How Wimbledon makes generating bundles of cash look easy

The unique business (and it is unique in many ways so we aren’t just using that overused term for effect) behind the The Championships at Wimbledon has been intricately dissected by popular sports business blogger Joe Pompliano in his latest email. We found it fascinating.

Here’s Joe’s email in full. (He doesn’t normally write much about racket sports but if you want to subscribe to his free newsletters you can do that here)

Wimbledon is unique because, unlike most major sporting events, which are shrouded in secrecy, the All England Lawn Tennis and Croquet Club (AELTC) produces a 30+ page annual report detailing the finances behind its two-week-long marquee event.

For example, AELTC reported that the 2022 Wimbledon tennis tournament brought the club $440.5 million in revenue and a profit of $58.7 million (~13% profit margins).

AELTC doesn’t break these numbers down much further than that. But based on previous reporting by Forbes, the individual categories probably look like this.

Wimbledon’s Estimated Revenue Breakdown

• Global broadcast rights (56%): $246 million

• Ticket sales (16%): $70 million

• Sponsorships (16%): $70 million

• Concessions and merchandise (12%): $53 million

That sounds like a lot of money because it is a lot of money, especially for a sport that is seeing a decline in youth participation. The more interesting part, though, is that Wimbledon is potentially leaving $100 million on the table, protecting the event’s legacy by releasing cheap tickets and handpicking only a few blue-chip sponsors.

Wimbledon’s Global Broadcast Rights

Like many other large-scale sporting events, Wimbledon makes most of its money selling global broadcasting rights. For example, an estimated $246 million of its $440 million in revenue (56%) currently comes from broadcasting agreements—both domestically in the United Kingdom and internationally in countries like the U.S.

However, ESPN pays much more for the U.S. Open ($75 million annually) than Wimbledon ($42 million annually).

ESPN: U.S. Open vs. Wimbledon U.S. Broadcast Deals (source)

• U.S. Open: 11 years, $825 million ($75 million per year)

• Wimbledon: 12 years, $500 million ($42 million per year)

Most of this discrepancy can be explained by the fact that the U.S. Open is a domestic tournament for ESPN, whereas Wimbledon is an international tournament. But it’s impressive that Wimbledon can command such a high number for its international rights alone, as its domestic TV deal with the BBC pays 2-3x that number annually.

And Wimbledon isn’t the only one getting paid big bucks for TV appearances.

In 2017, it was revealed that BBC paid John McEnroe between $210,000 and $281,000 for 30 TV appearances during the tournament. BBC drew criticism from this report because 1) BBC is a taxpayer-funded network, and 2) McEnroe’s salary was ten times more than what Martina Navratilova was getting paid by the same network.

But not much changed, and McEnroe has continued to work with BBC each year since.

Wimbledon’s Ticket Sales Bring In $70 Million

Ticket sales are Wimbledon's second-largest revenue driver. However, it’s also one of the areas where they leave a lot of money on the table. For example, Wimbledon broke a record in 2022 when 515,164 people attended the tournament over two weeks.

That resulted in roughly $70 million in revenue. But Wimbledon has refused to make its courts bigger over the years, and the tournament attracts 115,000 fewer fans than the 2023 French Open (630,000), 325,000 fewer fans than the 2023 Australian Open (840,000), and 373,000 fewer fans than the 2022 U.S. Open (888,000).

Main Court Max Capacity Seating

• Wimbledon’s Centre Court: 15,000 spectators

• U.S. Open’s Arthur Ashe Stadium: 23,771 spectators

Furthermore, Wimbledon’s Centre Court tickets rise in value as the tournament progresses, while ground passes decline in price because of fewer matches.

Centre Court Ticket Prices

• Day 1-Day 2: $100

• Day 3-Day 4: $127

• Day 5-Day 6: $165

• Day 7-Day 8: $197

• Day 9-Day 10: $235

• Day 11-Day 12: $280

• Day 13-Day 14: $324

Ground Pass Ticket Prices

• Day 1-Day 8: $35

• Day 9-Day 11: $25

• Day 12-Day 13: $20

• Day 14: $10

Another interesting nugget is that rather than increasing ticket prices each year, which many venues do by blaming inflation, Wimbledon sells five-year debentures, providing fans with daily tickets to the tournament for five years at a stagnant price.

So, with primary market ticket prices ranging from $10 to $324, Wimbledon could raise prices and make tens of millions more in revenue. Instead, they take a similar approach to the Masters, intentionally keeping primary market ticket prices low.

Wimbledon’s (Long-Term) Sponsorship Strategy

After attending Wimbledon or watching it on TV, most people probably couldn’t name a single sponsor of the event — and that’s precisely how Wimbledon likes it.

Wimbledon only works with ten to fifteen sponsors annually. Brand logos on most courts are black (pictured above), making them barely visible next to the lush green courts. And even though the logos on Centre Court and Court No. 1 are white, they are so small that hardly anyone can see them outside of people in the first few rows.

Don’t believe me? Just look at the difference between Wimbledon and the US Open.

Still, brands like Rolex, Slazenger, IBM, Ralph Lauren, and Evian pay seven figures annually to be official partners at the Wimbledon Championships.

The simplest way to explain this is that Wimbledon wants to be known for its clean, green grass courts. So, they intentionally limit the number of partners they work with and accept less money, enabling them to control the terms of the partnership and optimize for building long-term relationships rather than accepting short-term cash.

"Our clean court philosophy is at the heart of our brand,” AELTC’s commercial and media director Mick Desmond previously told Forbes.

Wimbledon’s Famous Concessions & Merchandise

Although concessions and merchandise represent just 12% of Wimbledon’s tournament revenue, the category still brings in more than $50 million annually.

The majority of this comes through merchandise. For example, AELTC sells its Wimbledon merchandise online, unlike The Masters, and it’s not cheap. Shorts, t-shirts, sweatshirts, and jackets range from $50 to more than $250 per item.

Wimbledon will typically process about 155,000+ merchandise transactions over two weeks, with 450,000+ products being sold.

• 58,271 baseball caps and Panama hats

• 27,419 Championship towels

• 16,213 crossed rackets logo t-shirts

• 14,760 sweatbands

• 3,201 personalized embroideries on baseball caps and Championship towels, which equals 2.9 million individual stitches

Used Wimbledon balls are also sold daily and all proceeds go to the Wimbledon Foundation

But don’t forget about concessions. The All England Club sells around 190,000 servings of its famed strawberries and cream annually, and it will only cost you $3 per serving, despite the U.K.'s high inflation since COVID.

Congratulations to Joe for this excellent synopsis and feel free to subscribe to Huddle Up