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Money Matters

With competing events around the world in the same week, the Chennai Open uses the lure of appearance money to ensure big names.

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CHENNAI: The economics of tournament organisation demand the presence of big names.

Players like Rafael Nadal and David Nalbandian bring in the crowds but even more importantly, they draw in the sponsors as the guaranteed media exposure allows tournament organisers like IMG to market their event all the better.

With competing events around the world in the same week, the Chennai Open uses the lure of appearance money to ensure it has a field that can boast of big names.

This is especially important given the fact that of the two competing tournaments in the first week of the year, both Doha ($1,000,000) and Adelaide ($436,000) offer more prize money than the Chennai Open’s $416,000.

“It is a question of market dynamics that operate and there is really no black and white to the whole deal. Personal relations also play a big part,” says Balu Nayar, MD IMG India. The question of appearance or guarantee money is a prickly one and firm figures are never available. “No comments,”

Nayar smiles when asked for precise numbers. But insiders reveal that the probable cut off figure for the total amount that Chennai offers is in the vicinity of $750,000.

The highest figure doled out by the tournament is speculated to be about $320,000 which was given to get the boom of Boris Becker to reverberate in the Nungambakkam Stadium in 1998.

The usual figure for top players coming to Chennai hovers around $250,000 — a sum in that league would have been offered to both Nadal and Nalbandian this time around.

Former world number one Carlos Moya features in the $150,000 range. The costs would be higher except that these players are managed by IMG itself.

As to just how pivotal the appearance money is can be gauged from Leander Paes opting to play at Doha this week instead of his favoured Chennai.

Leander and Mahesh Bhupathi have always figured different on the radar of the tournament organisers. In their heydays while playing together Leander commanded $65,000 from this tournament while Mahesh was paid $35,000 at the same time.

Leander still commands a figure in the vicinity of $50,000 when playing to an audience which has a significant number of Indians.

It has been reliably learnt that while Doha has offered him appearance money in the region of $45,000 to 50,000 this week, Chennai was not able to better the $30,000 mark given the high amounts that were already being handed out to top stars.

Of course, Leander wants the whole Doha controversy to die down too and would not have relished the prospect of facing the media in Chennai.

Apart from the Chennai Open other Indian tournaments also use the tool of guarantee money to get top stars. For instance the Sony Ericcson WTA tournament scheduled for Bangalore will see Serena Williams and Sania Mirza play.

Serena is said to have cost in the region of $150,000 while Sania already seems to be doing better than the Indian veterans and will be awarded close to $90,000.

Performance incentives are also usually part of such deals and players are promised bonuses if they last till the final stages.

(All figures are speculative based on sources)

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