WTA CEO hints at merger with ATP: "I'm a fan of aggregation or combining at that level"

A merger between the WTA and ATP has been discussed by WTA CEO Portia Archer, who sees a world where this could possibly happen.

She has formulated a two-step plan for this, with her sights firmly on a commercial point of view. "I think the first part, and it is what we are pursuing now, is the merger of the commercial assets that make up the two tours. And I think that aggregation in that case is a great idea," she said in an interview with CNBC Sport videocast.

She wants to prevent commercial situations which involve picking between men and women tennis stars. "I think if we can go to the marketplace and position ourselves to acquire sponsorships, or to acquire media or broadcast rights, or to acquire data rights — doing that with those commercial assets combined, so that we're selling tennis and those buyers don't have to make a choice between Coco (Gauff) or Carlos (Alcaraz)— is a great thing. And I think that's really, really healthy for the sport. So that's one part of it."

If this first step is completed successfully, Archer would then set her gaze towards the two tours. "But I think once we complete that first step, we can look at sort of that second step. In the meantime, we can still collaborate and coordinate very closely, as we do today, around rules, for example," she stated.

"They should be coordinated, they should be largely the same, unless there are instances where there needs to be distinction. For example, rankings protection for women athletes wouldn't be a rule or something that exists for the ATP. So there should be differences where they are necessary — but I'm a fan of aggregation or combining at that level, at the sporting co competition level as well."

"We believe, and believed at that time, that women's sports — tennis in particular — has been undervalued in the marketplace," Archer said. The solutions to this - more investment from television partners. "And so, one of the primary things that we were looking for in a television partner was a partner that was willing to invest, that believed in providing us with the value that we have earned and that our fans demand."

This is where the Tennis Channel comes in: "So, I think Tennis Channel came to the table, and they were really ready to invest at a very high level relative to some of the other bidders that we were talking to. They had a really good strategy and alignment with our vision of how we wanted to elevate the sport. There was not just investment in terms of the license fee that we received, but also investment in marketing resources and storytelling and content. And so those were really important values and aspirations for us."

Prize money has been a contentious topic in the sport for years. This is something that Archer is determined to solve in the future, securing an equal playing field for everyone at the top of the sport.

"We continue to be undervalued, but I think we're going to continue to work, we're going to continue to demand, we're going to continue to position ourselves so we can go out and we can acquire and earn the fees — whether that's in media rights, whether that's in sponsorship, whether that's in data — that we believe we have earned. So we're on our way," she said.

"It's going to take us some time to get there. What we're committing to as a part of our pathway to equal prize money at our top-level events is we're committing to the revenue and the monetization that we earn, we're going to pour that back into the tournaments at a high level to then help fund equal prize money. And our tournaments are also going to make an increased investment," Archer concluded.