ATP Trial Continues With Dispute Over Tour Schedule, Player Reps
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Hamburg Organizers Seeking To Undo Relegation
To Second Tier Status On ATP Schedule |
The ATP player representatives on the BOD only agreed to the circuit’s controversial new calendar for '09 if the top tournaments in return agreed to pool all their TV rights, according to videotaped deposition of Perry Rogers played at the ATP’s antitrust trial yesterday. The organizers of the Hamburg, Germany, stop are suing the ATP to undo the calendar changes, which would demote the event from the first to second tier on the men's tennis circuit. Rogers, a former ATP Board member, described a quid pro quo agreement in November '06 in which the three player reps only agreed to mandate that the top players have to compete in the top eight events if the tournaments were forced to pool TV rights. “The exchange there, the quid pro quo, for lack of a better phrase, was that we wanted to ensure that the ATP would then be accountable and aggressive for going out and monetizing that commitment from the players,” Rogers said during the deposition. Rogers, who managed the career of Andre Agassi, was voted out as player board rep in May. The Hamburg organizers have objected to both the TV pooling and the forced player commitment as violation of U.S. antitrust law. Now, however, the tournaments want to back out of their end of the deal, Rogers testified, and he blamed IMG Senior VP/Men's Tennis Gavin Forbes. Forbes was on the original witness list, but IMG prior to the trial objected to any of its executives testifying for fear it might harm the ATP. Rogers testified that had there not been the agreement to pool the TV rights, he would not have acceded to the player commitment requirement.
EVENT DIRECTOR TESTIFIES: The early part of the day was taken up by testimony from Walter Knapper, the Hamburg event tournament director. While he described the deleterious affects of a downgrade, under cross examination from the ATP attorney Brad Ruskin, Knapper conceded that prior to the Hamburg downgrade, he had urged many of the same moves the ATP has undertaken. In a videotaped deposition, ATP CEO of the Americas Mark Young testified the circuit had ignored the advice of its consultant, Dan Jones of Deloitte & Touche, to establish an objective scorecard of criteria to choose the top events. The ATP instead chose a subjective system. Also, ATP board member Graeme Pearce testified in a videotaped deposition that the ATP approved in '07 the largest executive bonuses in its history to the tune of $718,250 (Daniel Kaplan, SportsBusiness Journal).
REAX: SI.com's Jon Wertheim wrote of the trial, "If a governing body doesn't have the right to demote and promote events based on financial viability, what power does it really have?" Wertheim: "How did the ATP not foresee this eventuality? Going forward there has to be some mechanism: 'By granting you ATP sanction, we reserve the right to demote your status if you fail to meet certain criteria.'" Wertheim added, "Let's consider this a cautionary tale" (SI.com, 7/23).
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