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“The prize amounts are large by most standards, but they are not even rounding errors in Saudi Arabia’s massive budget,” says Ravi Ramamurti, university distinguished professor of international business.
Saudi Arabia has the world’s top athletes eating out of its palms — a fact again on display as a ritzy tennis exhibition kicked off this week in Riyadh, with the game’s best set to face off for an unprecedented cash prize.
The “Six Kings Slam,” a Riyadh Season event that will feature a six-player bracket, began Wednesday. Reception was somewhat mixed: plenty of excitement at the prospect of top-tier tennis, with detractors suggesting that the exhibition overshadowed unsung smaller events. The specter of sportswashing swirled about, while tennis fans questioned the safety of traveling to the Middle Eastern country to see their favorite players.
And in a sport with a long tradition of trying to level the playing field for the players and bridge its gender pay gap, the monarchic vibes left a sour taste for some.
“What’s everyone feeling about the Six Kings exhibition being crowbarred into a week that takes the focus off the smaller events that are desperate for eyeballs and column inches?” wrote former tennis pro turned commentator Mark Petchey. “Does it help the sport? The optics feel like the Six Kings of the Desert and the European peasants.”
The six male players, who were featured in a Hollywood-style promotional video in the weeks leading up to the event, include Jannik Sinner, Carlos Alcaraz, Holger Rune, Daniil Medvedev, Rafael Nadal and Novak Djokovic — all of whom will pocket $1.5 million for just participating in the event. The winner is set to take home $6 million. For perspective, that’s about twice what the winner of the U.S. Open receives.
As the show kicked off Wednesday, tennis observers were quick to note the empty seats in the stadium.
“With at least $1.5M for each player and SIX MILLION DOLLARS for the champ, plus super-expensive promo and no offsetting major TV deals, this might be the money-losingest exo in tennis history,” tennis writer Ben Rothenberg wrote on X.
Northeastern University business experts previously testified to the Saudis’ sporting investments, noting that they’re hardly meant to turn a profit.
“The Six Kings Slam is not a commercial venture — it’s a brand-building exercise. The goal is to get the world’s attention by offering shockingly high prize monies and adding to the country’s image as a happening place,” says Ravi Ramamurti, university distinguished professor of international business.
“The prize amounts are large by most standards, but they are not even rounding errors in Saudi Arabia’s massive budget to reinvent itself for a post-oil era,” Ramamurti adds.
The marketing surrounding the event was impressive, if typical of Saudi-led sporting events: casting the players in superhero-like personas and hyping up potential plotlines. As the era of the “Big Three” winds down (Nadal recently announced that he’ll be retiring next month; Roger Federer retired in 2022), the Six Kings Slam will be a contest pitting the sport’s heir apparents against their masters.
In that sense, the 38-year-old Nadal’s match against Alcaraz, 21, on Thursday is sure to generate buzz. Alcaraz, who has already captured four Grand Slam titles, is seen by many as the successor to Federer, Nadal and Djokovic, who collectively hold 66 Grand Slams.
It’s match-ups like these — the final time the pair will meet — that will no doubt be on many tennis fan’s radars. The two Spaniards played doubles together at the Paris Olympics, which also featured Nadal’s final match with Djokovic, Nadal’s longtime rival.
“As with LIV Golf, The World Cup in Qatar, and international competition to host the Olympics every four years, the concept of sport is not limited to the games: it is a focal point of marketing that draws eyes, fans and the fawning over spectacles,” says Dan Lebowitz, executive director of Northeastern University’s Center for the Study of Sport in Society.
Lebowitz notes that sport has become “a narrative maker, a narrative changer and an instantaneous vehicle for worldwide attention and notoriety.” And, on paper, the Six Kings Slam has all the ingredients for a great story — one that, at the very least, means that one man will go home $6 million richer.
“For most countries, the cost is a minor loss leader for the benefits reaped — and this event is just another example of the phenomenon,” Lebowitz says. “And the athletes will come for the challenge, for the money and for the host of tangent opportunities that such exposure allows.”
But, as the tournament will not confer ATP ranking points, just how many fans will be tuning in this week remains an open question.
“Except it’s not a movie and you won’t watch it because it’s an exhibition tennis event that nobody cares about,” Andy Murray, a former tennis pro, said in a post on X.