Daria Kasatkina recently shared her disapproval of the current state of marketing that appears increasingly ineffective in promoting women's tennis.
The WTA, the principal governing body of women's tennis, not only oversees tournaments and the allocation of ranking points but also plays a pivotal role in promoting the highest tier of women's tennis globally.
Part of its core mandate is to foster partnerships with broadcasters to facilitate the digital distribution of WTA tournaments, which enhances the global visibility of women's tennis.
Another way it does this is by offering comprehensive coverage and access in its subscription-based streaming platform, WTA TV, which was launched in 2017. It tends to give tennis fans a dedicated way of watching live matches and on-demand content from the comfort of a button.
However, WTA TV has had the lion's share of detractors who have rebuked using the platform because of its generally poor fan experience. First, the WTA TV is hosted on a web browser and doesn't have a dedicated mobile application.
Kasatkina, a former Top 10 player and presumably a massive tennis fan who spends plenty of time watching her peers, is among the naysayers of the WTA's platform. In a recent interview with a prominent source, Kasatkina criticized the move of tampering with a streaming platform that housed both tours.
But since the WTA separated its services from Tennis TV, possibly to tailor its platform to the unique needs of its audience, it hasn't quite matched the same level of accessibility and excellence that the ATP streaming platform currently enjoys, which has led Kasatkina to put the WTA on the spot in its ineffective marketing efforts.
"I wouldn't separate WTA from TennisTV. It used to be one thing. Now WTA TV is one of the worst platforms, you can't even find it on a web search. TennisTV is the coolest, they promote tennis very well. I would look towards promotion, there's a huge potential."
"It feels like they don't intentionally promote women's tennis, & that's very disappointing. If you look at the WTA’s TikTok, it was created in 2020 during the COVID-19, and the last video was published at that time."
"After all, the WTA has the platform, the fans, you just have to get this car up and running. What's wrong with them? To be honest, I can't answer that question."
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