WTA looks east for growth 02/11/2010 |
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The WTA is looking to the Asia-Pacific region to boost its international growth on the back of China producing more world-class players, the women’s tennis tour’s chairman and chief executive has said.
Boosted by a new sponsorship deal with Chinese sporting goods firm Peak, Stacey Allaster called the country “an important strategic growth project for us”.
Allaster praised organisers of the China Open and said the tournament facilities in Beijing were outstanding and would only get better with the addition of a 15,000-seat, retractable roof stadium next year.
“It is absolutely amazing what the Beijing Government and the China Open are doing for our sport,” Allaster said at the recent WTA Championships in Doha. “They are incredibly ambitious. They have made women’s tennis a priority sport and that is just simply fantastic for the WTA.”
But Allaster acknowledged there was “plenty of education” to do to get more Chinese people excited about tennis, including such basics as how to score a match. To help with that, the WTA has opened an office and plans to travel around the country with the Chinese Tennis Association to introduce the game to more people.
“We have taken a play right out of [commissioner] David Stern’s playbook from the NBA – we need to excite kids about our sport,” she added. “We need to get racquets in their hands and show them our sport is fun through tennis festivals throughout the country. That’s created an opportunity for our brand and also assets for our partners.”
China’s 1.3 billion potential fans offer a vast untapped market for the WTA and other sports federations. The WTA points out there are 130 million Chinese interested in tennis and 10 million recreational players – twice the number of those in France, an established market.
Allaster, meanwhile, revealed that the tour is thriving despite the tough economic climate.
Along with Peak, the WTA re-signed Sony Ericsson – a long-running sponsor – this year and added the Swedish-based cosmetics company Oriflame. It expects to announce another sponsor in the coming weeks and possibly as many as two more in the future.
“We are strong – we’ve had the best commercial year in our history,” Allaster said in an interview with the Associated Press. “We’ve had three new partners, held our own in attendance and added three new events.”
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