The WTA Tour ended its three-year agreement with Saudi Arabia's Public Investment Fund to host the season-ending WTA Finals, moving the 2026 championship to Indian Wells after two editions in Riyadh. The tour requested the early termination. Neither party disclosed financial settlement terms.
The Saudi deal, announced in 2024, carried total prize money of $15.25 million for the 2024 Finals—the richest purse in women's tennis history. Indian Wells will host the event at the same venue complex as the BNP Paribas Open, with prize money expected to reset closer to $9 million, the 2023 level before Saudi involvement. The Finals drew criticism from human rights organizations and some players, though field participation remained complete. Attendance figures from Riyadh were not independently verified. Saudi Arabia will continue hosting the WTA's NextGen Finals through its existing contract.
The early exit reshapes the WTA's revenue model at a delicate moment. The tour is negotiating its next U.S. broadcast cycle—current deals with Tennis Channel and ESPN expire after the 2025 season. Losing the Saudi subsidy removes roughly $15 million in annual guaranteed Finals revenue, pressuring the tour to extract higher fees from U.S. rightsholders or expand digital distribution. The tour's total prize money across all events reached $346 million in 2024, up 22% from 2023, with Saudi capital accounting for nearly half the increase. Indian Wells ownership, Ellison's Oracle and former agent IMG, has historically taken a conservative approach to prize-money escalation at its March combined event, which paid $19.2 million total in 2025 across ATP and WTA draws.
The return also signals sponsor caution around Saudi sports investment. PIF's broader tennis portfolio—LIV Golf's $800 million annual operating cost, the ATP's $500 million five-year Saudi Open deal, Riyadh's hosting of the Next Gen ATP Finals—remains intact, but the WTA termination marks the first contracted pullback from a major governing body since the kingdom entered elite sports in 2021. Three title sponsors of WTA events—Hologic, Credit One, Billie Jean King Cup backer BNP Paribas—declined to renew or extend partnerships tied to Saudi-hosted tournaments during the 2024 season. The tour's current global sponsorship roster stands at nine official partners, down from twelve in 2022.
Indian Wells presents logistical simplicity: the venue already hosts 470,000 fans over two weeks in March and operates year-round. Moving the Finals there avoids the build-out costs Riyadh required—temporary seating, player hotel arrangements, and transport infrastructure added roughly $12 million to PIF's hosting expense in 2024, according to people familiar with the budget. The tour will likely schedule the Finals in late October or early November, avoiding conflict with the March Indian Wells Open. That timing puts it opposite the end of the NFL regular season and the start of the NBA's nationally televised slate, a tougher sell for U.S. viewership than Riyadh's November window, which faced minimal sports competition.
The ATP Finals remain in Turin, Italy, through 2030 under a deal worth roughly $78 million over eight years. The WTA's Indian Wells agreement is shorter—three years with an option for two more—suggesting the tour expects the sponsorship and media landscape to clarify by 2029. Saudi Arabia's sports ministry has not commented on whether it will bid for future WTA assets.
Watch for the tour's U.S. media announcement, expected before the 2025 U.S. Open in late August, and whether any package includes digital-only rights carve-outs that could offset the lost Riyadh revenue. Also watch player council elections in October—three voting seats are up, and the Saudi hosting debate split the locker room along generational lines.
The takeaway
WTA exits **$15M** Saudi Finals deal early, returns to Indian Wells with lower purse as U.S. broadcast talks loom.
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