Eastern Tennis Hall of Fame Honors Tour CEO Larry Scott

Sony Ericsson WTA Tour Chairman and CEO Larry Scott will be inducted into the Eastern Tennis Hall of Fame on Friday evening in New York City.

The 21st anniversary of the Eastern Tennis Hall of Fame will recognize Scott’s life-long contribution to tennis, from his beginnings as a top-ranked Eastern junior playing out of Merrick, New York, to captain of the men’s tennis team at Harvard University, an ATP Tour player, a decade as Chief Operating Officer of the ATP and five years as the Chairman and CEO of the Sony Ericsson WTA Tour.

Scott will be inducted at a dinner benefitting Eastern’s Junior Tennis Foundation held at the New York Racquet and Tennis Club on Friday April 18, 2008. Past inductees to the Eastern Tennis Hall of Fame include: Arthur Ashe, Althea Gibson, Don Budge, Mary Carillo, Vitas Gerulaitis, John McEnroe and Gladys Heldman. Anne Worcester, former Sony Ericsson WTA Tour CEO and current tournament director of The Pilot Pen Tennis tournament in New Haven, will present Larry at the event.

“Larry Scott has made a difference in women’s tennis – a very big difference,” said tennis legend and Sony Ericsson WTA Tour founder Billie Jean King. “He worked diligently to help secure equal prize money for women this past year at both Wimbledon and the French Open. Because of his strong marketing skills, he understands the needs of the players, the requirements of the sponsors and the desires of the fans and is making the Sony Ericsson WTA Tour one of the most viable and successful sports properties in the world today.”

“Larry has done so many really amazing things for women’s tennis since he joined the Sony Ericsson WTA Tour,” said six time Grand Slam champion and former #1 Venus Williams.

“We have come so far as a sport with Larry at the helm, most notably equal prize money of course. His ability to connect with and understand players has been instrumental in our collective success.”

Since joining the Sony Ericsson WTA Tour as Chairman and CEO on April 15, 2003, Larry Scott has engineered an exciting turnaround for women’s professional tennis, with the Tour now enjoying unprecedented growth and popularity on a global scale. During Scott’s tenure, Tour sponsorship and championships revenues have increased 500% and Tour revenues have more than doubled.

Credited as the architect of the largest-ever sponsorship in both women’s sports and professional tennis, a six-year $88-million landmark title sponsorship agreement with Sony Ericsson beginning in 2005, Scott also spearheaded the 2007 passage of the Roadmap 2010 initiative, the most sweeping reform package in the history of the women’s game.

He played a pivotal role in the realization of equal prize money in 2007 the Wimbledon Championships and Roland Garros; signed the largest television deal in the Tour’s history with Eurosport; and signed the largest Sony Ericsson Championships deals in the Tour’s history, including $84 million of deals that will bring the storied season-ending championships to Doha, Qatar from 2008-2010 and on to Istanbul, Turkey from 2011-2013.

Scott also has overseen the rapid growth of women’s tennis into emerging markets such as China, Russia and India, including the opening of the Tour’s Asia-Pacific representative office in Beijing scheduled to open in May of this year.

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