Wimbledon Shuns Direct Advertising But Still Profits

There are no blimps hovering overhead, no inflated mascots tethered to Centre Court, and billboards are banned.

Wimbledon is one of sport’s last advertising-free zones. But it’s also an enormous moneymaker.

Profits have grown by 10 percent the last five years, with a record $51 million generated in 1997 from the two-week tournament.

“We could make more money in the next two or three years by selling billboards and advertising out there,” said Wimbledon marketing director Robert McCowen. “But we think in the long-term we’d make less because television would turn around and say we’re now like any other sports event in the world.”

Discreet is the byword, which is the only way neighbors in Wimbledon Village--a 10-minute walk up Church Road from the All England Lawn Tennis and Croquet Club--would have it.

“Big banks, big drinks companies have offered us seven-figure sums of money,” McCowen said. “They wanted it called the X-Bank men’s final. Once we do that we’ve devalued everything.”

Like the All England Club, Wimbledon village is well-kept, well-off English. The main shopping street, anchored at each end by a bank and pub, is lined with galleries, outdoor cafes, the Ski Club of Great Britain, and real estate offices.

A four-bedroom house can rent for $13,000 a month, gardener included, and selling prices are routinely in the $1.5 million to $3 million range.

“It doesn’t surprise me there’s no advertising at Wimbledon,” said Dave Hoebeeck, a bartender in the Dome brasserie who grew up in working-class East London. “It’s all about keeping the place very quaint, elite.”

Most every change to the All England Club has to get the approval of local government. That includes the new grass on Centre Court, re-laid for the first time in almost 40 years--or the construction completed a year ago of 13,000-seat Court No. 1.

Which is why suggestions to build a dome over Centre Court--or Court No. 1--to beat the rainy England summer never get past the talking stage.

“In our building, our architecture, there has been quite a lot of pressure on us,” McCowen said. “Quite a lot of the landscaping ... has been imposed to make this look like a very prestigious estate because there are wealthy homes that look on to us.”

The look of Wimbledon--lush-green courts squared off by hedgerows and ivy--has changed only slightly since the so-called Open era began in 1968, a year the club made only $61,000 in profit,

Just barely breaking even in the last of the ‘70s, Wimbledon succumbed to commercial pressure--but only slightly.

“There were big sums of money on offer form Coke and Rolex and we thought we could incorporate these two companies very tastefully without distracting from the image,” McCowen said.

Those two companies--and nine others--pay for the right to advertise as official Wimbledon suppliers but are barely visible during the tournament itself. The oldest supplier, the tennis ball maker Slazenger, goes back to 1902.

“We’re very cagey, we don’t discuss what they pay,” McCowen said.

Hefty television contracts--as in most sports--pay most of the bills with merchandising, ticket sales and hospitality making up the rest. Profits go to the Lawn Tennis Association, the governing body of tennis in England.

“We could get more income if we marketed trash,” McCowen said. “There’s a lot of money at the bottom of the marketplace. But we’d kill the goose that laid the golden egg.”