Saudi investors offer $2 billion for merger of Asia-Pacific and WTA

Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund (PIF) has taken the initiative to merge the Association of Tennis Professionals (APP) and the Women’s Tennis Association (WTA). The validity period of the proposal – it involves $2 billion of investment, does not apply to the Grand Slam championships and was recently officially announced by the head of the ATP Andrea Gaudenzi during the BNP Paribas Open tournament in Indian Wells – 90 days. A decision on this matter can be made at the annual meeting of representatives of the ATP and WTA tournaments. As Kommersant learned, it will take place in the capital of Spain on April 22 and 23 before the start of the Mutua Madrid Open tournament.

The PIF’s proposal to merge the Asia-Pacific and WTA with attraction of investments totaling $2 billion was reported by the British publication The Telegraph. According to him, this issue was recently discussed at a meeting of the leaders of the ATP, WTA and representatives of Masters 1000 tournaments behind closed doors. The offer will be valid for 90 days, meaning it expires at the beginning of June, when the French Open takes place in Paris. As a result, the annual meeting of representatives of professional tennis tournaments has been postponed by approximately one month. It will take place not next week in Florida at the Miami Open, but on April 22 and 23 in the capital of Spain before the start of the Mutua Madrid Open, and for the first time in a new format. If previously members of the boards of directors of the ATP and WTA held two different meetings with tournament representatives, now it will be joint.

Details of the proposed merger of the ATP and WTA have not yet been announced. But it is obvious that, first of all, the merger of the two rounds involves the implementation of the strategic program put forward by the Chairman of the ATP Andrea Gaudenzi. As Kommersant already reported, this program meant, first of all, the formation of a unified system for the sale of media rights and the unification of the tournament calendar, although now, obviously, we are talking about other, more profound changes – in particular, an increase in the number of combined competitions with the participation of men and women. One of the reasons why this process has not yet proceeded as quickly as we would like is that men’s tennis remains commercially more attractive compared to women’s: according to The Telegraph, last year’s ATP revenues amounted to about $300 million, and WTA – only 115 million. For this reason, some functionaries and athletes still had doubts about the advisability of unifying the ATP and WTA, which implies the equalization of prize money in men’s and women’s competitions of the same category. However, now, with the help of PIF investments, these differences are apparently expected to be overcome.

Interestingly, the PIF proposal was announced by Gaudenzi after representatives of the Australian Open, Roland Garros, Wimbledon and US Open, which are independent competitions and not part of the ATP and WTA, left the premises. This fact can be considered a manifestation of serious contradictions that exist between the leadership of the ATP and the Grand Slam tournaments. Let us recall that several months ago the head of Tennis Australian Craig Tiley took the initiative to form a new tour consisting of at least fourteen tournaments, in which players from the top hundreds of both world rankings could take part, and this issue was also discussed in Indian Wells, and in the presence of leaders of the APAC and WTA. Naturally, there is no talk of the ten remaining tournaments of the hypothetical Premium Tour being equal in importance to the majors. According to The Telegraph, the idea of ​​​​creating a “premium tour” with the subsequent devaluation of the value of lower-level professional competitions was received extremely negatively by Andrea Gaudenzi, and it is no coincidence that in January, instead of attending the Australian Open, he went to Riyadh for negotiations that led to the conclusion of At the end of February, agreements on strategic partnership between Asia-Pacific and PIF.

In effect, the tennis establishment was split in two. One clearly supports the PIF proposal or is ready to accept it with certain reservations, the other is in opposition.

It is significant, for example, that the British Lawn Tennis Association, which is directly linked to the organizers of Wimbledon and holds a major June grass tournament in London on the courts of the Queen’s Club, despite a generous financial offer, refused to include this competition in the package of the recent strategic agreement between the ATP and PIF . In addition, Gaudenzi and Tiley have different views on the appearance at the very beginning of the tennis calendar of a new Masters 1000 tournament, which is proposed to be held in Saudi Arabia. The fact is that now the first week of January is allocated to the United Cup – a joint ATP and WTA team tournament. Australia is hosting it and Tiley is interested in keeping the competition alive.

According to the vice-president of the Russian Tennis Federation, Alexey Selivanenko, who is familiar with the situation, recent events only confirm what Kommersant has already recently drawn attention to: professional tennis is undergoing a transformation that will complete the current stage of its development, which lasted about 35 years after formation of the Asia-Pacific region in 1990. Moreover, in contrast to professional golf, where the intervention of the PIF led to a split and legal battle between the old and new competition systems, so far this process is manageable.

Evgeniy Fedyakov