Tennis | In Helsinki, they dream of organizing a big tennis tournament – this is a shocking price tag

Tallow the professional tennis tournament wants to grow big. The currently played HPP Open belongs to the challenger series, and there are the biggest tournaments in that category. In the world of tennis saturated with huge prize money, it is still a small competition.

Even with a prize pool of 145,000 euros, you cannot get on the actual ATP tour. It requires a prize pool of around 700,000 euros, which is the lowest of the costs.

That amount is distributed to players in ATP-250 tournaments, which are the smallest on the tour.

Collecting money would be one problem. The second would be the time, and the biggest venue.

The ice rink in Helsinki would have the 2,500 seats required for the 250 tournament, but the second playing field would be missing. Likewise, two mandatory practice fields would be missing.

The training hall of the ice rink is not suitable for games when the ceiling is too low. You could practice, but you would still be missing another tournament field.

Espoo The metro arena is not suitable either. The problems are the same as in the ice rink in Helsinki.

There would be courts in the Tali tennis center, big hotels nearby and enough practice courts. The only thing missing is a large enough grandstand.

“The exhibition center would have absolutely first-class facilities. There you could get a center court, a second court, restaurants, other facilities and a good hotel would be next door.” Pekka Mäkelä says.

Mäkelä is the CEO of Tali and the competition director of HPP Open.

Mäkelä and the mastermind of the ATP-250 tournament Federico Ricci have toured Messukeskus. The big problem is Messukeskus’ long reservation lists, high utilization rate and lack of free weeks. The rental price could also come into view.

“A reservation would be needed for two weeks”, Ricci says and believes that it will be very difficult.

Messukeskus has a touch of tennis history. Finland’s only Grand Prix tournament was played there in the spring and winter of 1977. The GP tournaments corresponded to the current ATP tournaments.

Timo Tuomikoski then owned the jeans brand BeeGee and set out on a daring venture. The result was that the entire BeeGee had to go bankrupt.

Mäkelä sees the current situation differently.

“One supporting argument is that there is a boom in tennis and the tournament would be suitable for these players of ours.”

Read more: Fierce competition and the promise of Björn Borg proved costly for the Finnish jeans manufacturer

In ATP-250 tournaments the requirements for players and conditions are moderate if compared to giant tournaments a notch or two higher.

In a small ATP tournament, the players must be offered, for example, a free network connection. In the Masters 1,000 tournament, players must be provided with high-speed internet, television and the opportunity to play computer games.

These are the small details with which the games are instructed.

Due to the war started by Russia, the tournaments in St. Petersburg and Moscow are on hiatus. They are traditionally played during the autumn weeks.

There could be some time in the ATP calendar at these points, but now there will be a big problem.

Before you can even dream of organizing a tournament, you have to get the right license – and it costs an astronomical amount.

Former top player Brother Paloheimo runs a competition in Tampere worth 75,000 euros in the summer.

The Düsseldorf ATP tournament was ending and they offered Paloheimo a license to adapt the Tampere tournament into an ATP-250 tournament.

Paloheimo recalls that it has been ten years since he negotiated with the Germans.

“And then they asked for a million euros for the license,” says Paloheimo in Talis.

Emil Ruusuvuoren coach Federico Ricci is a member of the ATP council. Ricci says he is quite well informed about events and trends in the sport.

Even Ricci doesn’t know the exact price of the tournament license, but says it already costs millions these days.

“It could be up to 15 million, but it would make no sense for us to buy it. We would have to rent a license,” says Ricci.

Renting is not cheap either. According to Ricci’s estimate, that too would cost one to two million a year.

“The most sensible thing would be to sign a 3-4 year contract.”

Paloheimo adds that one option would be to rent a license directly from ATP, if the umbrella organization had one available.

Ricci says that next year, four 250 tournaments will be dropped from the calendar as three of them grow to the 500 series. Meanwhile, St. Petersburg and Moscow remain on the shelf.

“If such an opportunity came, then you would just have to take it. If we didn’t take it, there would be 15 more in line.”

Mäkelä and Ricci will go to Lahti during the autumn to see the conditions of Suurhalli. Lahti would be close enough to Helsinki-Vantaa airport, but Lahti lacks sufficiently large and upscale hotels.

Would there be natural support for tennis in Lahti?

How do Mäkelä, Ricci and Paloheimo describe the possibilities of getting a bigger tournament to Finland?

“A dream,” says Mäkelä.

“A wish,” Ricci says.

Paloheimo formulates it like this:

“It’s a dream, not impossible, but still a dream.”