By Erik Gudris | @atntennis | Thursday, August 3, 2023
Tennis icon Billie Jean King is now a component proprietor within the lengthy operating ladies’s tennis workforce occasion that bears her title.
The Worldwide Tennis Federation (ITF) introduced that it has shaped a brand new partnership with TWG World, which incorporates King, to create a three way partnership to market and promote the lengthy operating Billie Jean King Cup, previously generally known as Fed Cup.
Fed Cup started 60 years in the past and the occasion’s title was modified in 2020 to be rebranded because the Billie Jean King Cup.
Now we have some very thrilling information about @BJKCup
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— ITF (@ITFTennis) August 3, 2023
The brand new entity, Billie Jean King Cup Restricted, can have the ITF holding a 51% share and TWG World 49% in an effort to safe new sponsors, and broadcast and business partnerships.
“We wish the Billie Jean King Cup to have a optimistic, lasting sporting and social influence on all 211 ITF Federations. This competitors has all the time been a robust platform for the worldwide progress of girls’s tennis and with this information we’re dedicated to having a daring, historic and lasting influence for generations to come back,” Billie Jean King mentioned in an announcement. “We’re grateful to Mark Walter and TWG World for his or her funding.
“The objectives of TWG World, BJKE and ITF are utterly aligned, and we’ll work collectively to construct on this occasion’s unimaginable 60-year historical past to attain a good larger future for ladies and girls’s sports activities.”
In 2022, due to new title sponsorship, ladies competing within the Billie Jean King Cup Finals acquired the identical prize cash as did males for the Davis Cup Finals. The Billie Jean King Cup World Champion, Switzerland, took dwelling an unprecedented $2 million prize.
“It’s thrilling and becoming in its sixtieth 12 months to announce a novel partnership for the Billie Jean King Cup shaped by individuals who have labored in sports activities and tennis all their lives. This three way partnership will likely be overseen and operated by leaders who carry huge data, expertise, and shared ardour to the worldwide growth our sport and who maintain a exceptional monitor report in rising ladies’s tennis,” David Haggerty, ITF President mentioned.
“We now have a big alternative to raise the Billie Jean King Cup with this funding and a workforce of individuals engaged on this property each single day. This can be a long-term partnership, and it permits us to construct the occasion on a number of ranges and ensure we’ve the entire parts in place, in order that it continues to be the preeminent world workforce competitors not solely in tennis, however in ladies’s sports activities. The Billie Jean King Cup is a powerful platform to raise equality and girls. Our objective is to assist extra ladies safe senior management and board positions with all ITF federations; have extra ladies in media in order that our story is informed across the globe; and to have extra ladies as officers,” Ilana Kloss, CEO of BIKE mentioned in an announcement.
Switzerland received the 2022 version of the long-running occasion.
A report 134 nations have entered the Billie Jean King Cup competitors in 2023 from Regionals to the house and away ties of the sooner phases as much as the Qualifiers and Play-Offs. The world’s twelve finest nationwide groups have secured their place to its pinnacle occasion, the 2023 Billie Jean King Cup Finals, which happen from 7 to 12 November in Seville, Spain.
Picture Credit score: Rob Newell/CameraSport