{"id":633002,"date":"2026-06-11T12:05:08","date_gmt":"2026-06-11T12:05:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/633002\/"},"modified":"2026-06-11T12:05:08","modified_gmt":"2026-06-11T12:05:08","slug":"wimbledon-2026-prize-money-to-increase-by-20-to-64-2m","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/633002\/","title":{"rendered":"Wimbledon 2026: Prize money to increase by 20% to \u00a364.2m"},"content":{"rendered":"

Players are campaigning for the Grand Slams to link prize money to tournament revenue – while also making contributions to their benefit pool and offering them a greater say in how the events are run.<\/p>\n

The players had been hoping for a sum close to \u00a371.7m from Wimbledon. They want all four Slams to pay 16% of their revenue in prize money this year – and calculate that figure by adding 5% to last year’s revenue.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe don’t look at percentages, we don’t actually believe that is the right metric,\u201d Jevans added.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is one metric that is based purely on revenue and doesn’t take into account any costs and we cannot run a business in that way. <\/p>\n

\u201cWe have expenses – we have spoken about infrastructure and investment in grass court tennis. <\/p>\n

\u201cYou cannot run a sustainable business, and we have nearly been around for 150 years, just by looking at revenue. That is just plainly wrong.”<\/p>\n

The AELTC paid the Lawn Tennis Association (LTA) \u00a348.1m last year, under an agreement in which they distribute 90% of each year’s surplus to the governing body.<\/p>\n

Player prize money has more than doubled over the past 10 years, and sources have previously voiced frustrations at the suggestion they are exploiting players “like some Victorian mill owners”.<\/p>\n

The AELTC voluntarily distributed \u00a310m in prize money to 620 players who would have featured in the 2020 Championships had they not been cancelled because of the Covid pandemic.<\/p>\n

A 9.5% increase in prize money at the recent French Open was not enough for some players, who limited their pre-tournament media commitments<\/a> to just 15 minutes in protest.<\/p>\n

And, like the AELTC, the French Tennis Federation also takes exception to the principle of linking prize money to revenue.<\/p>\n

“I believe that these figures are not the ones we should really look at, but we’ll have that discussion with the players,” tournament director Amelie Mauresmo said on Sunday.<\/p>\n

“I believe that everybody has to make a step in the other’s direction, and we’ll have to change the mentality. So we’ll need goodwill from everyone.”<\/p>\n

The US Tennis Association (USTA) offered $90m (\u00a367.2m) – and a 20% increase – in prize money last year. The prize fund for this year’s US Open, which begins on 30 August, is expected to be announced shortly after Wimbledon.<\/p>\n

It will comfortably clear the $100m mark and could well exceed the players’ demands for 2026 prize money to represent 16% of tournament revenue.<\/p>\n

The players are enjoying increasing leverage, and have highlighted the US Open’s new star-studded mixed doubles event in negotiations with the USTA.<\/p>\n

The point has been made that the competition is more important to the commercial success of the US Open’s ‘Fan Week’ than it is to many of the players – who may need to arrive earlier than scheduled as it takes place the week before the main draw.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Players are campaigning for the Grand Slams to link prize money to tournament revenue – while also making…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":633003,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[38],"tags":[101,118,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-633002","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tennis","tag-sports","tag-tennis","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/633002","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=633002"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/633002\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/633003"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=633002"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=633002"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=633002"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}