TMS MONTE CARLO

April 17, 2005

Zeljko Franulovic

MR. ZELJKO FRANULOVIC: (Through translation.) As I said, it's the 99th edition of the Monte-Carlo Masters Series. I have the honor of being the Director for the first time of this Monte-Carlo series. This Monte-Carlo series takes place in very special conditions because even before the tournament we were very much concerned by the health of His Serene Highness Prince Rainier of Monaco; therefore, we had to cancel immediately any kind of celebrations outside of tennis. Generally, these celebrations are very welcomed by all the participants - being the players, the public, and the sponsors. When the passing away of His Serene Highness the Prince was announced, we decided in coordination with the Monte-Carlo authorities and the organizing committee that we would still maintain the tournament, but with a lot of dignity because of the circumstances. What we had at heart was to respect the memory of our Prince, and I hope we were able to achieve this, and also that we were able to give our support to Prince Albert II, who is very much attached to this event, as well as Mrs. de Massy, who is part of the Monte-Carlo Country Club, the President of the Committee. We did that with a lot of discretion and dignity, and I hope this tournament was a success. Generally, when we hold this conference at the end of the tournament, we talk about the general results of the tournament and we also thank all the participants and the players in this tournament - I mean the actors when I say the "players." I am going to make an exception this year, and I am going to congratulate the tennis players first, because they were here, present this year; secondly, because thanks to them, we had an exceptional draw which was one of the major tournaments in the year and which enhanced our image as a tournament; and, third, because they gave us an exceptional show in spite of the conditions which were not always favorable. I cannot even quote the matches that were exceptional; there were so many. Not even only Federer-Gasquet, but there were so many other good matches that I will just let you choose among those matches. Now, I believe we are living through a very important period for world tennis because there is a coming-up of a new generation, a new wave. I think that most of those young players are Europeans on top of it. I would like to thank you greatly, you, the journalists from the written press, from the TVs, from the radios because you've been working very well during this week and you've contributed to the success of our tournament. You did that in spite of the very particular conditions we had this year. Thank you for sharing our sadness with us this year. I would like to thank also our long-time partners and also our new partners, because without them it would be impossible to organize such an event anymore. I would like to make an appointment with you for next year, the 100th edition of the tournament, which will take place from the 15th to the 23rd of April 2006. Questions?

MR. ZELJKO FRANULOVIC: Well, you can talk about the final budget, or where you have the revenues from the sponsorship, from the television and the spectators. So today we are hoping to have a good day. But if I separate these three things, and if you look around the courts, you will see that our signage is all done, there are not too many empty spaces, meaning that the sponsors followed us and that they really helped us this year. We had to change a few sponsors. Luckily, this type of event has always something more to offer a sponsor. We were able to really close our sponsorship with new partners this year. So to answer your question in a few words, we will be maybe a little profit, but there have been no losses. How much the profit will be is depending on today. We are making our last calculations. You know that the revenues from the spectators are never the key of the financial success. Generally, it will be a healthy, healthy tournament.

MR. ZELJKO FRANULOVIC: I think the major change is sitting in front of you (smiling). But this change, I think, is able to bring to the tournament a new vision, a new strategy for the future, not necessarily for this year but for the future. I mean, I think from my tennis background, my competencies, and my experience, I think what I will be trying to do, what I tried to do this year already, is to associate our tournament with this small but very, very powerful country which is Monaco. Power in the way of image, in respect to prestige. I always try to compare our tournament with the Monaco Grand Prix. There are many Masters Series in tennis, there are many Formula One Grand Prix. When you ask somebody in China what Grand Prix they know, they say Formula One Monaco. Why? Because what's happening around is Formula One, not only the race course which is not the fastest one, maybe not the most beautiful one, but it is what's happening around, this aura, this glamour in a way, too. So what I am trying to do is the same thing to apply on our tournament, associate it with Monaco as a country, a special place in the world where it's good to live, good to be, associate it with the image of class and prestige. That's what's been happening before, but I'm trying to really take advantage of it. If we didn't have what happened this year, we could have done more in this respect. But we were really concentrating on the sport, the sporting event, and not really working in the sobriety as far as the other events. I had many things planned before the event, like a demonstration; it was already done. We had a court already almost done on the Place de Casino with Federer and Safin hitting balls, signing autographs, doing TV interviews, stuff that was planned for that day at 6 o'clock. We had to cancel that; we know why. There are things that became a much bigger priority. But just to answer your question again, this is really my goal, to associate it with the image of Monaco and use my experience as a former player, too, and ATP executive and manager which can help maintain this tournament on the highest level.

MR. ZELJKO FRANULOVIC: (Through translation.) Of course we are very aware of this. We are counting every day to make comparisons with the other years, especially given the situation this year. We are very pleased because we believe the sport has not suffered from the circumstances. Now, as to give you the figure, in spite of everything that happened - I mean the funeral and the fact that that day the people from Monaco did not come, and also because of the rain - we only have 2,000 spectators less than last year.

MR. ZELJKO FRANULOVIC: (Through translation.) Well, we had 90,000 paying spectators. We always talk about more than 100,000, but that's including the sponsor invitations and the other invitations. So this year if we have 88,000 paying spectators, we will be happy.

MR. ZELJKO FRANULOVIC: We always ask more, the sponsors and everybody, but depends what they pay. I think we try to be reasonable. For the prices of our sponsorship, we try to place our self a little bit over the regular Masters Series because of everything we give back. The sponsors that pay us, they are maybe a little less than in the past. The trend is that even if they pay the same money, they like to have more. It's a general trend in tennis and I think in other sports - football, if you look around the Champions League. But for us, what is important is the presence, the support of the sponsors. Although some of them pay us a little less - it happened two or three years ago they paid a little less - but then having been, having participated in the tournament, having got their return, they decided to, some of them, even this year, they doubled their investment. So we are really not concerned about that. The sponsorship presence is really, really strong. The price of the tickets, we tried to maintain the same. It was exactly the same as last year. Next year we will do the same thing. We were thinking about changing the prices for the finals since it's only one match. At the end we decided, no, because we think the finals of such a tournament, the prices should be as they are now. So we have not changed the prices of the tickets.

MR. ZELJKO FRANULOVIC: Italian players or spectators?

MR. ZELJKO FRANULOVIC: I was hoping that you meant players (smiling).

MR. ZELJKO FRANULOVIC: Okay. Rough, rough percentage is from 20 to 25%, depending on the year, of Italian spectators that are very, very important to us and not only by their numbers, but their enthusiasm, by their attitude, sports attitude, and they all like to support their own players. You see that this is a crowd that lives with tennis, these are real tennis fans. If you have 20 to 25% real tennis fans, sometimes it counts much more than regular fans. I am personally very pleased with these numbers of Italians.

MR. ZELJKO FRANULOVIC: I brought here a calendar, but it's my calendar so I won't show it to you. It's a very simple question, I think. Monte-Carlo is the first Masters Series in Europe, and I think it will always stay, given the geopolitical, geographical spot where it belongs. You cannot have a Masters Series in Hamburg at the beginning of April. I remember a year when it snowed and it was even later in the year.

MR. ZELJKO FRANULOVIC: Well, that's an ATP Board decision. Now I can tell you how we can help Monte-Carlo. So we accept this fact, which is influenced by where Monaco is. It's spring, should be nice weather. This year we were a little bit unlucky because we were here a week before. The problem with the calendar is not only our week or our period of the year, the problem with the calendar is the calendar itself. There are too many tournaments in too many different parts of the world. One should be a genius - I didn't want to say rocket scientist - to really make an ideal calendar. Two things. We accept that we should be the first Masters Series - maybe not this early, maybe a week later, as always, maybe at the end of April. Second, there is no ideal calendar given the current situation where there are too many events including the Masters Series, including Davis Cup, including Federation Cup, challengers, Grand Slams - I should have mentioned them at the beginning. So given these two facts, we should look at being early in the year, mid or the end of April, where always a lot of tournaments are. We should at least not have an American event after our event. On the other hand, they are much more worried because they are after an event, Masters Series on clay that all the European players played, Australians. I'm talking about Houston. Houston this year is after our event. It's logical that Agassi and Roddick, it would have been a really tough time coming here and going back, so they decided to stay and play Houston; good. I think we really did a great event without them. But next year Houston is behind. I'm sure Houston this year will suffer much more from us being before them. I don't see a European player going to Houston from here. But to have a really ideal draw, we need American players, maybe less this year and in the future than it was the case two or three years ago with Sampras, Agassi, Todd Martin, all the other players. But I think that the ATP is aware of that, and they changed already Houston in 2006. It will be before our event, with Valencia, which makes sense. So the American players, if they like to play Houston, they can start in Monte-Carlo. In that case, I think we would have a better participation of the Americans. I only hope we will have the same participation from the rest of the world players including Lleyton Hewitt, who this year was coming here, but unfortunately he got injured and pulled out from Miami already, so...

MR. ZELJKO FRANULOVIC: (Through translation.) Talking about absent players, I believe the absence was limited this year. I just talked about Hewitt, who was injured. But for the Davis Cup, unfortunately, while it was good for us this year, next year we don't know what it's going to be because it changes from one year to the other. Anyway, I believe we should not complain this year about the draw.

MR. ZELJKO FRANULOVIC: Not necessarily investments, but more celebration, definitely. I think it's a special, special year. We will have an adequate budget, adequate funds dedicated for that. We are working on ideas. I'm sure after this tournament we will have more time to think about what we have to do for this very special occasion, unique occasion for a tournament, for a tennis tournament. I think the Monte-Carlo event should be celebrating its 108th edition, if you take four years of two wars. It's unique in the world. We will try, and hopefully we will be able to assume a responsibility to do something special next year.