Roland Garros Tennis Tournament - Essay Example

Roland Garros Tennis tour nt Background Roland Garros is a Grand Slam tennis tour nt that brings together the best tennisplayers on the planet. The players battle in the best tennis tournament on Earth on the Parisian red clay and watched by more than five hundred thousand people across the world. The stakeholders commit themselves to sustainable development. This makes it practical and effective for all the partakers as they divide and define different decision-making levels where various people take action and control. Stakeholders join various national and international corporate social responsibility organizations including those with specific areas such as the banking sector and communication sector as well as those with very general ideas in their scope. Organizers collaborate with such organizations in developing and promoting corporate responsibility in different parts of the world. The management of Roland Garros tournament has established a specific organizational structure within the ranks of organizers, which works with a dedicated team operating form the corporate social responsibility headquarters. Roland Garros also called the French Open is one of the four annual Grand Slam tournaments in the world in addition to Wimbledon, the United States Open, and the Australian Open. Recently great tennis players have participated including Raphael Nadal, Milan Djokovic, Llodra, and Gasquet among many more. Stakeholders term it as a showcase for all of France. The tournament is unique because it is the only tournament played on clay. The tournament was held in nineteen twenty-eight at Porte d’Auteoil in Paris (Panat and Golinelli 1991). Stakeholders keep increasing aura of Roland Garros every year brings out some of the dazzling sporting achievements from the biggest tennis international players. The four musketeers consisting of Borota, Cochet, Brugnon, and Lacoste brought a lot success to the tournament, adding flavor to the initial foundation of professional tennis in France. The efforts of the four players quickly led the tournament getting global recognition. Organizers made sure that in nineteen sixty-eight they held the first tournament where both amateurs and professional participated. Stakeholders hold memories of great players including Gustavo Kuerten, Bjorn Borg, and Mats Wilander. The tournament saw in nineteen eighty-three a win by the first ever French player (Evans 1991). This was Yannick Noah. Sponsors The stakeholders always use ten thousand employees to organize the tournament successfully. Sponsors increase every year including IBM, BNP Paribus, Lacoste, and Orange among many others. The tournament is a profitable enterprise that allows people to maintain the tournament and fund all French championships. The management of the tournament reinvests more than twenty million Euros into the federation after every annual Roland Garros tournament. TV rights, partnerships, and public relation generate more than one hundred and sixty million Euros from the tournament (Grand Slam (2007). The federation collects approximately thirty million Euros from ticket sales. Combined Objectives Stakeholders have varied objectives and goals that the organizers together with the management combine to come up with joint objectives. The first of the objectives is to encourage and promote broader participation of tennis by increasing its awareness among people. The organizers also strive to develop a new concept christened Roland Garros in the city. The management also works hard to ensure that the tournament comes to the esplanade in front of Paris City Hall. In the recent tournaments, Flair delivered the deliveries (Moody 1995). They offered various tennis activities including a replica of Roland Garros Centre court. This is a mini smash court for children and fro wall practices. The Fair also provided a giant screen of fifty-five square meters to screen all broadcast matches. Flair also organized various tennis exhibitions with visits from tennis legends that included Ilie NDstase and John McEnroe among others. The strategy as set out in the projects proves to be successful because over time more twenty thousand attendees are always available. The management succeeded in screening all the matches’ lives from the Roland Garros. The federation sold all the match tickets with members of the public full booking all the synthetic courts as well as attracting all the tennis legends (Cleto 2002). Other stakeholders participate in corporate philanthropy activities that help uniting various companies and people. Most of such people share around shared objects and values. Through this, they contribute to peaceful development of economic, cultural, and social environment in respective areas of operation. The philanthropic areas of operation by certain companies build on culture, education, solidarity, environment, and medical research. The allure of Roland Garros-The community The main objective for players is to win the tournament and join the heroes list in the history of tennis. However, Roland Garros offers an additional experience of a unique tennis environment. Players who win Roland Garros carry the real prestige but participating gives players an opportunity to follow in the footsteps of Noah and Agassi among the big names in the world of tennis. This includes the accompaniment of Paris charm (NAACP administrative file 1990). In the previous year, the tournament organizers increased the prize money to twenty-two million Euros. This allows the winners from various categories get a substantial amount of money. In addition to spectators from France, the rest of the world watches the tournament from different broadcasting companies around the globe. The number of foreign media increases every year (Katić, et al 2011). More than one hundred and fifty international media companies with more than one thousand three hundred globally accredited journalists cover the event every year. Visitors enjoy both the game and the setting. The setting is historically set located at the gate of Paris. Visitors have a clear view of the Eiffel Tower. The Roland Garros World Tour promoted by the Roland Garros includes the Roland Garros World Tour Finals. Others are the Roland Garros World Team Championship, the Roland Garros World Tour Masters 1000, the Roland Garros World Tour 500, and the Roland Garros Tour World 250. This circuit replaces the previous “Roland Garros" calendar with respect to which a number of crucial decisions have been taken by the Roland Garros on downgrading/upgrading tournaments to lower/higher levels, the location of events, etc. The term Roland Garros World Tour is frequently used improperly, including also Slam and Davis Cup, creating a general sense of confusion among non-experts (Evans 1992). In two thousand and ten, this circuit consisted of sixty-two tournaments held in thirty-two countries in the continents of Europe, Asia, Oceania, Africa, and America, highlighting the international character of the circuit and the importance for the economies of the countries involved. From an economic perspective, there are significant differences between tournaments in terms of the organizers financial commitment; for the two thousand and ten seasons, the total financial commitment was approximately sixty-seven million Euros. The prize money paid to tennis players and the financial commitment are distributed (Lydiate 2013). The financial commitment therefore includes the prize money and the fees that each tournament organizer has to pay to athletes and to the Roland Garros respectively; the fees include tour fees and marketing fees determined as a percentage of the prize money paid to players. Regardless of the specific scheduling of each circuit, the Roland Garros provides a set of general rules that are valid for all tournaments including Challengers concerning such aspects as procedures and terms of entry to competitions, player eligibility, withdrawals, allocation of wild cards, etc. The tournaments that form part of the Roland Garros World Tour two thousand and ten records that the following details specified as host country, the playing surface, and the combination of events. Relationships among various stakeholders Regarding the relationship with the ATP, tournament organizers are subjected to the decisions taken by the ATP concerning the tournaments to include/exclude from its circuits, the upgrading/downgrading of competition to upper or lower technical levels. Furthermore, the ATP reserves the right to change the location of tournaments. In this regard, the Grand Prix de Lyon moved in 2011 from Lyon to Montpellier and changed its name to the Open Sud de France and the Pilot Pen Tennis moved from New Haven to Winston Salem in 2011 and renamed the Winston Salem Open (ATP world tour: 2009 season 2009). Although they determine the levels of profitability of each tournament, these decisions impose serious constraints on the organizers, as witnessed by statements that favor the ATP in the lawsuit against the International German Open Hamburg. Moreover, tournament organizers have a series of obligations towards the ATP. They include economic commitments, standard of facilities, on-site conditions, and competition scheduling. Lastly, the ATP requires its delegates to cooperate with the tournament organizers; the ATP provides tour managers, PR & marketing managers and an ATP Supervisor.  Relationships between Tennis Players and Tournament Organizers The study reveals relevant differences from the ATP in terms of the nature and intensity of relationships that Roland Garros has with its primary Stakeholders. Indeed, the study shows a lower intensity of relationships between Roland Garros and players and tournament organizers who tend to operate autonomously. In this sense, the analysis shows that the Roland Garros has a merely supervisory role in mens professional tennis since this body is more committed to levels--albeit professional -of lesser importance (Evans 1992). In particular, the degree of autonomy of the organizers of Roland Garros tournaments considered here is differentiated: it is high in the case of Slams whereas it is lower in the case of Davis Cup highlighting therefore the role of the Roland Garros as the subject, which coordinates and manages the Davis Cup Tournaments. In fact, the autonomy of temporary organizing committees for each tournament of the Davis Cup is less compared to what Roland Garros assigned others. The latter assigned the organization of each match of Davis Cup to subjects identified on the basis of a specific selection procedure issued by national federations which also have the task of carrying out periodic checks of the organization of the event (Association of Tennis Professionals and ATP Tour Organization 2002). It appears evident that the intensity of the constraints and the relative weight of the objectives are different in the two cases considered. In the case of the Grand Slam, there is a lower intensity of the constraints of sports and promotional nature promoted by primary Stakeholders towards Roland Garros. In addition, the economic and financial objectives pursued by the tournament organizers as e.g. the increase in revenues have a significant part because they are a major source for funding the various activities of the organizers. Finally, it is important to consider the effects on the image and reputation of athletes and tournaments. The character and Intensity of Stakeholders  The application of the organizational model of professional tennis requires the definition of the nature and intensity of relationships that the federation and the Roland Garros have with athletes and tournament organizers in order to identify their respective tasks and responsibilities. Regarding the federation circuit, the Roland Garros, athletes and tournament organizers constitute a single unit of observation due to the interrelationships within parties. Despite their autonomy, these actors converge in the federation and are willing to achieve common goals. This modus operandi derives primarily from the original nature of federation as a players association and from the unusual composition of its board of directors, which includes athletes representatives and tournament organizers representatives. In particular, the analysis shows a strong intensity of the relationship among these Stakeholders which, in our opinion, has a two-fold nature: cooperation and competition. The cooperation among federation, players, and tournament organizers highlights the need to pursue a common approach while maintaining the independence of the parties. The actors operate as partners, revealing the considerable influence and control of athletes and organizers on the decisions taken by the federation in particular; cooperation concerns the definition of technical quality standards for competitions, territory protection, the length of season, and others. The creation of this partnership enables mediation between players and tournament organizers whose interests may conflict in certain circumstances, such as the number of tournaments to be included in each circuit and the conditions of withdrawal of athletes. In this sense, the definition of the length of the season should protect the economic interests of organizers and, at the same time, ensure that participation in a certain number of competitions is physically sustainable by athletes. Therefore, athletes should be ensured the right to withdraw from a tournament in case of physical inability to compete; on the other hand, it is important that athletes guarantee their participation in competitions in order to limit the damage to each tournament organizer in terms of credibility and reputation, reduction in revenue and disappointment of fans. Another perspective regards competition, we can observe the dominant role of the federation in the relationship with athletes, and tournament organizers where the system of constraints imposed by the federation reduces the degree of autonomy and control of athletes and tournament organizers as explained. The role of sponsors The application of network concepts to the Roland Garros highlights the interdependencies among all actors. Furthermore, it should be noted that the value of a system is greater than the sum of the value of each part and the difference represents the intrinsic synergy. The term territory protection refers to the planning of tournaments in a way that ensures that two Roland Garros events do not conflict with each other; therefore, Roland Garros tournaments that are held at the same time are usually played at a significant geographical distance so that they cannot be considered competitors. For example, during the tournament recently included the Movistar Open in Santiago, the PBZ Zagreb Indoors in Zagreb, and the SA Tennis Open in Johannesburg and the Brazil Open in Costa do Sauipe. In order to mediate between conflicting interests, the ATP decided in the recent reorganization to make a few changes. The circuit that the withdrawal of a tennis player from a competition can occur only upon presentation of a medical certificate which attested the inability of the athlete to compete; if this certification is not presented, the athlete is required to pay a penalty to the tournament organizer established in proportion to the prize money. The role of participants According to stakeholders, the competition is a process of competitiveness among systems and among parties, designed to subordinate certain systems and subsystems to some dominant systems or dominant parts inside the system. It is interesting to note that, in general, top-ranked tennis players participate annually in a lower number of tournaments than low-ranked athletes do; this could be because participation in a tournament by the top-ranked is physically more demanding, as they usually reach the final stages of a tournament. According to the Roland Garros rules, all athletes competing in the main draw of Roland Garros tournaments have to participate in promotional activities (Association of Tennis Professionals 1990). In this respect, athletes must observe specific rules and, if they fail to participate, they will be subject to penalties established by the Code of Conduct. Despite strategic planning of growth and development paths, the comprehension of managerial dynamics investing the Roland Garros circuit has sometimes been difficult due to the changes in name and structure of the circuit and tournaments that occurred in the past and to the subsequent decisions of downgrading and upgrading and relocation of tournaments. A further critical issue concerns the name of tournaments for which there can be changes of name even from one season to another because of the naming sponsor. Such instances include the Barclays Dubai Tennis Championship that became the Dubai Duty Free Tennis Championship in two thousand and ten, the Ordinal Open and the Croatia Open Umag, which became, respectively, the UNICEF Open and the Studena Croatia Open in the two thousand and eleven. In detail, each organizer has to pay to the federation fees whose amounts depend on the tournament level and the corresponding prize money. In addition, the organizers of major competitions are required to ensure food and accommodation for the athletes. In particular, we refer to the standard of facilities in terms of capacity, size, position, and location of courts, lighting, etc. as well as media and player facilities.  References Association of Tennis Professionals. (1990). To those whose dreams allowed us to live our own. (Arthur Ashe archive, 1959-2003.) Ponte Vedra Beach, FL?: ATP. Association of Tennis Professionals., & ATP Tour (Organization). (2002).ATPtennis.com: The official site of the ATP. S.l.: ATP Tour, Inc. ATP world tour: 2009 season. (2009). London: HarperCollins. Cleto, P. (2002). Gustavo Kuerten e Roland Garros: Uma história de amor. Brazil: s.n. Evans, R. 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