Friday, December 10, 1999
Revamped tour gives ATP new name
BY MICHAEL PERRY
The Cincinnati Enquirer
The Great American Insurance ATP Championship is no longer. Meet “Tennis Masters Series, Cincinnati.” That's the new name for the annual event in Mason in August.
The finals of the tournament (Aug.13) will be televised for the first time on CBS, with the rest of the week handled by ESPN and ESPN2.
The ATP Tour unveiled its plans for the 21st century Thursday, mostly aimed at unifying the sport and better pack aging it for fans.
“This is confirmation we needed a change because we feel there's great untapped potential in the game,” Cincinnati tournament chairman Paul Flory said.
What the average fan might notice:
• The Mercedes Super 9 series has been renamed the Tennis Masters Series, and each tournament will be named for its city.
• The year-end ATP Tour World Championship, which recently took place in Hannover, Germany, will be renamed the Tennis Masters Cup, and it will rotate sites. The 2000 Cup will be in Lisbon, Portugal, and the 2001 in Sao Paulo, Brazil.
• Another group of 60 tournaments will be called the International Series.
• The year-long points race is called the ATP Champions Race. Top players will be re quired to compete in the four Grand Slam events, all nine Tennis Masters Series tournaments and at five International Series tournaments. The year-end points ranking will be based on 18 events. Players start with zero points at the start of each year. ATP officials hope this will easier for fans to follow.
A player who misses any of the top 13 events or fails to compete in five International Series tournaments will receive zero points. The Grand Slams and Tennis Masters Series are weighted more heavily in points.
“Sports today is becoming faster, more dynamic and more colorful; in short, more entertaining,” ATP CEO Mark Miles said. “The way we stage men's tennis in the future will embody these attributes.”
ISL Worldwide, a Swiss marketing firm, paid $1.2 billion for exclusive marketing, broadcasting and licensing rights for the ATP Tour and Tennis Masters Series.
ISL plans enhanced television coverage with up to 16 cameras and new and different angles in an effort to capture the excitement of tennis. The company will spend three times as much money as has been spent in the past — Flory has heard a $9 million figure — on television production. It wants networks to have the option of leaving a center-court match for a more exciting match on another court.
“If you have somebody like ISL representing you in the TV world, and bringing in this expertise on how to show (tennis) better on TV, that's something we couldn't afford to do (before),” Flory said.
There is global rather than local sponsorship for the Tennis Masters Series. Locally, that means ISL will provide the funding — between $1 million and $2 million — that the Cincinnati event has received from title sponsor Great American Insurance and presenter RELCO Resources. Those two companies — as well as other local sponsors — will remain involved more as hospitality-oriented sponsors, tournament director Bruce Flory said. The local event still pays the prize money, which next year increases to $3 million.
The Super 9 series had more than 210 sponsors but is reducing to about 15 major sponsors, which will pay more for global exposure.
How did all this come about?
In 1997, five major marketing firms got together and researched suggestions for improvements in the sport. Tennis continues to compete with golf and NASCAR for fan interest, and the ATP Tour wondered, “How do we push this thing forward?” Paul Flory said.
Much of Thursday's announcements were the result of those findings.
Paul Flory hopes tennis' new strategy will help attract even more people to the Cincinnati event. It also could help fans follow the sport better throughout the year.
“I want people to be more excited,” Flory said. “I think what we have when you get to our tournament is something that people really enjoy. I think it's exciting, it's fun to be out there, but it doesn't grow like I think it could grow. A lot of people go, and those who go love it. But how do you extend it to other people?”
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