Zheng Qinwen, the first Chinese tennis player to win a singles gold medal at the 2024 Paris Olympics, is participating in the China Women’s Open.
New record flow of spectators in the China Open was created on Zheng’s first match day, Sep.28, with more than 39,000 people entering the park, according to the official statistics of the China Open.
The match stadium had over 18,000 spectators for the whole day, and over 12,000 for the evening match, with an attendance rate of 95%.
In addition to being popular with the audience, Zheng is also favored by the sponsors.
Before the Paris Olympics, Zheng already had commercial contracts with nearly 10 major brands, which made her ranking at No.15 in Forbes' 2023 list of female athletes with $7.2 million income.
Zheng is not an exception, many female tennis players their high commercial value worldwide.
A High-Value Commercial Entity in Women's Sports
The definition of commercial value can be identified as the amount paid by a voluntary buyer to a voluntary seller in an unregulated marketplace. When applied to the sports field, the income for athletes is the amount paid to some extent.
Eleven female athletes on the top 15 highest-paid female athletes in 2024 are tennis players. Holding six single and eight double titles, the 20-year-old Coco Gauff ranked in first place referring to income for female athletes. She earned US$ 7.1 million on court income from tournament bonus and US$ 20 million off court income from endorsement.
The median of the female tennis athletes on the board is US$ 13.1 million, which is US$ 4 million more than the rest of the athletes from other sports.
Minimal Disparity in Commercial Value Between Genders
[Data source: Forbes]
Although the overall income of male tennis athletes is greater than female athletes, there tends to be less difference between genders in tennis.
According to the chart above, four female tennis athletes have been on board within the top 10 highest paid tennis athletes in 2024, which is comparatively rare to see in other sports.
[Data source: Forbes, WageIndicator]
While male athletes across various ball games generally earn more than their female counterparts, the gender pay gap in tennis is notably smaller compared to other sports. Notably, female badminton players earn more than their male counterparts, yet they still receive less than other sports. [Data source: Instagram, Twitter(X)] [Data source: Instagram, Twitter(X)]
According to the table above, male tennis players have more followers on social media. However, female tennis players demonstrate their influence on social media through a more significant number of posts and interaction rates.
In particular, Serena Williams has 17,000 posts on Instagram and Twitter combined, which is about 11,000 more than Novak Djokovic's approximately 6,000 posts on those platforms.
The high social media interaction rate between female tennis players and fans will attract brand attention. Brands will be more willing to cooperate with them and further increase their commercial value, known as sponsorship.
High Sponsorship Appeal
Sponsorship serves as a crucial indicator for evaluating the commercial value of tennis. Sports associations, events, and players often collaborate with brands that share similar objectives to engage their target audiences effectively and convey their messages.
The cooperation of sponsors not only increases the income of funds but also attracts more people to pay attention to tennis with the brand effect thus increasing the amount paid by voluntary buyers to tennis in an unregulated marketplace. As a result, the commercial value increased.
From Wimbledon's insistence on a white dress code to the different characteristics of different athletes' dress codes, the dress code on the tennis court has always been an expression of personality and identity.
Throughout more than a hundred years of tennis history, clothing changes have always been an outward expression of women's emancipation and business development in tennis.
In the realm of tennis fashion trends, numerous apparel brands have teamed up with players to release tournament-specific clothing. These partnerships not only enhanced brand visibility but also elevated the commercial value of tennis and its players.
In addition to player-apparel brand partnerships, tennis associations and tournaments have their own set of sponsors. These sponsors typically cater to specific niches or adhere to a strict hierarchy.
Being a sport traditionally associated with the middle and upper classes, tennis now emphasizes healthy living and the fusion of technology with sports. Consequently, the WTA's sponsorship roster includes prominent companies providing financial support and technology firms offering cutting-edge solutions for tennis matches.
Apart from listing sponsorships for the association, every tennis tournament has its sponsorship. For example, The Wimbledon Championship has Rolex as their official timekeeper and Evian as their official water.
In contrast, other popular individual ball games like badminton and table tennis lack a mature association and business structure akin to tennis.
The BWF (Badminton World Federation) sponsorship lacks a clear hierarchical structure and exhibits a strong regional bias, with a majority of sponsors hailing from East Asian countries such as China and Japan.
Pivot moment in women's tennis history
Behind today's high level of women's tennis business are the efforts of past generations and the opportunities of the times.
Starting from the 1890s, women's tennis has been professionalized for over a hundred years, and the nodes of revolutions have coincided with a wave of social emancipation for women.
In the 1920s, against the backdrop of World War I, more women came out of the home and into the workforce, which gave birth to the burgeoning women's liberation movement. More and more women began to play professional tennis.
In this era, the first female tennis stars were born. One of the prominent figures during this time was Suzanne Lenglen, whose remarkable skills and style captivated audiences and inspired a generation of women to take up the sport.
Moving to the 1970s, Billie Jean King, the most famous and successful woman tennis player at that time, put much effort into equal rights for men and women in tennis.
Through her work founding Virginia Slims (The 1970 Houston Women's Invitation, also known as the Virginia Slims Invitation for sponsorship reasons, the origin of WTA), King championed fair compensation, starting with the groundbreaking $1 contracts of the "Original 9" players, leading to increased prize money distribution in women's tennis.
In 1972, King's threated to boycott the US Open unless equal prize money was implemented, which drew public’s attention and controversy. Many male tennis players of the time did not believe that women should be paid the same as them. One of them, Bobby Riggs, publicly declared that female tennis players were weak and no woman could beat him.
To silence skeptics, King accepted Riggs' challenge and defeated him by 3-0. Her victory over Bobby Riggs in the "Battle of the Sexes" attracted a large audience, solidifying her role as a gender equality advocate in sports.
The changes brought by King in the 1970s caught the zeitgeist of the affirmative action movement and the popularization of television media.
Entering into the 2000s, players such as the Williams sisters continued to influence women's tennis. Their advocacy led to milestones such as prize money parity at Wimbledon.
The Williams sisters, as the first blacks to achieve prominence in tennis' top tournaments, have attracted the attention and participation of many blacks in tennis.
U.S. Tennis Association data shown that the percentage of minorities, including blacks, participating in junior tennis events had risen from 10 percent in the 1990s to 19 percent in 2018. Today in professional tennis, a host of players, including Coco Gulf, have publicly stated that the Williams sisters were once their childhood idols.
Subsequently, the rise of Asian figures like Li Na, Naomi Osaka, and most recently, Zheng Qinwen, further underscores the global expansion and internationalization of tennis.
Today, the affirmative action movement in tennis is still continuing. After the four Grand Slams, athletes are now working to push for equal pay at the WTA 1000 and 500 events.
"Progress is slow; often agonizingly so. It's seldom easy; in fact, it’s pretty near always tough,” said Venus Williams, “but the tough thing and the right thing are often the same thing. And equality is a great thing. Maybe the most important thing."