Break point

The GIST: According to The Telegraph, Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund (PIF) wants to merge the WTA and ATP tennis tours with a limited-time, $2B offer that expires in 90 days. The rebranded PIF Tour would reportedly replace the proposed Premium Tour, a joint WTA–ATP circuit that’s been in development since January. A break(ing) point.

• The PIF has already pushed back, telling The Guardian on Wednesday that there is no hard deadline. Sources claim any offers are premature and bristled at the notion that the PIF wants to “buy tennis,” insisting that it wants to be a part of the sport’s “existing ecosystem.”

The details: Instead of creating a rival tour like LIV Golf, the PIF would reportedly co-opt the Premier Tour proposal and fund the ATP and WTA’s interest in a joint tour, notably leaving the four Grand Slams out of the picture. The PIF’s control means it could land a Masters 1000 event early in the season, which the wealth fund has been pursuing for months.

• Sources say ATP chairman Andrea Gaudenzi first floated the idea at Indian Wells last Saturday, after skipping January’s Australian Open to visit Riyadh and negotiate a multiyear PIF sponsorship. Gaudenzi reportedly also plans on becoming the PIF Tour commissioner, adding extra incentive for him to get a deal done. Everybody’s got a game.

The context: Saudi Arabia has aggressively moved into men’s tennis over the past year, with little pushback. In a matter of months, the nation announced it would host the ATP Next Gen Finals and ATP exhibition matches, later landing the aforementioned ATP branding deal and a shocking Rafael Nadal sponsorship.

• Its foray into women’s tennis has been slowed by criticism, but the PIF has seen recent success. PIF–funded lifestyle brand Kayanee signed world No. 6 Ons Jabeur in January, the PIF is pursuing the BJK Cup, and despite reports of the WTA moving its finals to Charlotte, The Telegraph’s Simon Briggs said it’s an “open secret” that the tour is planning for Riyadh.

Zooming out: If the rumored deal goes through, it would change the face of tennis as we know it. Starting a rival tour was enough to reshape men’s golf, but a deal like this has enough pressure to coerce women’s tennis players to reluctantly participate amid sportswashing and human rights concerns.The PIF has thrown its weight around in women’s sports before and it can do it again.

The GIST: The 2023-24 NCAA women’s basketball season was one for the books, and it’s not even over yet. Leading up to March Madness, women’s collegiate conference tournaments shattered records across the board, with the Big Ten and SEC tournaments drawing viewership in the millions. Here’s a conference breakdown before the real madness begins.

Big Ten: The Caitlin Clark Effect helped Iowa’s conference sell out its tourney to nearly 109K fans. The Iowa-Nebraska title game averaged over 3M viewers on CBS, rising to 4.45M during overtime. It was the most-watched women’s conference tournament matchup ever and the most-watched CBS women’s hoops game since a 1999 Tennessee-UConn tilt featuring Sue Bird averaged 3.9M viewers.

Pac-12: The West Coast conference welcomed 29.3K fans, its second-highest total tournament attendance in history. The title bout between USC and Stanford brought in 5.5K attendees and averaged 1.4M viewers on ESPN (a massive 462% jump YoY) for an elite rivalry between players and coaches.

• It’s a tragic swan song for the Pac-12, which will now see most of its powerhouse programs depart for other conferences. The dissolution spurred by its football programs destroyed a conference ecosystem that cultivated some of the fiercest women’s basketball competition in the nation. A bittersweet symphony.

ACC: The Ally-sponsored event was the first to reach 1.5M total attendees for a women’s hoops conference tourney, up from a record 62K in 2023. Notre Dame’s narrow championship victory over NC State drew 9.1K fans and averaged 679K viewers to become ESPN’s most-viewed ACC women’s championship ever — a steep 42% climb from last season.

SEC: The SEC tournament reset its own records as 64.K total fans visited Greenville, South Carolina, and 13.1K showed up for the title game between South Carolina and LSU. Plus, ESPN saw 2M average viewership, up 126% from 2023’s game with the same headliners.

• As the spicy rivalry between South Carolina and LSU intensifies, so does the mythic viewership around it. A regular season matchup between the two averaged 1.56M viewers on ESPN in January, beating out TNT’s Celtics-Heat game broadcast at the same time. Everyone watches women’s sports.