Houston's Westside Tennis Club, site of the ATP's season-ending 2003 Tennis Masters Cup, is offering sponsorship packages for the tournament that start at $100,000 and could reach into seven figures, said Mike Gundy, the club's director of sales and marketing.
The 2003 Tennis Masters Cup will take place Nov. 8-16 at Westside, which also will be home to the 2004 edition of the tournament.
The club is building a new stadium court that's scheduled to open, Gundy said, by mid-October — in time for the season-ending tournament. The stadium is slated to have 5,226 permanent seats and, with temporary seating, to hold about 6,000 spectators.
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| The new stadium court at the Westside Tennis Club is set to be open for the event. |
Gundy said the club is seeking a naming-rights partner for the new facility. He would not disclose price goals but said the club would look to cut a deal that runs a minimum of five years.
Elements of the 2003 Tennis Masters Cup sponsorship packages could include category exclusivity; tie-ins to the tournament's print, radio and TV promotional ads; the right to use the tournament logo in marketing programs and the right to promote the company as an official tournament sponsor; on-site corporate signs; corporate hospitality, such as spots in the pro-am and receptions for clients and customers; and commercial time on the tournament's U.S. and overseas telecasts.
ESPN and ESPN2 are scheduled to televise the event in the United States.
The ATP has provided four sponsors for this year's Tennis Masters Cup tournament: Mercedes-Benz, Head/Penn, Lacoste and Waterford Crystal. Each has category exclusivity.
To help publicize the 2003 Masters Cup, the club ran promotional ads nationally on ESPN's and ESPN2's coverage of this year's Wimbledon.
Promo ads aired in Houston on the local NBC affiliate's carriage of the broadcast network's Wimbledon telecasts. Plans are in place to secure promo ads on TV coverage of the 2003 U.S. Open, Gundy said. Details are still undetermined.
