Why Saudi Arabia’s tennis rally is just getting started
The WTA Finals are supposed to be the grand finale on the women’s tennis tour. But the organisation of last year’s event drew a wave of criticism from players.
Problems ranged from insufficient practice time before the tournament to windy conditions in Cancún, the Mexican resort that was selected less than two months before the start date, despite talks between the Women’s Tennis Association and Saudi Arabia.
So it came as little surprise this week when the WTA confirmed that Riyadh will host the next three editions of the finals. The deal with the Saudi tennis federation means that prize money will leap to a record $15.25mn this year from $9mn in Mexico.
Prize money aside, the WTA says that Saudi Arabia is best placed to “deliver and fund a world-class event” and grow the women’s game.
But the real question is whether SRJ Sports Investments, which was set up by Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund last year, can convince either the WTA, the men’s ATP Tour (or both) to allow it to buy into in the game’s commercial future.
The PIF struck a strategic partnership with the men’s ATP Tour just over a month ago, but that deal revolved around naming rights, events and strategy.
Against that backdrop, the WTA and the men’s ATP Tour are in talks to merge their media and commercial rights into a single entity.
It would appear that CVC Capital Partners, the former owner of the Formula One car racing series, played a smart move last year when it took a 20 per cent stake in WTA Ventures, the tour’s own commercial arm, for $150mn.
The private equity firm’s shareholding and board seats look like a canny deal at a strategically significant juncture in the future of tennis.
As for the Saudis, the question is whether a potential merger between the women’s and men’s tours can open up a gap for another investor to join the future of the tennis business.
However, the WTA and ATP have stressed that their talks were at a preliminary stage. In the meantime, buying into tournaments is another route for Saudi to expand its footprint in tennis.
A more viable target for Saudi could be winning the right to host a new ATP Masters 1000 tournament, a series featuring top-ranked male players, according to people familiar with proceedings.
As ATP Tour chair Andrea Gaudenzi told the FT last year, any outside investors must “stick to respecting the history of the sport and the product, working with the current stakeholder rather than against”.
Following the golf wars, in which the US PGA Tour fought Saudi-backed LIV Golf until a shock truce last year, Gaudenzi was keen to ensure that his new suitors wanted to work with the tours.
So far, courtesy of the strategic partnership with the ATP Tour and the deal to host the WTA Finals, it looks like the Saudis are playing ball.
But can they score a bigger prize down the line?