T/Squared, the agency set up by the Team Marketing group to house its new business, is to broker and advise on global media rights sales to tennis’ Davis Cup and Billie Jean King Cup in a four-year deal, SportBusiness understands.
The first deal struck by T/Squared has been announced as an exclusive agreement with Italy’s SuperTennis for both the men’s and women’s teams events.
The deal in Italy – like T/Squared’s remit – runs from 2025 to 2028. T Squared has not put down a minimum guarantee, it is understood.
For T/Squared, the agreement with the International Tennis Federation (ITF) and Billie Jean King Cup Limited adds to its announced deals to sell the Basketball Champions League’s sponsorship rights and advise the Swiss Football League (SFL) on its global media rights sales.
A global media rights request for proposal (RFP) was issued for the Davis Cup and BJK Cup earlier this year.
The ITF, Billie Jean King Cup Limited and T/Squared have yet to announce their agreement. SuperTennis announced its acquisition of rights on November 6 and then T/Squared followed up with the announcement today (Monday) of its brokering of the deal.
Following the high-profile collapse of the ITF’s $3bn (€2.74bn) 25-year deal with Kosmos Tennis at the start of last year, the Pitch International agency has been working with the international federation to sell the BJK Cup media rights. Existing media rights and sponsorship deals signed by Kosmos – excluding a title sponsorship agreement with Rakuten – were novated to make the ITF the sole contract signatory.
The ITF recently opted to scrap the Davis Cup group stage that has proved unpopular with some players and fans alike. The new format, coupled with changes made to the BJK Cup, are also designed to be more appealing to broadcasters.
The finals of the 2024 editions of both competitions take place later this month. This will be the last edition of the BJK Cup Finals before they reduce to an eight-team event to mirror the Davis Cup format.
Following the deal in Italy, T/Squared is expected to help negotiate a mixture of three- and four-year media rights deals for the Davis Cup and BJK Cup in agreements covering individual countries and also multiple territories.
Following the decision to create a new agency, Team’s new business search was headed by Tom Höher, previously Team’s managing director of media rights sales, and Kerstin Lutz, Team’s former managing director of partnership management. In April, Lutz became chief executive of the new entity set up to commercialise the BJK Cup.
Along with basketball, football and now tennis, T/Squared is known to have targeted business elsewhere in esports.
SuperTennis exclusivity
The deal with SuperTennis, operated by the Italian Tennis and Padel Federation (FITP), affords Italian tennis fans access to all Davis Cup and BJK Cup matches from the first qualifying rounds onwards.
Rights to the two teams competitions are currently held in Italy by SuperTennis, public broadcaster Rai and pay-television broadcaster Sky Italia in deals that will soon expire.
Rights to a range of international events across youth, wheelchair, and beach tennis are also included in SuperTennis’ inventory. These comprise the junior editions of both tournaments, the ITF Wheelchair World Team Cup, the Wheelchair Singles Masters, the ITF Wheelchair Doubles Masters and selected stops on the ITF Beach Tennis World Tour
SuperTennis will showcase its content on its free-to-air linear channel and SuperTenniX streaming service.
Italian teams have recently enjoyed success in the teams events. Led by current world number one Jannik Sinner, Italy won the 2023 Davis Cup title and the women’s team, led by world number four Jasmine Paolini, reached the BJK Cup final last year.