WTA makes call to 'rally the world' with 2025 rebrand

If something looks different to you on the WTA's website, social media channels and on television over the last 24 hours, you'd be right: The tour released a new brand identity on Thursday, with a rallying cry that a tennis court is a stage for the world's best athletes to perform.

Visually, the tour moved away from the silhouetted-player logo that defined it for the last half decade, instead shifting to bold, block letters in green and deep purple, while centering the story of each of the tour's individual athletes. A press release by the WTA summarizing its "bold new brand identity" released Thursday says that "the spots present the court as, in fact, a stage on which the game’s greatest players perform, becoming their most powerful, influential and unfiltered selves."

But the game's top names like Aryna Sabalenka, Iga Swiatek, Zheng Qinwen, Coco Gauff and Mirra Andreeva. are not the only ones featured, with youngsters like American Iva Jovic, Alex Eala of the Philippines, and Turkey's Zeynep Sonmez, who just won her first WTA singles title at the end of 2024, also among the players who received individualized spots.

According to a story written in AdWeek, between 70 and 80 players stood in front of the camera at the Australian Open to discuss what the WTA means to them.

That was by design.

“People don’t fall in love with leagues: They fall in love with athletes and teams if you’re a team sport,” WTA Ventures, the tour's commercial arm, chief brand officer Sarah Swanson told AdWeek.

“If you’re going to try to market and promote and drive fandom for a sport, you have to lean into your athletes… that was the intention from the very beginning.

The WTA's rebrand comes at a time where the tour experienced growth in three key audience metrics in 2024. According to a February press release, there was a 15% increase in on-site attendance at WTA Tour events; 25% growth in the tour's social media followers; and a global TV audience of 1.1 billion, a 10% growth year-over-year.

Touting that the WTA has "the largest global reach in women’s sport," first-year CEO Portia Archer praised the shift in storytelling.

"The competitive landscape of sports and entertainment coupled with the ever-increasing momentum in women’s sport, create the perfect time to stand tall and take our leadership position alongside our incredible athletes and tournaments," Archer said. "This bold new brand provides a distinct and powerful voice to tell our stories and showcase the WTA as the global sports and entertainment brand where women’s tennis shines.

"We invite our fans around the world to join us as we rally the world and break even more boundaries in the years to come.”

On-site branding for the initiative will launch at the BNP Paribas Open, which begins on March 2.