The women’s professional tennis tour is headed back to China, announcing Thursday the end of the boycott linked to concerns over former player Peng Shuai.
Wait! What about the moral high ground? The pre-Beijing 2022 Winter Games lecturing by so many in the West to China, repeated as gospel by willing journalistic interlocutors? The veneration over the past several months of WTA chairman and chief executive Steve Simon, who as recently as last month was saying the women’s tour would return to China only when 1/ it could directly contact Peng and 2/ the Chinese authorities conducted a “full, fair and transparent” investigation?
What about the self-appointed high priests from the many tribes of the reflexively high-dudgeon and sanctimoniously judgmental?
FYI: @IOC is not even the IOC Twitter account but OK.
Intriguing how conspicuously silent so many were Thursday and Friday as the wheel turned. As it had to, because the Chinese were never, ever going to be shamed by Western moralizing.
And because, as ever, what really talks is — money.
In this case, Chinese money. Millions and millions of dollars from China.
Shall we convene Morality 101, class?
Peng Shuai playing doubles at the 2020 Australian Open // Getty Images
And at Day 4 of the 2022 Winter Olympics, watching the women’s Big Air Final // Getty Images
In journalism, the lesson you should learn early, and hard, one virtually all my Western colleagues forgot in their rush to judgment in covering this matter, is elemental:
When people say it’s not about the money, it’s about the money.
“The stance that we took at the time was appropriate,” Simon told AP Thursday. “And we stand by that. But 16 months into this, we’re convinced our requests will not be met. And to continue with the same strategy doesn’t make sense.”
You think?
As the WTA’s refreshingly candid statement put it: “… the situation has shown no sign of changing. We have concluded … it will be our players and tournaments who ultimately will be paying an extraordinary price for their sacrifices.”
That price, let’s be clear, talks in dollars. All those millions and millions of them.
Even the most aspirational of us can get to realism when only realism is on the horizon. Here is Yaqui Wang, senior China researcher at Human Rights Watch, in Thursday’s New York Times, whose Christopher Clarey called the WTA’s move a “retreat”:
“Eventually,’ Wang said, “they still succumbed to the pressure. I’m not surprised because of the money that is at stake …”
Two weeks ago, Sports Illustrated’s Jon Wertheim wrote a story whose headline, in part, summoning the ghost of Navratilova’s 2021 tweet, declared the WTA “will soon have to choose: principle or profit?”
Good one!
The WTA, Wertheim wrote, had been taking an annual “eight-figure” revenue hit because it stopped doing business in China. For an outfit with about $110 million in annual revenue, that’s a lot. At least $10 million.
More from Simon to AP: “So we needed to look at a different approach. With this, our members believe it’s time to resume the mission in China, where we believe we can continue to make a positive difference, as we have for the last 20 years, while at the same time making sure Peng is not forgotten. By returning, hopefully, more progress can be made.”
For sure, to everyone’s bottom line.
Wertheim: China used to play host to more top-tier tournaments than any other nation, 10, including the $20 million year-end WTA Finals in Shenzhen, alone the No. 1 source of tour revenue.
In 2019, when Australia’s Ash Barty won in Shenzhen, she earned $4.42 million, then the biggest prize in tennis history, men’s or women’s.
The 2022 championships were played in Fort Worth, Texas. Winner Caroline Garcia of France made $1.5 million.
Sportswriter math: that’s two-thirds less.
Maybe this is why Simon told AP’s Howard Fendrich in the story Thursday, “The great majority of the athletes were supportive and wanted to see a return … and felt it was time to go back.”
Or, as Garcia, ranked fifth in the world, told the BBC, referring to China, “In the past, we have had some huge tournaments over there and I think it is an important swing for us in our calendar and I’m looking forward to it.”
Anne Keothavong, Britain’s Billie Jean King Cup captain, told The Guardian that tennis “is a business,” adding, “The WTA [needs] to generate commercial revenue and the players need a circuit to compete.”
In 2019, Wertheim reported, the WTA reported revenues of $109.7 million and expenses of $110.7 million. Now figure in an eight-figure revenue loss, which Wertheim said occurred in 2020 and 2021 but was “not the case” — no further details — for 2022.
Last month, Wertheim reported, the WTA struck a deal to sell 20% of its equity to an investor for $150 million.
Sounds like a business in need of what a 1980s Bruce Springsteen song vividly calls some good cold cash. Uh, where could it find some?
The tour’s eight-stop China schedule will begin in September, Simon told the AP, and include the Finals in Shenzhen.
“This decision wasn’t made based upon the Finals deal in any way, shape or form,” Simon told the Times, and that’s believable. He went on: “It was based upon what was in the best interest of the organization, and we felt this was in that best interest.” And on once more, and here is where it begs credibility: “Will it be good for our balance sheet and those types of things, yes it will, but that wasn’t the basis for our decision.”
If that wasn’t the basis — what was?
In January, the WTA said, “While we have always indicated we are hopeful we will be in a position to again operate WTA events in [China], we will not compromise our founding principles in order to do so.”
Simon to Wertheim on March 29: “We stand behind Peng and the courage it took for her to come forward and we do hope for a resolution to be reached … women’s voices must be listened to and supported when they speak up and out.”
So what changed? In three months? Two weeks? What about … women’s voices?
Simon to the AP, asked if the WTA might be seen as backing down: “Well, everybody will have their own opinion on that, for sure. But we took a stand that no one else has.”
From Thursday’s WTA statement: “We received much praise for our principled stand and believe we sent a powerful message to the world. But praise alone is insufficient to bring about change.”
Typically, you also need money — usually, a lot.
So, believe it, the next chapter will doubtlessly be the WTA going to Saudi Arabia.
All this from Wertheim: Simon recently made a trip to Riyadh; Ari Fleischer, the former Bush Administration PR guru who has been advising Simon, has been closely involved with LIV Golf; the Saudis have been inquiring about hosting an event; and a current WTA board member already promotes a December exhibition in Saudi Arabia.
The WTA to the kingdom is inevitable. When? Sooner than later, probably.
Save the reflexive ‘sportswashing’ noise. The WTA has already told you everything you want to know.
Money talks. Millions scream loudly. When someone tries to tell you it’s about something else, says it’s not about the money, it always gets back to the money. To believe otherwise is to be played for a fool.