Given the economic and commercial implications of sports, the media value of players
and teams is considered a major asset in professional sports businesses. This paper
aims to assess the economic value of intangible assets in the tennis industry. In order to
rank the media value of professional tenni
s players (both men and women), we measure
the intangible talent of players based on their exposure in the mass media. We use the
ESI (Economics, Sports and Intangibles) methodology to examine some issues related
to the competitive structure of tennis. Then, we explore whether policies regarding prize
money could be more efficiently designed to account for the economic contribution of
the players. The paper uses weekly data on the media presence and popularity of 1,400
professional tennis players (700 women and
700 men competing in 2007, respectively,
in the WTA and ATP)
