Rankings - for sale - part 2

OK. You've read part 1 and see how a promoter gets to give a favored player a wild card.
And some of you will see some rationale in allowing someone who puts up a large chunk of his money to stage a tournament to have some say in who plays in his event.

But at least he's not selling them to the highest bidder. That's not allowed, right? Wrong...!

The same promoter who ran the tournament detailed above - in which our 2 undeserving participants 'earned' their rankings - later negotiated the purchase of two wildcards into a $380,000 ATP tournament in which the first round loser received 5 ranking points as well as prize money of $3,650.

How much did it cost him? Well, that's a commercial secret.

What is not a secret, although not much talked about, is that wildcards are regularly sold to raise a little extra cash for the organizers of professional tournaments. They are often used as a prize in separate tournaments run by separate organizers and designated as 'pre-qualifying' events. The winner of the event receives, instead of cash, the wildcard into the qualifying draw of the larger event. The idea behind this is that this is the only way that hundreds of hopefuls will have of any chance of entry into a major tournament. There is no ranking requirements for entry into a separate pre-qualifying event - just the cash for the entry fee...

But at least the best player - the winner - has earned his place in the larger tournament, right?

Well, as in part 1, not if you are one of the many professional players who has invested years of training and money to climb the mountain of success and finally earn enough ranking points to gain entry into professional level events with some major prize money - only to see your place being given instead to someone with absolutely no ranking and no professional experience who has invested some cash and a weekend of his time and has won a pre-qualifying event.

But back to our story....

Instead of running a normal pre-qualifying event, our promoter used the wildcards to attract hundreds of aspiring professional players to play in a series of 6 events - at $50 a time - in which players earned 'points' by playing in as many events as possible and winning as many rounds as possible.

Players did not have to actually win a tournament to 'earn' the wildcard - just play in enough tournaments (and pay enough $50 entry fees) and earn an average number of points in each... Perhaps not quite as 'legitimate' as the pre-qualifying event?

Oh, and tucked way in the small print, there was one other small detail - the wildcard recipient forfeited 50% of all prize money earned in the main event...!

There is actually a part 3 of the Rankings for sale story - and one that is much less 'legitimate' (if that is really the right word to use in this context) than parts 1 and 2. If I am able to obtain a little more concrete evidence fro what I know, I will bring you the details..

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