Like different sports, ladies’s tennis is wanting into the potential of moving into enterprise with Saudi Arabia. And whereas holding a event there’s not imminent, WTA Chairman and CEO Steve Simon stated Friday that he visited that nation with some gamers in February as a part of the analysis course of.
“It’s a very difficult and very challenging topic that’s being, obviously, measured by many, many different groups right now,” Simon stated at an occasion in London to mark the fiftieth anniversary of the assembly that led to the founding of the WTA.
He acknowledged there “are still tons of issues in Saudi Arabia” with regard to ladies’s rights and LGBTQ+ rights.
Simon’s feedback got here just a few days after the St. Petersburg, Florida-based WTA introduced it was establishing a “pathway to equal prize money” so ladies earn the identical as males at sure tournaments by 2027 and others by 2033. Simon stated Tuesday extra cash would come from incremental boosts by the occasions themselves and from income projected to reach from broadcast, knowledge and sponsorship rights through WTA Ventures, the tour’s business enterprise that launched in March.
“The Saudis are talking to a lot of people and a lot of different sports right now,” Simon stated. “I think everybody’s evaluating what this means and: How do you move forward with that?”
The males’s tennis tour, the ATP, has been involved with the Saudi sovereign wealth fund, formally named the Public Investment Fund. The PGA Tour, European tour and the fund, which backed the LIV Golf sequence, stated on June 6 they’d mix their business companies. Saudi soccer golf equipment have been bringing in high gamers from Europe.
These types of offers have been pointed to as examples of “sportswashing” – efforts to rebrand a nation’s troubling public picture by way of what occurs on fields of play.
On Friday, Simon framed the problem, partially, as maybe providing a chance to assist enhance human rights in Saudi Arabia.
“You want them to do what they are talking about right now and advance the opportunities for women in the country, to make it better,” Simon stated. “You need to support that. You can’t walk away from that.”
Billie Jean King, the International Tennis Hall of Fame member and equal rights champion, stated throughout a panel dialogue at Friday’s occasion: “I’m a huge believer in engagement. I don’t think you really change unless you engage. … How are we going to change things if we don’t engage?”
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