Australian Open boss Craig Tiley reveals 2021 event could lose $140 million

Fear of a rival country stealing away the Australian Open forced organisers to plough through the pandemic in 2021. The financial toll has been revealed.

Rafael Nadal serves it up in front of an empty stadium. Picture: AFP

Australian Open organisers are bracing for a loss of up to $140 million on the 2021 event.

And it could get even worse, with the impact of Victoria’s snap five-day COVID lockdown, where fans were banned from Melbourne Park, yet to be factored in.

Tournament boss Craig Tiley revealed the event had exhausted its massive $80 million reserve, and would take out a loan of between $40-60 million.

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Aus Open boss Craig Tiley has revealed the stunning financial toll of the tournament. Picture: Getty Images

“Do the math on that and it’s a big loss,” Tiley said on SEN.

“But we haven’t finalised the numbers yet.

“We’ve still got to see what our receipts are and we obviously took a big hit with five days with no fans — so you don’t sell merchandise, your sponsors don’t get the activation and you don’t sell tickets. That’s five of 14 days, it’s a big hit.”

Tiley acknowledged the path back from here is “going to be tough” but says fear of losing the event made it impossible to cancel the tournament.

Ash Barty took the court without fans through the five days. Picture: Michael Klein

“If we don’t have an event, then that starts a slippery slope of losing relevance and what happens is your broadcasters look elsewhere, your sponsors don’t think they’re going to get as much consistent exposure, the players — because remember Australia is a difficult place to get to,” Tiley said.

“Who knows what happens in 2022, we may be still in the middle of a horrible pandemic, so you can’t run the risk of missing a year hoping the next year’s going to be fine, because if the next year’s not fine, now you’re in all sorts of trouble.

“And then someone else has just got to go — Indian Wells, or LA, or Shanghai — put a lot of money into an event and build an event into history and then you’re gone.”

Rafael Nadal serves it up in front of an empty stadium. Picture: AFP

Tiley said the silver lining was Australian now had a “playbook” for the rest of the world that could be used to revitalise international sport and entertainment.

“We’re going to come out with a new platform, a great deal of appreciation from the players and a signal to the world that you can actually do this,” he said.

“Australia has now got an IP, we’ve got a playbook that we can share with the rest of the world.

“I think we have made Melburnians, Victorians and Australians proud that no one during the pandemic has brought in this many international stars from that many hot spots from around the world and played an international sporting event for $86 million and in front of crowds.”