CHENNAI: The world of tennis for a player is brutal. With expenses over equipment, medical treatments and coaches always on the debit columns of a players’ books, the credit columns may not reflect a higher amount than the debit. For a woman, it can be more difficult. With lesser prize money across different levels of WTA events (the body has announced equal prize money for WTA 1000 level events from 2027), the margin for error remains wafer-thin.
Hungary’s World No 86 Panna Udvardy is one of the few to have found a unique way of dealing with the financial consequences of being a tennis player – OnlyFans - an online subscription-based social media platform. The platform, opened in 2016, is based on an online subscription model where fans pay a set amount per month and get access to creators' lives.
It can be a deterrent to her image because of what OnlyFans is known for – adult content – but Udvardy wants to show the positive side of it. At the sidelines of the ongoing Chennai Open here, she opened up on her persona as a creator.
“I think the biggest thing for me was that they're trying to change the perspective of the platform. The platform has signed around 500 players in the last four years. So, it's definitely becoming a big thing in terms of connecting athletes to their fans. To be honest, I had a really good experience with it so far. I think it's a platform where I can connect with my fans much more closely than Instagram or TikTok or any other social media platforms. There's a certain perception, but if anyone goes on my page, they can see that it's about my tennis life and the small things that people don't know from the outside,” she said after her doubles win with Isabelle Haverlag on Wednesday.
Udvardy revealed how it has helped her build a security blanket, in a time where wins barely make ends meet. “It's definitely helping because tennis is a sport where you only earn if you win. Even on smaller tournaments, if you win the tournament, you're sometimes paying more for coaches, for travel, hotel, and everything else. So, it's a very expensive sport, and you're not always on the plus side. So, to have a consistent income, it definitely helps.
“For me, it is just the peace of mind that I know that for this month I don't have to worry about paying for my coach or not being able to go to a further tournament or anything like that. So it's a big thing to have that because I can fall out of the top 100, I can get injured any minute. It's good to have that regular income,” she said.
While she admitted that she was judged by a set of people when she opened it, she also said that a lot of other tennis players enquired about the same. “There was definitely an open mind there. Of course, there are people that have a not-so-positive-mindset about it because of the perception about the platform. But once I explain, it's very important to distinguish that I'm an athlete on the platform. They see that as just another social media platform better for someone who's a tennis fan because they can connect much more closely. So, to be honest, I didn't really receive any negative comments about it. Everyone's just interested to know how it works,” she said.
While she did not reveal the exact figures of her income off the platform, she said it needs a lot of working. "It depends how much work you put in, because it is a lot of work. You're constantly in contact with your fans, you have to reply to messages. So, it depends how much you want to if you want to after every match," she signed off.
