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WTA Will Announce Media Deal Worth $525 Million

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By RICHARD SANDOMIRDEC. 9, 2014

The Women’s Tennis Association plans Tuesday to announce a 10-year media agreement worth $525 million, with the goal of greatly expanding worldwide viewership of its tournaments.

The tennis organization described the deal as the largest in women’s sports history. The W.N.B.A., for example, has a $12-million-a-year contract with ESPN.

Stacey Allaster, the chairman of the WTA, said that the annual average of more than $50 million a year more than doubles the $21 million that she estimated the tournaments currently receive.

“This is a very clear signal to the market about the value of women’s sports for media partners and for brands and sponsors,” she said.

The deal creates a joint venture between the WTA and Perform Group, a multimedia-rights company based in England. Perform is paying the rights fees and guaranteeing money to produce all 2,000 main-draw singles matches and 300 semifinals and finals of doubles matches each year. Networks that choose to produce tournaments on their own will receive subsidies from the venture, which is called WTA Media.

Profits between the W.T.A. and Perform will be shared equally.

“Perform is in line with our vision,” Allaster said by telephone. “In July, we were talking about 1,000 matches, and I said, ‘Why not do all of them?’ ”

Early this year, she said, the WTA began studying how to broaden and modernize the worldwide reach that includes 22 so-called premier tournaments in locations such as Indian Wells, Calif., Madrid, Miami and Singapore, the site of the WTA Finals. It examined the media strategies of the Pacific-12 Conference, the PGA Tour, the N.F.L. and the UEFA Champions League.

“It was a pretty clear road map for us,” Allaster said. “Control and own the content and use the efficiencies of technology to distribute it.”

She said that she also wants to make an aggressive push into social media.

“We want to be able to distribute all our matches and then cut them down to short form for social and over-the-top platforms for younger fans,” she said.

ESPN and Tennis Channel, which are deeply invested in tennis, currently have contracts to carry WTA tournaments through 2016.

Allaster believes that they will compete for the future rights, along with Fox and entities like beIN Sport.

Ken Solomon, the chairman and chief executive of Tennis Channel, which carries a majority of the WTA’s tournaments, said that the new deal “says a lot about how women’s tennis is on the upswing, which is undeniable when you look at the star power of the Wozniackis, the Marias and Serenas, and some up-and-comers.” He continued, “The W.T.A. has a unique advantage — it’s the only sport where women are as, or more powerful, than their male counterparts.”

He added that the breadth of production that will be done by the joint venture will, essentially, create a world feed for each tournament that will help its viewers see more matches.

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