By Jeffrey Cretan
The Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal rivalry has bounced to New York City for the U.S. Open. After an epic Wimbledon final in July that tennis legend John McEnroe called the greatest match he’d ever seen, tennis fans everywhere are hoping for a rematch on the hard court in Queens. And some are willing to pay for it. On Stubhub.com, a center court seat for the men’s final is currently listed at $9,750.
Don Vacarro, CEO of TicketNetwork.com, touts the potential Federer-Nadal finals match-up as the driving force behind high resale ticket prices. “Someone just said to me this is the equivalent of Ali-Frazier,” says Vacarro. As of Wednesday, TicketNetwork.com had already taken 3,000 orders for the Open (they took 3,600 orders for the entire Open last year) and Vacarro believes next week will be his busiest week. He credits this to Federer and Nadal’s otherworldly skills and the hopes of another Wimbledon-esque showdown.
In fact, even though the tournament takes place inside the United States, if an American like Andy Roddick pulled an upset to reach the finals to play Federer or Nadal, Vacarro says tickets prices would drop dramatically. “In 2007 when Nadal lost in the quarters, the price of finals ticket dropped by 50%,” he adds.
The Federer and Nadal battle for the top spot (which Nadal just took from Federer after Nadal won gold in Beijing) has brought renewed attention and excitement to the tennis world. “From a pure tennis perspective, their rivalry is definitely near the top all time as far as the quality of their play,” says Steven Tignor, the executive editor of Tennis Magazine and Smash Magazine. Tignor ranks Federer vs. Nadal right up there with classic tennis rivalries such as Chris Evert vs. Martina Navartilova and Bjorn Borg vs. John McEnroe, noting that if Federer and Nadal played at this current level for three more years, they’d probably take the top spot as the best tennis rivalry in history.
However, while Americans are watching this historic duo swap serves, they’re not tuning in at the same rate as the rest of the world. When Nadal ousted Federer at Wimbledon in July, over 1 in 5 British viewers were glued to their TV sets. This compares with the 97.5 million Americans (nearly a third of the country) who watched the New York Giants knock off the New England Patriots in the Super Bowl this year, but for Americans, tennis just isn’t football. In the United States, at Wimbledon’s peak only 15% of the TV audience (that’s percent of people with their TVs on, not percent of the population), watched the epic battle on NBC (GE) between the Spanish Prince and the Swiss Gent. Though these were strong ratings for a U.S. tennis broadcast, they didn’t compare with the Brits (or the Swiss, French or Spanish for that matter).
“Imagine if Federer were American,” says Tignor of the Swiss star. “It would be huge. He would be on every magazine cover.” While Federer has endorsed products in America like Gillete (PG), Mercedes-Benz (DAI) and Nike (NKE), his marketing profile has not approached the level of Tiger Woods, the player to whose dominance he has most often been compared. Overall, Federer’s commercial appeal is stronger on the streets of Paris, France than Paris, Texas. “Federer does what he can, but casual American sports fans, like in any other country, want to see Americans first,” says Tignor. Nadal, who at just 22-years-old is five years Federer’s junior, has an even lower American profile than his Swiss counterpart.
Upon closer examination the reasons behind the surge in U.S. Open prices have less to do with American interest in tennis than they do with the international prestige of the event. “Being at the finals of the U.S. Open is arguably the most important event in tennis,” says Vacarro. Two groups buy up a large bulk of finals tickets: visiting Europeans, who are generally more avid tennis fans, and corporations, who dole the tickets out to clients. Both of these audiences want a battle between the best in the world because it makes the match the place to be. While a lesser American talent in the finals might draw a few more folks in Missouri to their TV sets, it would leave the glitz-drawn crowd yawning.
The truth is, for Americans, tennis doesn’t rank that high on their sports of interest. “Most regular tennis events, down to the finals, don’t sell out,” says Vacarro. The U.S. Open is the only tennis event that concerns TicketNetwork.com. The rest of the year, there’s no resale market. Even if Federer were to play Nadal in the finals of a minor tournament in Miami, the demand for tickets wouldn’t raise the price that much. Vacarro compares tennis to golf in terms of popularity. “You have the Masters, the Ryder Cup, and the U.S. Open as the three big golf matches and that’s it.” And while golf’s more pedestrian tournaments can benefit from the presence of an American superstar like Tiger Woods, tennis doesn’t have that single homegrown star to drive casual interest.
Unfortunately for the future of American tennis, there is no young Tiger Woods or Roger Federer swinging on the junior circuit right now either. “There are good young players,” says Tignor citing up and coming stars like Donald Young and Sam Querry, “but I don’t see either one of them as a future number one.” So for now, American sports fans will have to be content with watching a pair of European masters at the top of their game, which is no small consolation prize.
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