Women's Tennis Announces Deal with Private Equity

Familiar movie.....WTA forms new subsidiary "WTA Ventures"

A familiar movie unfolding in women’s pro tennis.

Per the New York Times:

The WTA announced Tuesday that CVC Capital Partners had become their partner after making a $150 million investment that would give CVC a 20 percent stake in a new commercial subsidiary named WTA Ventures. The subsidiary will focus on generating revenue by managing, for example, sponsorship sales as well as broadcasting and data rights.

CVC Capital Partners is a Luxembourg-based private equity and investment advisory firm with approximately US$155 billion of assets under management.

Steve Simon, the WTA’s chairman and chief executive, said in a telephone interview from Indian Wells, Calif., where the BNP Paribas Open is set to begin this week: CVC’s investment will allow the tour to invest more in marketing the women’s game and in producing or commissioning media programming that will raise the profiles of players and tournaments.

“To tell the story and to build the brand and to get directly to the consumer, which are some of the key things I think we have to do a better job of than we do today to enhance the commercial results,” Simon said. “As we improve the commercial results, things like player compensation become a lot easier discussion.”

Simon said most of the WTA’s current rights deals would expire in 2026. He declined to disclose a timetable for when the tour would receive CVC’s $150 million investment.

“But it’s certainly not something that is a drip effect,” he said. “We have significant funding coming in that’s going to allow us to invest over the next several years at levels we’ve never been able to before.”