After watching Larry Scott build the Women’s Tennis Association Tour, the Pacific-10 Conference will turn to Scott as its new chairman.
On July 1 Scott will take over for Tom Hansen, who plans to retire after 26 years at the helm. The conference cited Scott’s success at increasing the popularity of professional women’s tennis, including engineering the largest sponsorship in women’s sports: a six-year $88-million title sponsorship with Sony Ericsson.
It’s clear the conference hopes Scott can help expand interest in women’s college sports. Scott also previously worked with the Association of Tennis Professionals (ATP) circuit for a decade before taking the chairmanship at the WTA in 2003.
“Our search committee was most impressed with Larry's broad range of leadership experiences in both men's and women's sports, as well as his extensive success in representing the commercial interest of men's and women's tennis,” said Bob Bowlsby, athletic director of Stanford and head of the search committee. “He was the architect of a highly effective turnaround of women's tennis over the last six years and created a compelling vision that has served the sport and its athletes extremely well. We are also very pleased to bring on such a great advocate for both men's and women's sports.”
According to the conference, the WTA secured television partnerships with the major U.S. networks under Scott’s leadership and renewed its international television partnership with Eurosport, which broadcasts women's tennis to 54 countries and more than 104-million homes.