TOPLINE
Saudi Arabia is set to sponsor the Women’s Tennis Association’s rankings for the next five years in the third major tennis deal to be struck in the Kingdom this year, as the country continues its high-dollar push into the world of sports that has so far included a partnership with the PGA, hosting a Formula One Grand Prix and signing the world’s highest-paid soccer player, among other moves.
KEY FACTS
Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund, the national sovereign wealth fund of the country, became the naming-rights partner for the WTA on Monday, multiple outlets reported.
The deal comes one month after the association announced its championship series would be held in Riyadh for the next three years and that its prize money would be bumped to a record-breaking $15.25 million, up 70% from 2023.
The decision to host the finals tournament in the Kingdom was a controversial move criticized by fans and groups who saw the partnership as a blow to women considering Saudi Arabia’s history of human rights abuses and female oppression.
In February, it was announced Saudi Arabia would also sponsor the ATP men’s rankings for the next five years and the ATP tour moved its leading tournament for 21-and-under players, set for November, to Jedda.
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At the start of the year, top player Rafael Nadal was announced as an ambassador for the Saudi Tennis Federation, an organization aimed at growing the sport in the region.
Iga Świątek, the No. 1 ranked female tennis player in the world, has remained relatively neutral on the WTA’s partnerships with Saudi Arabia but did say she thought players “do not have any decision-making power” when it comes to the WTA’s deals.
American player Coco Gauff, currently world No. 3, has said while she doesn’t support the treatment of women in Saudi Arabia, “I hope that we’re able to make change and improve the quality and engage in the local communities and make a difference.”
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KEY BACKGROUND
Saudi Arabia has made a series of sudden and expensive moves in the sports world over the last five years, trading massive sums of money for influence and participation on the world stage. Since 2020, the Public Investment Fund, which claims to have $925 billion under management, made investments that established a new Formula One Grand Prix in Jeddah, launched a new golf tour called LIV that later merged with the PGA, took control of four domestic football clubs (including Cristiano Ronaldo’s Al Nassr), sponsored the 2023 Women’s World Cup and hosted a boxing match between Tyson Fury and Oleksandr Usyk. Saudi Arabia also made an unsuccessful joint bid with Greece and Egypt to host the 2030 Men’s World Cup. Critics have accused the moves of being an attempt to “sportswash” the country’s human rights abuse history while trying to enhance its reputation as a world player. The World Economic Forum ranks Saudi Arabia 131st out of 146 countries in its 2023 Global Gender Gap Report, four places lower than it ranked in 2022. A so-called “Personal Status Law” implemented in 2022, codified a number of rules that require women to have a male guardian’s permission to marry or divorce. The country also does not recognize LGBTQ rights and homosexuality is still punishable by imprisonment, death and beating. Saudi Arabia has made recent strides towards a more equitable gender treatment—a decades-old ban on female drivers was lifted in 2018 and child marriages were banned in 2019—but still lags far behind other nations.
BIG NUMBER
$6.3 billion. Saudi Arabia has spent at least that much on sports deals since 2021.
CHIEF CRITIC
A number of current and former tennis players have spoken against the partnerships struck by Saudi Arabia in the world of tennis, particularly women’s tennis. Martina Navratilova, a legendary player who won 59 major titles in the 1970s and 80s, and her greatest rival Chrissie Evert together wrote an op-ed for the Washington Post titled, “We did not help build women’s tennis for it to be exploited by Saudi Arabia.” Minky Worden, director of global initiatives for Human Rights Watch, wrote “the idea that women’s tennis would go to repressive Saudi Arabia, where the male guardianship system denies women basic human rights, is an offense to the pioneers who made women’s tennis popular. Given the poor state of women’s rights in Saudi Arabia, women’s tennis should not contribute to covering up repression in the country.” Others who did not support the partnerships with Saudi Arabia include Daria Kasatkina, an openly gay player who regularly vlogs her travels with her girlfriend.
CONTRA
Billie Jean King, a pioneering tennis player who threatened to boycott the U.S. Open in 1973 if it didn’t pay its male and female winners equally for their victories, last summer said she supported talks between the women’s tour and Saudi Arabia. She said hosting WTA events in the country could help further its women’s rights movement. In October, when it appeared a deal between the tour and Kingdom was likely, she added, “The thing I’m concerned about is the women, I want change if we go. But I’m big on engagement and inclusion so it’s a tough one.”
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