Sony Ericsson tight-lipped on WTA sponsorship 14/12/2009 |
|
| |
| |
WTA Tour title sponsor Sony Ericsson says it has not decided whether to renew its bumper deal when it comes to an end next year.
The mobile phone manufacturer’s $88m, six-year agreement runs until the end of the 2010 season and is one of the biggest deals in sport.
Calum MacDougall, the company’s director of global marketing partnerships, told Reuters: “We haven’t taken a view on whether we’ll continue or not but it is something we need to be looking at in the coming months.
“It would be pre-emptive of me to say anything. There’s a lot of analysis we need to do and understand the value we’ve got so far from the potential value we can have moving forward.”
MacDougall insisted that the brand had not been put off by Serena Williams’ foul-mouthed outburst at a line judge at the US Open in September.
“Sport is competitive and incidents happen with players in any sport,” he added.
“I think if you have a relationship like we have with the WTA, over a long time elements like this will happen because of the nature of sport.
“Overall the players have been very supportive of our sponsorship and they have been very engaging.”
MacDougall said that the company was “not particularly” tempted to switch its allegiance to men’s tennis after the success of the end-of-season ATP Tour Finals in London. The women’s event in Doha was relatively low key in comparison.
He continued: “A lot of the focus is the competitiveness between [Roger] Federer and [Rafael] Nadal and the other guys coming up. The exciting part about the women’s game is that it’s very open.
“There’s a range of players who can potentially win any given tournament and in sporting terms what’s really interesting is the unpredictability and it’s actually quite compelling in a way.”
|
| Back |
| |
| |
|
|
 |
Advertisement
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
