Courting success and the end of gender bias
It’s a long road to equality, but Stacey Allaster is proud of the growing women’s sport
“It’s an exciting time for Canadian tennis.”
Stacey Allaster, the Canadian chair and CEO of the Women’s Tennis Association (WTA) echoes the sentiment expressed by sports fans and pundits alike, given the unprecedented recent success of young Canadian stars like Eugenie Bouchard, Milos Raonic and Vasek Pospisil.
Allaster, on the line from the WTA’s home base in Florida a few days before the Rogers Cup women’s tournament gets underway in Toronto, says watching two Canadians (Raonic and Bouchard) in the semifinals at Wimbledon in 2014 was a watershed moment.
“We wanted little girls and little boys to be inspired to play this great sport, and there’s nothing like a national hero to inspire kids,” she says.
Allaster was Rogers Cup tournament director between 2002 and 2005, before moving on to lead one of the top governing bodies in professional sports.
She picked up a racket in Grade 8 thanks to a youth program run by the Ontario Tennis Association, “and I’ve never looked back,” Allaster says.
Her first job in tennis was cleaning the red clay courts of the Welland Tennis Club in southwestern Ontario, and at age 16 she was a coach. But it was after reading International Management Group founder Mark McCormack’s book, What They Don’t Teach You at Harvard Business School, that she decided to get into sports management. After attending Western University, Allaster thought perhaps she’d end up an agent.
But a marketing position with the Ontario Tennis Association and then a move to Tennis Canada set her on the path to becoming the most powerful woman in tennis. When the WTA came calling for the second time in 2005, she accepted.
“In 2005, I got an opportunity to become president of the organization that Billie Jean King founded,” Allaster says, referring to the tennis legend and champion of gender equality. “It was an exciting time.”
Asked what she’s most proud of after10 years at the WTA, Allaster cites examples of the overall growth of the women’s game, including a revenue boost despite a global recession.
But she also points out that prize money at WTA events has increased 80 per cent, and 10 events now offer equal prize money for male and fe- male players, including the four Grand Slams.
“Gender equality is a big issue right now, and women’s tennis is leading the way,” Allaster says. “That’s fantastic for the athletes, and it’s a great statement about our leaders to be involved in that.” But, she says, there’s more to do. In her keynote speech at an event for broadcasters and sponsors during the recent FIFA Women’s World Cup, Allaster spoke of the need to boost the presence of women’s sports on TV from its current 2 to 3 per cent of all broadcast content.
She also hopes there will be a spillover of enthusiasm from the World Cup to other women’s sports. But she was reminded that gender bias in society and in sport remains prevalent during this year’s Wimbledon tournament, when a widely circulated news story suggested that female tennis players avoid gaining too much muscle for fear of appearing unfeminine. “We’ve got a long way to go, and it’s not just about sport. It’s a societal issue related to gender bias,” Allaster says.
According to Allaster, the WTA is currently retooling some of its strategies to ensure it is keeping up with the ever-changing social media land- scape, saying the health and wellbeing of the athletes is always her number one priority.
“There’s no question the athletes are strong, tough, confident women,” she says. “But they are human beings just like everyone.”