From Tampax to Hologic: a WTA title sponsor timeline

_

You can understand why the WTA’s announcement about its new title sponsor was extremely light on specifics about what Hologic actually sells.

Because it wasn’t SO long ago – a little more than 25 years – that the word “tampon” sent the mostly-male corporate boards of companies that might have wanted to do business with the biggest women’s professional sport in the world scurrying under their desks.

Even the Grand Slam tournaments, and tournament directors of big events, were queasy about it.

Big move for the WTA as it announces title sponsorship with Hologic

True story. Remembering how that all went down, given the turbulent state of the WTA at the time, it feels like yesterday.

Maybe, on some level, we haven’t necessarily “come a long way, baby”.

But it is amusing – if a little ironic – that the genesis for the WTA’s much-needed new revenue stream came … on a golf course, with two men shooting the breeze.

From the New York Times:

“According to (WTA president Micky) Lawler, the contact with Hologic began with a game of golf in December in San Diego, where Hologic has a major manufacturing facility, that involved Stephen MacMillan, Hologic’s chairman, and Kyle Filippelli, the boyfriend of the American tennis player CoCo Vandeweghe.”

The post-tobacco era search for a sponsor

As much as it seems unimaginable now that women’s tennis once was sponsored by a cigarette, the truth is that without Virginia Slims, there might not still be a tour.

But by 1994, after 22 years and facing understandable public criticism (and after having gone from Virginia Slims, to Colgate and Avon and Toyota before returning to Virginia Slims in 1983), the WTA ended its sponsor relationship with parent company Philip Morris a year early and went nearly a year searching for a replacement.

In 1990, Kraft General Foods came on board, too.

According to the New York Times, it explored sponsorship deals with Diet Coke and the Diner’s Club credit card, only to see those not come to fruition.

Tambrands to the rescue? Not so fast

In 1995, with the Advantage International Agency hired and tasked to find a new sponsor, it had a three-year, $10 million title sponsorship deal nailed down with Tambrands.

Obviously a brand that any woman could identify with. The problem was – even though they were not going to call it the Tampax WTA Tour, it made people (especially men, let’s be real), squeamish.

And, also per the New York Times, the four Grand Slam tournaments were … not on board.

Advantage International VP Harlan Stone, heading up the search:

“Finding a sponsor at all was very difficult given the difficult year women’s tennis had in 1994. With Monica Seles out, with Jennifer Capriati busted for drugs, with lackluster competition at the top, and with the International Management Group’s threat to start its own tour, it wasn’t a great time to sell women’s tennis.”

In the end, no Tampax/Tambrands Tour.

Martina Navratilova, then the president of the newly-unified WTA Tour:

“We were caught in a Catch-22 situation. The players wanted to support it, but we came to realize that it was economically unfeasible. We couldn’t risk losing the local tournament sponsors, which is where our $35 million in prize money comes from, because they didn’t want to be associated with a WTA Tour presented by Tampax. It shouldn’t be a stigma, but apparently it still is.”

The Times story goes on to outline IMG taking over from Advantage as the WTA Tour’s marketing agent, with the company contracted to subsidize the tour through 1999 if it couldn’t land a title sponsor.

(This was just six months after a threatened takeover/threat to start a competing tour from that very same IMG).

Bob Kain, one of the main IMG people, was similarly enlightened at the time.

“In the real world of marketing and sales, the circuit has lots of individual title sponsorships to sell, and by having Tambrands as an overall sponsor you’d be blocking out a whole bunch of companies who don’t want to affiliate with it,” Kain said.

Butch Bucholz, the tournament director at what is now the Miami Open, said this:

“You could almost hear the Letterman jokes and, if you want to deal with reality, the hecklers,” he said.

Charming.

Ironically – and sadly – who’s to say that, more than 25 years on, it would be that different today?

Canada to the rescue

By October 1995, a deal had been signed with Corel, an Ottawa, Canada-based software company. (There are still some old paper writing pads with those logos sitting around the Open Court office somewhere).

It was for three years at $4 million per year – more than the three years and $10 million Tambrands had offered.

“In addition, Corel (which was the No. 2 software company at the time, behind Microsoft) will help the WTA establish a web site and assist with other promos, including player profiles on CD-Rom,” the Ottawa Citizen wrote.

(We’re not blaming Corel for the current state of the WTA website).

They debuted at the 1995 WTA Tour finals, then held at historic Madison Square Garden in New York.

By the end of 1998, with Corel’s stock in the tank, it opted not to renew, saying it was “now refocusing on corporate marketing rather than sports sponsorships”.

Sanex on board in 2000

It took a couple of years, but Sanex (makers of body care products) came on board in 2000 for three years.

In 2004, Dubai Duty Free (still associated with the Tour) joined as “Presenting Sponsor of the Middle East/Asia-Pacific region.”

By 2005, the price had gone up significantly. The WTA and Sony Ericcson signed a six-year deal worth $88 million. That was then extended two more years as the “Sony WTA Tour”, at a downgraded (non-title sponsor) level.

But that ended in 2012.

Back in 2018, the Sports Business Journal reported that the WTA was very close to a new title sponsor deal.

But that never happened.

It has taken more than a decade, since 2010, for this to finally come to pass.

About Post Author