Tennis fans have called out the WTA for failing to produce as much promotional content for their players and tournaments in comparison to TennisTV, the official ATP streaming service.
Fans were responding to a tweet by Juan Ignacio praising TennisTV for their vast coverage of the ATP Tour.
"TennisTV milking every possible second from the best their product can offer.
Almost 80 (!) minutes of videos uploaded in less than 24 hours.
Highlights, press conferences, trophy ceremony, new angles... everything. That's how you do it." they wrote.
Fans say WTA 'doing a disservice' to players
On its home page alone, TennisTV offers a huge array of ATP match highlights, features, and finals to watch. The site also sorts content into 'Order of Play', 'Tournament Calendar' and 'Replays & Highlights', making videos easily accessible.
Ignacio also shared that TennisTV had uploaded 29 posts or reels on Instagram of recent developments at the Cincinnati Open, and that the channel had received 2.5 million views in 22 hours.
This led many fans to express their disappointment at the fact that the WTA does not have the same levels of promotion for their Tour. The page 'Tennis Updates' re-tweeted the post with the caption:
"The 1000s [ATP Masters 1000 events] are the biggest events the ATP has so they rightfully promote it as such. These are their majors, which is probably why they are extending some of them to make it feel that way.
Meanwhile, at the same event, WTA posted a 5 minute highlight as if it was any other event."
Other fans were quick to voice their agreement, with some speculating as to the reasons behind the disparity in content availability.
"Sometimes I wonder if it's that WTA can't find serious persons to employ to handle their media pages or that they're not paying the ones they currently have which is why they're so lazy? I don't get it," wrote one.
"WTA is doing such a disservice to their players, it's almost comical," added another.
"WTA has one of the worst PR departments. While ATP's PR people do whatever they can to promote the sport, WTA's PR department just collects sponsors' money and does nothing. WTA needs radical changes on the management level," commented a third.
TennisTV used to cover both ATP and WTA events, but the WTA split with the streaming service in 2017.
