The major professional tours for men’s and women’s tennis are closing in on a deal that would make them one entity, according to a source familiar with the potential union.
The ATP and WTA Tours could close a merger of their commercial operations in the first half of 2025, a source close to the ATP tells Front Office Sports.
The new unit would be called Tennis Ventures, and the revenue would be decidedly tilted toward the men.
That reality is a function of a revenue imbalance between the ATP and WTA Tour, which was financially battered by its pullout from China in the wake of the Peng Shuai scandal.
“The ATP makes four times the WTA, so it’s an 80-20 starting point,” says the source. “And then the plan is to continue to share these revenues in the way that they’re split until we beat the projections that are being made right now by all the groups.”
Although, the revenue split is likely to inch up to more of a 75-25 split to start, this source says.
“It’s not a good deal for the WTA in the short term … but I think accepting it and going for the long game, you’re going to benefit,” the source adds.
According to the two tours’ most recent publicly available tax returns, which are for 2022, the WTA had negative net assets of $26 million and revenue of $114 million. (These return figures represent money flowing through the tour and not the individual tournaments, with the exception of the season-ending final.) By contrast, that same year the ATP reported revenue of $259 million and net assets of $332 million. (The ATP figures do not include ATP Media, the for-profit TV arm, or tournaments other than season-ending finals.)
A merger of the commercial operation would include ATP Media, the ATP’s data seller, Tennis Data Innovations, and WTA Ventures, which is partly owned by equity fund CVC. The combination would place media, tour sponsorships, and data under one roof. It would not touch scheduling, player and tournament relations, and prize money.
Ken Solomon, CEO of the Tennis Channel, tells FOS that he questions the merger, arguing it doesn’t solve the problem of finding consistent air time for the sport. His point is that in many countries the programmers are taking only the weekends of tournaments, which prevents any natural cadence in the delivery of matches. Merging the WTA and ATP’s commercial arms doesn’t address that issue, he contended.
The ATP and WTA tapped McKinsey & Co. and Boston Consulting Group to analyze the landscape (as well as produce a revenue split figure), according to the source close to the ATP. The firms argued tennis could aim to compete with sports like basketball and golf by merging its operations, a contention the source called “pie in the sky.”
The next step will be board meetings at the ATP and WTA’s respective season-ending finals in Turin, Italy, and Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. If the tours continue forward, key questions need answers, like who will staff and run Tennis Ventures. The source close to the ATP said if a deal happens, it would occur in the early to mid-way point of next year.
