For the first time in seven years, the ATP World Tour "is adding a luxury car brand to its roster of sponsors," though it is a brand that has not been sold in the U.S. for more than 20 years, according to Daniel Kaplan of SPORTSBUSINESS JOURNAL. The circuit "plans to announce this week it has signed Peugeot" to an up to five-year, roughly $50M deal to sponsor the ATP starting in January. The contract is guaranteed for three years, "with an option for the car brand to extend for two more years." The deal "is a rare one" in that it sees a major sports property take on a large sponsor that does not sell in the U.S. Longtime sports marketer Bob Basche, who is the founder of Connect Sports & Entertainment, said, "I am a bit surprised that the ATP, which is obviously an upscale property, would associate with a brand that is not as well-known. It is obviously a play by Peugeot to be more in the mainstream of the luxury car category." Because so many of the ATP's 62 events boast local car deals, Peugeot "can promote initially only at around one-third of the tour's events." Those include only two of the 11 ATP events in the U.S., a source said, though those two are among the largest tennis events in America: the Miami Open and the Western & Southern Open in Cincinnati. A source said that the owner of the Miami Open, WME-IMG, "brought the deal to the ATP." WME-IMG is not an agency for the ATP, "but it does represent world No. 1 Novak Djokovic, and Djokovic has a Peugeot endorsement." Peugeot will be the new official car of the ATP and will supply 500 cars to ATP events for players, officials and VIPs (SPORTSBUSINESS JOURNAL, issue 11/2).
