Leagues expand all the time, selling new franchises from tens of millions of dollars to the NBA charging possibly billions of dollars for prospective expansion teams in Las Vegas and Seattle. It’s less common pro in tennis, which has a cluttered schedule that consumes 10-11 months of the year, leaving little room for major new entrants. Nevertheless, the ATP Tour is in talks to sell one of its most coveted sanctions to Saudi Arabia for a price that would set a record for a tennis tournament.
The men’s Tour is in advanced talks with the kingdom, sources said, to create a new Masters 1000 event. Those are the currently nine ATP events that are the most premium on the tour, residing just under the prestige of the four Slams. The ATP did not immediately reply with a comment.
“The ATP is really in heated discussions with them (Saudi) today, and we should know in a month,” said one of the sources close to the ATP. This source said the tournament would start in 2026 or 2027, either in January or February. This source placed the price at between $400 million and $500 million, but others in the sport said the number could be double that. In 2002, Ion Tiriac sold the Madrid Open, a 1000, to Endeavor for 360 million Euros (currently $397 million). And also in 2022, Ben Navarro spent roughly $300 million to buy the Cincinnati Open from the USTA, also a 1000.
Putting a new 1000 in early- to mid-January, just before the Australian Open, would wreak havoc on the Australian summer series of tournaments leading into the year’s first Grand Slam. Putting the event in February, a month filled with lower level events, seems a more likely landing place if the new 1000 comes to fruition.
It’s uncertain if the WTA Tour would be part of the new event. Of the nine current 1000s (the figure represents the ranking points won by the victor) five are combined with the women (the ATP and WTA stops in Canada are 1000s and staged in different locations but presented as the same media package.
The Saudi talks to land a 1000 is just the latest push by the kingdom into big time sports. It has lured top soccer players, like Cristiano Ronaldo, to the domestic league with eye-popping nine-figure contracts. The Saudis also fund LIV Golf, and have staged F1 races, WWE premium live events, and boxing matches in the kingdom. And biggest of all, the Saudis are set to host the 2034 World Cup.
In tennis, the WTA Tour in November is staging its season-ending championships in Saudi Arabia, and the ATP has had its Next Generation Finals–a season ending showcase for younger players–in Jeddah since last year.
Critics of doing business with the kingdom over its human rights record – and Martina Navratilova and Chris Evert are among those – depict the Saudi embrace of pro sports as sportswashing. This is a term applied to authoritarian regimes that use sports to soften their images.
But it’s also true sports is a key part of the Kingdom’s massive push to diversify its economy so as not to rely solely on oil. And the Kingdom has invested heavily in many sports, and encourages female participation. The Tours obviously publicly embrace this narrative rather than the sportswashing version. It of course helps the prize money for the WTA Finals is $15.25 million, triple the levels of previous years.
The 1000s series of tournaments are so valuable in tennis because the top players, largely, are required to play them as a condition for membership on the Tours. That means these events do not need to pay appearance fees, which lower-level tour events do.
About Daniel Kaplan
Daniel Kaplan has been covering the business of sports for more than two decades. A proud founding reporter of SportsBusiness Journal, he spent the last four years at The Athletic.