There’s no doubt that taking over the leadership of the Women’s Tennis Association (WTA) is a lucrative yet daunting position to be in.
On one hand, you’d be sitting at the helm of the world’s most successful women’s professional sport.
And on the other, you are tasked with driving it forward in a fast-evolving digital era, changing negative perceptions towards it, attracting investors and most of all, creating a product that can rival its male counterpart while keeping your players healthy throughout the course of a gruelling 10-month schedule.
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It is a role Steve Simon, the new chairman and CEO of the WTA, is happy to occupy though. The American, who had been running the Indian Wells tournament since 2004, accepted the job last month, after Stacey Allaster stepped down.
As a man who helped Indian Wells become the biggest tournament outside the four grand slams, Simon brings a wealth of experience to the WTA and has a clear vision on what needs to be done.
“I think we have to have the conviction of building a premium product and delivery of it. And professional sports is about premium and premium drives value and the aggregation of premium drives the greater value. And that’s our responsibility and our belief,” Simon told Sport360 at the WTA Finals in Singapore last week.
“A premium product constitutes that the available product we have that week, I have on the court. The players can’t play every week, but they’ve got to be on the court and be healthy and possibly looking at a system where you aggregate it, meaning we have more of that talent in one place versus spread over three events. And I think that’s a big element and a big issue that begins to drive premium value.”
While investment in tennis has been growing exponentially and total tournament prize money has increased from $60 million in 2005 to $129m this year, the WTA calendar has become increasingly cluttered with many weeks having three events held simultaneously in different parts of the world.
The extensive expansion in China and the Asia-Pacific region, spearheaded by Allaster, helped the sport reach a lucrative new market but it also stretched the players so thin, particularly towards the end of the season; post-US Open from September onwards.
The calendar is exacerbating the health of the players more and more and you end up having a WTA Finals without Serena Williams, who pulled out of the elite season finale citing fatigue.
New #WTA Rankings 1.Serena 2.Halep 3.Muguruza 4.Sharapova 5.Radwanska 6.Kvitova 7.Pennetta 8.Safarova–> https://t.co/EiKySQs5Jo
— WTA (@WTA) November 2, 2015
Maria Sharapova missed the US Open injured this year while Petra Kvitova took a full month off in March due to burnout. A total of 626 cases of withdrawals and retirements took place on the WTA in 2015, a 1.44 per cent increase on last year.
Simon admits that tackling this schedule is on top of his agenda and knows it will be his greatest challenge, and one that is bound to cause controversy.
“I think the calendar is going to be the hardest thing. Because you have 54 events that have all invested and have weeks and obviously they are businesses,” he says.
“And how do you mould that and shape it and still take care of what weeks the players can actually play physically, making sure that they have an off-season, making sure that you’ve got the right lead-ins to Slams, Fed Cup, the WTA Finals.
“It’s finding that balance and I think that’s the hardest element to deal with because there are so many factors involved. We have to make some fundamental changes in the calendar and our approach to it.”
Simon will be having conversations with the players to discuss the main areas of concern in the schedule and he believes most comments will be directed at the period post-US Open.
He lauded the efforts Allaster made in expanding into the Asia-Pacific but believes the tour must be more careful moving forward to avoid “over-saturating” that region. He feels the same away about the Middle East.
“There’s been tremendous investment made from both Dubai and Doha into professional tennis. There’s also been some investment by Abu Dhabi in an exhibition format to start the year.
“I’m not against further growth but I want to be respectful to the investments Doha and Dubai have made,” he adds. “And make sure that we don’t put another event in there just to take and then it begins hurting the people that have investment into the region.
“If there’s another opportunity, I’m all for it in a way that opportunity could lift what Doha and Dubai have already invested, then I’m good. If it’s taking away and only to the benefit of WTA, then I’m not sure that’s a smart, balanced business decision and I’m disrespecting the region.”
Besides the calendar, Simon believes finding a title sponsor for the tour is a “priority”.
Since the inception of the WTA in 1971 until 2010, there had been a title sponsor supporting the tour for all but five seasons. But since Sony Ericsson ended their partnership five years ago, the tour has been unable to find a suitable replacement.
“We would love to (find a title sponsor),” Simon admits. “But is it going to make or break the WTA? No. But is it a priority? Yes.
“I think if we do some of the things that we’re talking about here and begin to achieve them, I think that partnership will come. But I think it’s a reflection that we need to work on that.”
With men’s tennis featuring some of the best of all-time at the moment in Roger Federer, Rafael Nadal and Novak Djokovic, there is a perception that the ATP is overshadowing the WTA, which has deeper fields but less consistency at the top.
Simon believes the WTA product is not inferior to the ATP one but that the characters of the game play a significant role.
“There was some time not too long ago where the women’s game was more popular and the men didn’t have the stars that they have today. And I can remember that era, where Chris Evert and that team, they were actually the bigger deal. So it is cyclical.
“And now we’re creating the rivalries and the personalities are getting out there that will cross regions and barriers, I think then we begin to compete on that level,” he says.
Being able to present those personalities and rivalries to the world on multiple platforms is key for the tour and they hope to achieve that through the $525m, 10-year media rights deal they signed with Perform a year ago.
Described as the “largest live media rights and production venture in the history of the WTA and in women’s sports”, the deal aims to produce all 2,000 singles matches for broadcast.
“Why it was such a great deal is that now we’ve aggregated all of the rights, which I think again,aggregation of premium drives value. But also now we have the ability to finance and have centralised production, so we have the ability to produce every match at a certain standard, which is important,” says Simon.
“By having all of that produced it allows us to deal with the merging of the linear and the digital platforms and take the product, cut it, produce it, and distribute it across the digital platforms to grow an audience.
“What’s very important is it’s going to allow us to reach our new audience which is the millennials. I’ve got to be able to get them to consume our product in a way that they’re going to consume it, because it isn’t the way that I consume it.”
Quick Hits
Exhibition leagues have been popping up in the offseason in the form of events like the International Premier Tennis League (IPTL) and the Champions Tennis League (CTL). Former WTA CEO Stacey Allaster had also talked about a concept that revolves around creating a World Cup-like event on the women’s tour. Here is what new CEO and chairman Steve Simon had to say about such team competitions and concepts…
How does the IPTL affect the WTA?
Steve Simon: I don’t think it affects the WTA. I think there’s a perception that it does out there and it creates a lot of issues. Just talking honestly with you… we shorten the season to create a two-month offseason for the athletes to rest.
Now of course, they’re playing these exhibitions and so the question comes: Well, why are you shortening the season, because the players need to rest and now they’re going out and playing? Those are their two months for vacation and they’re certainly free to do what they want.
What I will say about the IPTL is that the tennis that the athletes are playing is not nearly the same competitive level that they’re playing on the tour and most of them are playing one night or two nights max. It’s not like they’re playing a three-week tour. What it does do is it’s bringing tennis to some new regions of the world and introducing it and making them fans of our players and our athletes. So I think you have to find a balance with these exhos. So would I like to see the IPTL? In a perfect world, probably no, I’d rather see the players relax.
What’s your stance on the World Cup-like tournament concept?
SS: I think we have to be open to all of those types of ideas and concepts. But the key is that it has to fit into the calendar. What I’m not supportive of is doing one just to do it and then stuffing it in the calendar some place that creates a whole on-flow of issues. To do it we have to look and say ‘okay this is an asset that can raise the value of the WTA, it would be great for the athletes, now where does it go on the calendar and how am I going to deal with those events on the calendar?’
So we have to look at it more that way. If I can find that asset and find those solutions, then I’ll be very open to doing it. But to do it just to do it and take the money that I can get from it, I’m not going to do it.
