The ATP will open an office in Shanghai this year, becoming the second major global sports league to set up shop in the world’s most populous nation. The NBA has been in China since 1997, when Hong Kong, where the league opened an office in 1992, reverted to Chinese rule.
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| The Heineken Open in Shanghai will move to make way for the Masters Cup. |
Like many businesses, men’s professional tennis has a keen eye on mainland China’s booming economy. The sport expects to place a Masters Series event there and may open a training center at Shanghai’s new tennis complex. The season-ending Masters Cup also is in Shanghai for the next three years.
The ATP is working with a University of Shanghai professor to develop a business plan for tennis in the country, said Mark Miles, the group’s chief executive.
“We will be launching a Chinese-language Web site; we will have Chinese print and electronic media,” said Miles, who is reading the book “China, Inc.: How the Rise of the Next Superpower Challenges America and the World.”
Tennis dates back more than a century in China. Christian missionaries first introduced the game in the late 19th century, and even the staunch anti-capitalist Mao Zedong played the sport. Today, China’s teeming middle class describes it as the No. 1 aspirational sport to play, the ATP says.
Since winning the rights to host the 2008 Olympics, the Chinese government has placed an emphasis on improving the country’s lackluster history in professional tennis. While there has been limited success producing players on the WTA Tour (a Chinese doubles tandem won Olympic gold last year), not a single Chinese player was even listed in the ATP’s 2005 media guide.
To remedy that, the ATP is working to stage events in the Challenger series, the sport’s minor league, worldwide. A similar strategy helped increase the number of South American players in the last decade. Only four of 160 global Challenger tournaments are even in Asia, Miles said.
The NBA has long been the front-runner in tapping into China. The development of players such as Yao Ming has led to an explosion of interest in basketball in the country, and the league now has offices in Shanghai and Beijing.
The NFL also has made recent inroads into China but has no plans to open an office there, said Gordon Smeaton, vice president of NFL International. The NFL is working with Zou Marketing, a China-based sports marketing and event firm.
MLB’s nearest office is in Tokyo.
For tennis, China is where there is sizable commercial growth occurring. The Masters Cup in Shanghai will be in a $200 million facility with a retractable roof. Meanwhile, Beijing, host of the Olympics, recently built a tennis stadium that hosts a new WTA event, as well as a men’s event. The long-running Heineken Open in Shanghai will be relocated elsewhere in China this year to make way for the Masters Cup.
Miles said the location of the Masters Series event is not yet determined. (The nine Masters Series, plus the Cup, are the top-level ATP stops.) He described the Chinese strategy as one of his remaining priorities before he departs his post at the end of the year.
The ATP, in addition to its headquarters in Ponte Vedra, Fla., has offices in Monte Carlo and Sydney.
Open Shanghai office
