It had already been a rumour for several days in the break rooms of the media centre at the Australian Open, but Thursday morning the WTA gave the official confirmation: the WTA Finals will relocate to Shenzhen, China as of 2019 and will remain in the city of the Pearl River Delta for 10 years, in a deal that is easily the most lucrative agreement ever signed by the WTA in its 45 years of history.
After a thorough selection process that lasted almost a year, the WTA chose the bid advanced by Gemdale Corporation, one of China’s leading real estate developer, which includes the construction of a new 12,000-seat purpose-built arena in downtown Shenzhen and a record-breaking prize money of $14 million each year, to be distributed between singles and doubles.
Shenzhen is the fourth largest city in China with over 23 million inhabitants and is located in the Pearl River Delta area in the southern region of Guangdong. It is the closest Mainland China city to Hong Kong: in fact, Shenzhen metro system is connected to Hong Kong metro through a few common stations where passengers can alight one train, clear the custom formalities and board the next one to make a quasi-integrated trip. The Pearl River Delta area includes also the cities of Guangzhou, Zhuhai and the Portuguese colony of Macau, therefore encompassing over 68 million people living in what is possibly the largest conurbation on the planet.
“It gives me great pleasure to announce that the dynamic city of Shenzhen has been chosen to host the WTA Finals, the WTA’s crown jewel season finale, for the next decade,” said Steve Simon, WTA CEO and Chairman, during a press conference held in Melbourne during the Australian Open – and I am sure we will be able to take this event to a new spectacular new level”.
With this new decisive step to double down on the “WTAsia” strategy started by the then-CEO Stacey Allaster, the women’s tour confirms its commitment to grow its fan base in the fastest-growing area of the world, both demographically and economically, despite the lukewarm welcome so far received in the major events in Beijing, Wuhan and Zhuhai. Attendance at these tournaments has so far been very underwhelming, far below the figures produced by comparable-level events in Europe or North America, both for the WTA and the ATP circuit. “It definitely is something we are very aware of – said Simon – We are very excited about the opportunity I think that Shenzhen brings. The new arena that’s being built will be in the downtown district, which hasn’t been done before. Most of the time [tennis venues are] on the outskirts. […] When you have 20 million people gravitating around that downtown district plus 68 million in the entire Delta region, […] we feel confident we’re going to be able to fill it. It’s a huge priority. Our partners know it’s a huge priority. We really want to show the world we can do it in this marketplace”.
It seems apparent from the words of CEO Steve Simon and Players Council representative Sam Stosur that Gemdale Corporation’s financial package was head and shoulders above anything else that had been put forward by other bidding cities (Prague, Czech Republic; St. Petersburg, Russia; Manchester, England, and the incumbent Singapore), but it came with the question marks of a difficult marketplace and a very long-term agreement: “Ten years is a long time – confirmed Simon – but for events to be truly successful and for people to invest behind the event, you need time. And if you look at our most successful events in this sport, they traditionally have a long history. You could even look at our friends on the ATP and the success they had in London, where it’s now been for 10 years, and look at how that event has grown”.
It is uncertain at this stage whether the current WTA International tournament in January will be maintained, if Singapore will disappear from the WTA calendar and what kind of reassurance the Shenzhen authority have given on freedom of expression and press during the event in China. One of the American reporters in Melbourne explained his experience with obtaining the Chinese visa and how he was denied the document on the basis that the Chinese government “does not like” one of the newspaper he was associated with, and CEO Steve Simon reassured that the WTA will look after these specific issues, should they arise.
All these questions will probably be answered in the next few months; but it will probably take several years to understand whether the pharaonic investment committed by the Shenzhen Gemdale Sports Industry Co., Ltd (which is rumoured to be around the $1bn mark) will bring tangible results in developing women tennis popularity in China.
