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Leagues and Governing Bodies

WTA to serve up more in-venue stats at Finals

In-venue statistics are a long-standing custom in stadiums and arenas across sports. The explosion of fantasy sports, and a desire to enhance fans’ in-game experience, has driven venues to make more data available to fans.

And then there’s tennis, where fans typically get the speed of players’ serves at a match and little else — until now.

Allaster said a team competition, similar to golf’s Ryder Cup, could generate new revenue for the WTA to expand the in-venue initiatives.
Photo by: MARC BRYAN-BROWN
Next month’s BNP Paribas WTA Finals in Singapore will make information available to fans not previously available at matches. “It’s going to be a first,” said Stacey Allaster, chairman and CEO of the WTA Tour. She cited stats like service percentages and winners as numbers that will scroll across Singapore Indoor Stadium’s LED boards.

The Singapore tournament marks the first campaign of a five-year run for the tour in the Asian city-state. The annual WTA Finals tournament, held the past three years in Turkey, generates 35 percent of the WTA’s net operating revenue. In 2012, WTA revenue was $61 million, according to the group’s most recent tax return.

The data push is in conjunction with the WTA’s technology partner, SAP, which is fully integrated into the Singapore initiative. SAP is designing a social media wall that’s planned for a fan area at the event, and the tour hopes to bring that element to large events in the future — although Allaster specifically ruled out taking it to the BNP Paribas Open in Indian Wells, Calif., because that event is owned by Larry Ellison, founder of Oracle, an SAP competitor.

SAP also is working with Israeli company PlaySight to create “smart” practice courts for the tournament that will give players and coaches real-time data on their sessions. And in another possible first for tennis, spectators will be invited onto the court to play and get tips from the pros after practice sessions.

“We are trying to have those money-can’t-buy experiences,” Allaster said.

Whether stats will take off as the next big thing offered by tennis tournaments remains to be seen. Fantasy play is limited in tennis. That said, data companies like IBM at the Grand Slam level, and now SAP with the WTA, are using the sport to crunch performance data and quickly give it to fans watching at home, on TV. Extending that to fans in-venue is just the latest iteration.

For these initiatives to grow, Allaster said, the tour needs more revenue, and to that end, she said the WTA is in talks with two companies about filling the tour’s open lead sponsorship position. That spot has been vacant since Sony exited as the tour’s lead backer in 2012.

Another move that would drive revenue is a team competition event. The tour is looking at starting a national team competition that would be akin to golf’s biennial Ryder Cup but held annually. The International Tennis Federation already stages one such competition, the Fed Cup, but that event is spread out over many locations and during many parts of the year.

The WTA is considering sending out a request for proposals to locations to bid on hosting the event.

“If we really want to drive this, and provide this organization with long-term, sustainable growth, we need new sources of revenue,” Allaster said. “And the biggest events in the world — Olympics, Ryder Cup, World Cup — there is one common denominator: team. And one destination and one location.”

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