reasons I personally think it wouldn't necessarily be desirable to have tennis structured more like a free market, but that is a discussion for another post.)
Now, a second thing which is different in tennis than in most independent professions is the way the players' interests are represented. Before the PTPA, there was no independent association that spoke for some or all of the players, which is highly unusual considering professional tennis has been around for over half a century at this point. The liberal professions I am familiar with all got organised very early on in their existence to form at least one, usually several, professional associations where membership is not mandatory (because, as stated above, this is not a regulated profession, unlike e.g. lawyers or architects who have to become members of a Bar Association or a Chamber) and which does lobbying on behalf of the profession and defends the members' interests and the interests of the profession at large.
Now there's a lot of things you can and should criticise about the PTPA, but you should also keep in mind that it was literally founded less than five years ago, and now is acting in an environment where tennis governing bodies were used to being able to do what they wanted without proper players' representation and are therefore by default hostile to many things the PTPA has to say (This is a silly metaphor, but imagine you have always been allowed to decorate a place yourself, because you own it. Now, however, all the people who actually live in this space suddenly say things like: 'The colour of the wall is hurting my eyes' and 'No, you have to get rid of this chair because it's uncomfortable' etc. etc. This is more or less what's happening to these organisations at the moment.) And if you're wondering how hostile and afraid of this development the governing bodies are: the ATP removes eligibility for pension benefits and player council participation for players who are members of the PTPA or support the PTPA. Which is a quite scandalous and probably illegal thing to do, in my opinion. That part at least should be an easy lawsuit to win.
Hm, what about these players' councils then, you may ask? Well, yes, these exist, and the players elect their representatives. But the fact that the ATP one is called "Players' Advisory Council" already tells you a lot about how much actual influence they have over where the sport is going. The players are consulted, nothing more.
Now I have lots thoughts about the PTPA lawsuits and all the topics that are discussed there but I still haven't had time to read them in detail. If anyone is interested, that will become a topic for another post. For now, I hope this post was at least a bit helpful if you've been asking yourself 'What the hell is going on here.'
To recap: Tennis resembles a liberal profession but has far more rigid structures and less market competition than you would usually expect in such a profession. Tennis players are independent workers and thus should organise to defend their own interests, which has not been the case until very recently.