Latest news with #WTAVentures
Sky News
03-03-2025
- Business
- Sky News
CVC serves up $1bn bid for IMG-owned tennis tournaments
CVC Capital Partners, the buyout giant, is serving up a $1bn (£790m) bid to buy a portfolio of tennis assets which includes two of the sport's most prestigious annual tournaments. Sky News has learnt that CVC is among the remaining bidders for the Miami Open and Madrid Open, both of which feature the world's leading male and female tennis players. Sources close to the process, which is being handled by The Raine Group, said a further round of bids - thought to be worth in the region of $1bn - were due to be submitted later this month. The assets are currently owned by Endeavor Group Holdings, the global sports and entertainment company headed by the former Hollywood talent agent Ari Emanuel. CVC is said to be bidding against Mr Emanuel himself, with the Endeavor chief understood to have engaged bankers at Goldman Sachs to advise him on his offer. It was unclear on Monday whether Mr Emanuel would seek external financing for his bid. Other private equity firms, including EQT Partners and Providence Equity Partners, are also thought to have examined potential bids although it was also unclear whether they were currently part of the auction process. A number of wealthy individuals are said to have expressed interest in buying individual tournaments on a standalone basis, although Endeavor is expected to pursue a single deal for all of the assets. If CVC was successful with its bid, it would represent the prolific sports investor's first foray into owning tournaments in which the world's leading male players - including Carlos Alcaraz and Alexander Zverev - will feature. Jannik Sinner, the world number one, will miss both IMG-owned tournaments this year after being handed a three-month ban by the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) in January, while the former number one Novak Djokovic is likely to omit both from his truncated 2025 schedule. The Miami Open is due to begin on March 16, while its Madrid counterpart gets underway on April 21. In addition to the two premier events, both of which carry 1000 world ranking points for the winners, the IMG portfolio includes the Barcelona Open and the annual pre-Wimbledon tournament at London's Hurlingham Club. The ATP Masters 1000 Series and WTA 1000 events are one rung on the tennis hierarchy beneath the four annual Grand Slam events, which are held in Melbourne, Paris, at Wimbledon and in New York. CVC already has a significant presence in professional tennis, having formed a commercial joint venture with the Women's Tennis Association (WTA) in 2023. In the first full year of the partnership - in which CVC invested $150m - WTA Ventures saw revenue growth of 24%, in the wake of a new strategy which included the first WTA Finals in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. WTA Ventures said the increase put it on track to achieve a long-term objective of tripling commercial revenue during the six years between 2023 and 2029. The commercial entity is run by Marina Storti, a former executive at Sky, Sky News' immediate parent company. One tennis insider said the sport was likely to welcome additional investment in tennis. The 2025 women's rankings are headed by Aryna Sabalenka, with Poland's Iga Swiatek and the American Coco Gauff directly behind her. Since taking control of Formula One motor racing in 2006, CVC has established itself as the most prominent private equity investor in sport globally. It now has interests spanning football, rugby union, cricket and volleyball. Endeavor decided to sell its tennis assets, along with Frieze, the art business, following an announcement last April that it would be taken private by Silver Lake, the private equity firm. Since then, New York-listed TKO Group Holdings has struck a deal to buy assets from Endeavor including IMG. That, transaction, which closed last week, did not include IMG's full events portfolio, which remains part of Endeavor, according to a company statement.
Yahoo
27-02-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
WTA Enlists Gauff, Osaka to ‘Rally the World' for Brand Refresh
The WTA has unveiled a new brand identity to signal a fresh chapter in its storied history. The tour's commercial arm WTA Ventures developed a new logo and slogan—'Rally the World'—to bring greater brand awareness to the tour and its athletes, designed in concert with London-based agencies ChapterX and Nomad Studio. A new linear and digital ad campaign, with 30- and 60-second ads produced by creative agency Brothers & Sisters, will feature women's tennis stars Coco Gauff, Naomi Osaka, Ons Jabeur, Aryna Sabalenka and Zheng Qinwen. The campaign will present the traditional tennis court not as a field of play, but as a stage for the game's talents to perform and express themselves. More from No Women Among 100 Highest-Paid Athletes Despite Business Gains Sporticast 403: Female Athletes With Earnings Ready to Spike Highest-Paid Female Athletes 2024: Coco, Caitlin and Korda Soar The tour's new branding, which includes updated graphics for the WTA's global broadcasts outside of the Grand Slams, will make its debut at the BNP Paribas Open at Indian Wells beginning on March 2. WTA Ventures chief brand officer Sarah Swanson said the tour set out on a rebrand because its previous presentation wasn't strong enough in market. 'It didn't match the legacy of the WTA and the power of our athletes and women's tennis,' she said in a Zoom interview. In 2024, the WNBA, NWSL, NCAA women's basketball, volleyball and other competitions set viewership and attendance records. Swanson sees the WTA's brand redesign as a huge opportunity to bring it in line with those leagues. 'Team sports have a league mentality that inherently creates a stronger brand,' she said. 'Individual sports have more of a challenge. But the power of tennis and our players is so strong that it just sort of felt wrong to me that the platform that was creating the ability for these players to be so successful wasn't sort of getting the recognition.' That reasoning also dovetails with the tour's objective to show that it's not just the organizing body for women's tennis, but also a global entertainment brand that can stand alongside other sports leagues. 'Part of this shift in the brand was thinking of ourselves that way, but then presenting ourselves that way,' Swanson said. 'And we're certainly looking at how to continue to shift the way that we produce the sport, so that we're taking cues from some of the best kind of sports and entertainment properties out there, like the NFL, the NBA, the Premier League.' Swanson noted that in addition to their play, the athletes selected for the ad spot were considered for a wide range of reasons: Sabalenka's rise to become the world's top player, Osaka's honesty about life on and off the court, the global diversity from Tunisia's Jabeur and China's Zheng, and Gauff's ascension as a role model for American girls. Such storytelling has pulled in millions of fans around the world. In 2024, the WTA had a 15% lift in on-site attendance while its global audience grew by 10% to 1.1 billion viewers on linear and digital platforms. The tour's social media following also leaped by 25% across all platforms. The new brand campaign arrives three months after the tour hosted its finals in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, for the first time in December after the WTA signed a sponsorship pact with the kingdom's sovereign wealth fund, PIF, last May. The two sides were in talks to bring the WTA Finals to Saudi Arabia in 2023, but the tour pulled back due to public pressure for planning to host an event in a country with a history of repressive laws against women. Swanson said the decision to go to Saudi Arabia the following year was a thoughtful one and that the players' collective response was positive, with many believing they can be ambassadors for the sport there. 'You know that the brand purpose we landed on is this idea of 'Rally the World,' but the full wording is 'Rally the World to Break Boundaries,'' Swanson said. 'Billie Jean King founded this brand, this league, on the idea of creating opportunity for, particularly women and girls anywhere, to be an athlete. The decisions that we are making now are very much in that same vein.' Commercial opportunities continue to grow for women's sports, even though no female athlete ranked in Sportico's top 100 highest-paid athletes of 2024. Nine of the 15 highest-earning female athletes come from the WTA Tour, with Gauff ranking as the highest-paid woman in all of sports last year with $30.4 million. Zheng, who is viewed as having a Yao Ming-like marketing impact, pulled in $20.6 million as the fourth highest-earning female athlete, followed by Sabalenka ($17.7M) and Osaka ($15.9M). Best of MLS Franchise Valuations Ranking List: From LAFC to CF Montréal Tennis Prize Money Tracker: Which Player Has Earned the Most in 2025? Who Is Josh Harris, the Washington Commanders' Owner?
New York Times
27-02-2025
- Entertainment
- New York Times
WTA rebrand: New logo and design pale in comparison to tennis in women's sports
The WTA announced a rebrand Thursday, and the initial discussion will likely centre on the merits of the new logo, color scheme and mission statement: to 'rally the world.' Away from the new design and the soundbites, the governing body of women's tennis is aiming to put itself at the forefront of women's sport and culture. Advertisement 'We are at an inflection point, where we have an opportunity to really strengthen and elevate our global identity,' Marina Storti, WTA Ventures chief executive, said in a phone interview Wednesday. 'And for me, it's about being at the forefront of culture.' As part of the launch, Grand Slam champions like Coco Gauff, Naomi Osaka and Aryna Sabalenka shared advertising spots declaring 'this is not a tennis court,' describing the court instead as a stage and a place to express their identity. According to Storti, the WTA wants to help its players 'tell stories in a very authentic way so they can build global fandoms and it can help us build global fandom. And really also help us to deepen our commercial partnerships. 'I see this as strategic and commercial. It isn't just about aesthetics. It's a fundamental part of the strategy, and it powers all of our commercial pillars,' she said. Storti cited the Zendaya tennis movie 'Challengers' and Netflix series 'Emily in Paris' using the French Open in its trailer as examples of women's tennis transcending culture, as well as cover shoots for its contemporary stars in Vogue, Time and Forbes. 'I think we saw last year already that we are at the forefront of culture … It isn't just about sport. This is about entertainment as well,' Storti said. A launch in Los Angeles Friday ahead of the WTA and ATP 1,000 tournament in Indian Wells, Calif., seeks to hammer this home, with world No. 1 Sabalenka and Ava DuVernay, the American filmmaker and screenwriter, hosting the event. In a statement announcing Thursday's rebrand, the organization referenced the fact that it is 'home to 11 of the world's 20 highest-earning female athletes,' according to Forbes' most recent list. Through the economic and cultural surge in women's sports, tennis' history at its forefront — on court and off — has at times overtaken its contemporary place in the landscape. Billie Jean King, a founding leader of the WTA Tour, also created the Women's Sports Foundation in 1974, two years after Title IX banned sex discrimination in schools in the United States. The WTA has had a longer period of combined professionalism and relevance than any other women's sporting body. GO DEEPER Billie Jean King never got comfortable 'The competitive landscape of sports and entertainment coupled with the ever-increasing momentum in women's sport, create the perfect time to stand tall and take our leadership position alongside our incredible athletes and tournaments,' current WTA Tour chief executive Portia Archer said in a statement. Advertisement The WTA has been in discussions with its male counterpart, the ATP Tour, about a commercial merger for some time, of which WTA Ventures would be a part. Established with private equity company CVC Capital Partners, it is designed to triple commercial revenue by 2029; the proposed ATP-WTA merger would not come with a 50-50 revenue split at present. The WTA, like the ATP, which recently announced a partnership with social media sports platform Overtime, is in a near-constant bid to capture younger fans, which requires tapping into people who know the likes of Gauff and Osaka as fashion icons, mental health advocates, TikTok stars before they know them as tennis players. Tennis dynasties and rivalries are also key to this kind of cut-through. Since the WTA's founding in 1973, the duels between the likes of Chris Evert and Martina Navaratilova and the Williams sisters have been crucial to a tour which can suffer from being cast as inconsistent or unpredictable, rather than its depth and range of winners being acknowledged as a positive. In recent history, world No. 1 and No. 2 Sabalenka and Iga Swiatek have dominated the court most consistently, but without as much cultural clout as Gauff and Osaka. Ultimately, having superstars on the tour is the quickest shortcut to having the kind of cultural relevance that the WTA wants; ensuring that they are discoverable to fans through off-court media and highlights as well as events is the challenge. In its announcement on Thursday, the WTA said it had sold 15 percent more tickets than in 2023, with social media followers rising by 25 percent, and a cumulative global audience growing by 10 percent to a record 1.1 billion on television and streaming platforms. It also spoke of the record $4.8 million (£3.8m) prize money awarded to Gauff for winning the WTA Tour Finals in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, in a signal of one of its key binds for the future. Human rights groups including Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International have criticized Saudi Arabia's record on freedom of expression, including the criminalization of same-sex relationships and the 'Personal Status Law,' which requires women to obtain a male guardian's permission to marry. The country was ranked 126th out of 146 nations included in the 2024 Global Gender Gap index, and has two events remaining on its deal for the flagship, standalone women's tennis product in the world. These are the sorts of issues that promise to be defining for the WTA over the next few years, once debates over colors, fonts and logos subside. GO DEEPER 'The same people who allow women to play tennis are also torturing the activists' (Top photo of Aryna Sabalenka and Madison Keys: James D. Morgan / Getty Images)
