Yesterday during the US Open, the ESPN commentators made a good point about one of the amateur players in the field. He's supposed to be headed to Baylor in January (which they agreed was a good idea), which means he isn't allowed to collect any of his US Open prize money if he wants to stay eligible to compete in the NCAA.
Darren Cahill thinks that's silly and offered an interesting solution. He can't take the money and play in college. No one is arguing that should be allowed. But they shouldn't have to just surrender it, either. Which is why Cahill's suggestion makes a lot of sense. He said that any prize money college players win should be put into a trust that they can't touch until they turn pro, but will give them the available funds necessary to launch a pro career.
Then I got to the tennis center for the night session, bought a program, and started skimming through it before the matches started. And in the program was an article talking about how open tennis came into being 51 years ago, and how the US Open was at the forefront of that revolution. If the event hadn't been opened up to professionals, there's no way the US Open ever would've become the spectacle that it is today. Not even close. So, these two weeks are a celebration of what it took to make that happen.
And some of the details in that story got me thinking. It's impossible to imagine the world today without professional sports. But that wasn't always the case. For a long time, people (many of whom were looking out for their own self-interest) were so concerned with protecting the idea of "amateurism" and thought that making sports a professional career would somehow ruin them. Needless to say, they were wrong.
Just think about how different sports would be if athletes still had to make that choice. They could either remain amateurs, compete at Grand Slam tournaments or in the Olympics, and try to figure out how to play the sport they loved while still finding a way to pay the bills. Or, they could turn pro and actually make money for playing their sport (and earn endorsements), but not take part in any of the prestigious events that people actually care about.
In 2019, that obviously sounds ridiculous to even think about. Especially when you consider the total prize money at the US Open is $57.2 million, with the men's and women's singles winners each receiving $3.85 million (first-round losers got $58,000 [aka more than the average Americans' annual salary] just for showing up).
Of course, the reason the USTA is able to offer that ridiculous amount of prize money is because the US Open generates so much revenue it's not even funny. More than 800,000 people attended the tournament in 2018, and a record 68,000 people were there for 2019 Opening Day on Monday. It's typically the highest-attended annual sporting event in the world. Why? Because people want to see the best tennis players in the world. And if they wouldn't be showing up in droves for an amateur-only event.
It's weird to be talking about this as if all of these details weren't already obvious. But we have the benefit of having seen it in action for so long. This is also a vastly different time. Sports wasn't big business in the 60s. Although, it took some other sports much longer to come around than tennis did.
Much like Grand Slam tennis, the Olympics long held firm on its amateurism stance. Even though it was exploited as an obvious sham by the Eastern European nations, the IOC had the same notion about professionals. As oxymoronic as it sounded, the Olympics, where the best athletes in the world compete for their nations, weren't a place for professionals. Why should the athletes who dedicate their lives to the pursuit of an Olympic medal get paid for it? Crazy talk!
We're obviously long past the days where the Olympics were only contested by "amateur" athletes. Next year in Tokyo, we'll see the absolute best athletes in the world, many of whom are well-known, highly-compensated professionals. And that's how it should be! I honestly can't even picture anybody else in the Olympics (or Grand Slam tennis).
I really don't know what that would look like. I'd imagine it would be competition similar to the NCAA Championships (which is great in many sports, but not nearly what you see at the professional level). But would that be able to draw the public's interest? Maybe. But certainly not to the same extent. So, in a way, it's almost the complete opposite now. The Olympics, in many ways, feel they need the pros in order to be considered legitimate.
They knew this in 1992, which is one of the many reasons why the Dream Team is so transcendent. They knew this in 1998, when they had the first Olympic hockey tournament featuring NHL players, and they knew it 20 years later, when they had one without them. When baseball got dropped from the Olympics, it was partially because Major Leaguers couldn't play in the middle of the season. It worked the other way, too. The Atlanta Olympics helped launch the WNBA, and the WNBA has provided the members of the U.S. women's basketball team ever since.
Amateur sports aren't going anywhere. That's how athletes get started. But if they're good enough for their chosen sport to become their profession, they need some incentive. Which brings me back to Darren Cahill's thoughts about the student-athlete "trust." In an individual sport like tennis or golf or track, give it a shot. See how you do at the elite level. But instead of surrendering any prize money, save it for later. This way you keep your college eligibility, but still have a way of funding your professional dreams (and I'd argue that they should be able to pay coaches, trainers, etc. out of that money regardless).
Will that ever happen? Most likely not. But the fact that we're talking about giving amateurs that option shows how long sports have come. Because for a long time, it was the other way around. You could either compete for the love of the game or for the money. Now it's easy to do both. Which is why "professional athlete" is usually at or near the top of anybody's list of dream jobs.
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