Where Are the Sony Open Cameras? Mostly Watching the Men
By BEN ROTHENBERG
MARCH 27, 2014
KEY BISCAYNE, Fla. — At the sun-soaked Sony Open held on this island east of Miami, the women have not been able to shine quite as brightly as the men — at least to those watching on television.
When Butch Buchholz, an architect of the professional game in the early Open era, founded the event in 1985, he packaged it as a “winter Wimbledon.” It remains one of the top tournaments outside the Grand Slam events to feature both men and women.
While the prestige, the fields (96 players in each draw) and the prize money have remained equal for men and women, the disparity in television coverage at this year’s tournament has been stark. By the end of the tournament, 71 men’s matches will have been produced for television and streaming, compared with 26 women’s matches.
From the quarterfinals on, all matches will be produced for television and streaming. But in the first four rounds, only 22 percent of women’s matches were shown, compared with 74 percent of men’s matches.
After being used for a men’s match, cameras have frequently been powered down and covered with tarps during subsequent women’s matches, then sometimes switched back on for the next men’s match. On Monday, the cameras were on for a match between 93rd-ranked Benjamin Becker and 119th-ranked Aljaz Bedene on Court 1. But they were switched off for the women’s matches that followed, featuring No. 2 Li Na, No. 3 Agnieszka Radwanska and the former No. 1 Caroline Wozniacki.
While players have seemed unconcerned by inequality of matches available, women’s tennis fans have taken note, sending hundreds of frustrated messages to the WTA across various social media.
“I think everyone wants those matches to be on air,” the WTA chief executive, Stacey Allaster, said. “That’s the correct work that needs to be done, again, between all of the parties who have a vested interest in promoting them. It requires more collaboration and consultation. Miami will be a top priority for us. That conversation will be had with Perform and Miami, because we can’t have those matches be dark.”
Perform, the broadcast distribution partner of the WTA, does not produce matches itself at combined tournaments, instead paying for the services of the men’s broadcast organization, ATP Media Tennis Partners Limited.
“There is a discussion between the tournaments and Perform about how many more matches Perform wants to buy from the tournament, and the tournament then gets ATP Media to produce them,” Allaster said. “It comes down, at the end of the day, to an economic discussion, and it requires collaboration and compromise and compensation.”
At the preceding tournament, in Indian Wells, Calif., which is also a 96-player Premier Mandatory event for the women, 55 women’s matches were produced, more than double the amount in Key Biscayne.
The number of women’s matches shown here this year has increased to 26 from 20 last year.
The tournament produces the minimum required amount of matches for a WTA Premier Mandatory event, which is 20. Perform pays for additional matches to be produced, at a cost of about $8,000 to $9,000 per match, according to the tournament director, Adam Barrett.
“We’re neutral as to which matches go out,” he said. “We’re a men’s and women’s event; as long as we have something to put out, we’re good — so long as there’s a quality match out there.”
Barrett indicated an unwillingness to foot the bill for additional women’s matches, which the tournaments in Indian Wells and Madrid had done.
“It’s always my belief that the international broadcaster should broadcast as much as they can generate,” said Barrett, referring to Perform. “They are the ones that benefit from the profit side. We don’t get any more money. We don’t get any more money if they produce more matches and sell more matches. We get the same amount, so our deal is simply 20 matches for a fee.”
But Allaster said the WTA could not subsidize an individual tournament’s world feed production “because we’d then have to do that for everybody.”
Steve Plasto, the chief executive of ATP Media’s Tennis Properties, said his organization invested $20 million in its broadcasts each year. With a staff of 170 and multiple production trailers on site in Key Biscayne, ATP Media acts as a host broadcaster at combined events, with no room for Perform to work alongside.
“This is the product of 10-plus years, almost 15, of investment, which gives us the flexibility and the scale to produce more matches, deliver more content and be more nimble for our rights holders’ broadcasts,” Plasto said of the ATP Media enterprise. “Meanwhile the WTA’s broadcast interests act more like a local broadcaster.”
He added: “It’s very difficult to reconcile the two different business models when it comes to media rights. One model relied on heavy investment, and the other one relies on accessing content already produced.”
Bob Whyley, senior vice president of production and executive producer for Tennis Channel, said that men’s and women’s matches rated comparably on his channel.
“Listen, we love WTA tennis, and our viewers love WTA tennis,” he said. “And golly, how many sports in the world that have women in them rate as well and sometimes better than men? So we’ve got a great product. The matches that we’re given, we put on the air and we do well with.”
Whyley said that Sunday’s match between Venus Williams and Casey Dellacqua, which was not originally on the broadcast schedule, became the highest-rated match of the day for the network.
“I’m excited that there is more demand for our women’s matches,” Allaster said. “Ultimately — put aside from the economics of this conversation — the fact that the fans want more, and are asking for more, is the way forward.”
