John McEnroe: Boycott is the only path to a bigger Grand Slam revenue share

Speaking at the Laver Cup in London, John McEnroe said only a boycott can force the majors to share more revenue, shortly after top players paused their public campaign.

John McEnroe contends tennis players will only secure a larger slice of Grand Slam income by staying away from the tournaments entirely. The 67-year-old, who collected seven major singles titles, told journalists that competitors at the sport's four premier championships merit partnership status rather than the modest revenue portion they currently collect. "The players should be partners in the majors," McEnroe said. "The fact that they're not causes friction — they're getting such a small part of the revenue. The only way to succeed in doing that, in my opinion, is to boycott one or two of these."

He spoke Thursday at the Laver Cup in London, an annual three-day team event that Roger Federer helped launch and that matches six Europeans against six players from the rest of the globe. McEnroe guided Team World through the first seven editions after the competition began in 2017 and stays deeply connected to it.

His comments arrived shortly after an organized group of top-10 ATP and WTA Tour players — the same collective behind media protests at this year's French Open and Wimbledon — said it was halting the outward-facing stage of its push for a fairer split of major-tournament earnings. In a statement issued after the U.S. Open men's final two weeks earlier, the group said a formal council now exists to continue the effort, while reserving the option of reviving the campaign if that body fails to deliver.

At the center of the shift is a Grand Slam player council — one of three goals the group had set, along with a payout of prize money linked more closely to tournament income and money directed at welfare support and retirement savings for players. The target is 22 percent of Grand Slam revenue in prize money by 2030; the present average sits near 15 percent. The council's work will concentrate mostly on "sporting matters," with compensation concerns open to discussion but addressed by each major individually.

Sabalenka, the world No. 2 in women's tennis, raised the prospect herself at a news conference before May's Italian Open, saying "at some point we will boycott" the sport's four biggest events. She found few takers: other players held back from similar pledges, and no unified boycott effort has ever come together.

McEnroe trained equal fire on scheduling rules across the ATP and WTA Tours, where leading players must appear at Masters 1000 and 500 events for men and WTA 1000 and 500 events for women, with ranking sanctions possible when they withdraw. The WTA formed a separate council this year to study those obligations. "They should play what they want," McEnroe said. "If you only play six tournaments but you win them all, you might be No. 1." He called the model of entering roughly 20 events and counting a subset of results one that fails to produce the strongest tennis.

The dispute, he added, spans generations: complaints about the calendar date to his own playing days more than 40 years back and have outlasted repeated restructuring of the tours. "We've been talking about this forever — this isn't something new," McEnroe said. "The game has become faster and more physical, and the technology, the ball's being hit harder than ever. A lot of things have changed, but it certainly needs to be addressed."

Away from the debate, Team Europe captured this year's Laver Cup on Sunday, beating Team World 13-5 for its sixth title in the event's nine editions.