Why WTA’s Rebrand Put Women’s Tennis Players at Center Court

Sarah Swanson, who was Storti’s first hire, serves as WTA Ventures chief brand officer and spent nearly a decade with the National Football League as it implemented a “helmets off” marketing strategy to help fans get to better know its players. When the new branding gets its first test of the Hologic WTA Tour at the BNP Paribas Open at Indian Wells on March 2, she said it will only be after numerous talks with players—including a photoshoot at the Australian Open in which 70 to 80 players discussed what the WTA brand meant to them.

“People don’t fall in love with leagues: They fall in love with athletes and teams if you’re a team sport,” Swanson said. “If you’re going to try to market and promote and drive fandom for a sport, you have to lean into your athletes… that was the intention from the very beginning.

Being the brand

As a tennis governing body, the WTA has been taking sets in rapid succession of late.

According to Forbes, the WTA is home to more than half of the Top 20 top-earning women in sports. It points to both Coco Gauff’s $4.8 million singles prize at the WTA Finals Riyadh last year and the $221 million in total prize money handed out in 2024 as signs of growth.

Ticket sales were up 15% on the circuit from a year earlier, with global viewership growing 10% to an all-time high of 1.1 billion. On social media, meanwhile, the WTA’s followers have increased 25% since 2023.

“We want to present the tennis court as a stage in which players can become their most powerful, influential, and unfiltered selves,” Storti said. “It’s also about repositioning the WTA from being a governing body to a sport, an arena, and a stage for greatness.”

As a platform, the WTA is meeting women’s tennis at an interesting time. Stars like Osaka have built business and media empires of their own. WTA sponsor Morgan Stanley teamed with Disney Advertising on a Serena Williams docuseries. Luca Guadagnino’s Challengers brought Zendaya to women’s tennis and scored a Golden Globe nomination for her efforts.