The ATP increases its prizes: What about the Champions League and the Copa Libertadores?

Without a doubt, 2020 is a year that will not be easy to forget. The coronavirus pandemic practically paralyzed everyone for much of the year, generating endless losses, both for athletes and for various organizations. And for 2021 to be much better, the competitions decided to increase their prizes, to keep the protagonists motivated.

The ATP announced on Wednesday a package of measures aimed at helping tennis players during the current situation of Covid-19, focusing on the increase in prizes in the ATP 250 and 500 tournaments, and some tweaks in the world rankings. The most important adjustment is the one that has occurred in the ranking, where the ATP decided that the tournaments, from March 4 to August 5, 2019 that were not played in 2020 will keep 50% of the points won, while those that were played at some point last year will be deducted from the classification.

The other substantial measure that the ATP announced on Thursday is that all ATP 250s and 500s between the Australian Open and Wimbledon will increase their prize pool by 80 and 60% respectively. This increase, which is equivalent to an expense of about 5 million dollars (4.14 million euros), will come from the redistribution of the bonus to the 12 best players on the circuit that is distributed at the end of the season.

For their part, whoever conquers America and wins the Copa Libertadores 2021 will obtain a total of $ 22,500,000 in prizes, since those of the group stage and the hand-to-hand instances are added. Conmebol pays the clubs that play the group stage one million dollars for each game played at home, that's, the team that's part of one of the 8 groups will keep 3 million dollars regardless of the result in their zone.

Finally, in the Champions League, in the 2019-20 season, each of the 32 clubs present in the group stage received a minimum of 15,250,000 euros (almost 18 million dollars), even if they would not have added a single point. Each group stage victory brought in an additional 2.7 million euros ($ 3.16 million) and each draw 900,000 ($ 1.05 million).

The teams classified to the round of 16 received 9.5 million euros more (11 million dollars). Another 10.5 for quarter-finalists ($ 12.3 million), and 12 for semifinalists ($ 14 million). Winner of the final, Bayern Munich pocketed 19 million more euros (22), for the 15 million (17.5) more to the coffers of the finalist PSG.