World Team Tennis, the co-ed, team-based U.S. tennis league co-founded by Billie Jean King in 1974, is relaunching this winter under new ownership and with a fresh format that organizers say is geared toward modernizing the storied property.
The first event of WTT’s 2026 season -- its first since 2021, when pandemic-exacerbated financial challenges forced it to suspend play -- will be Dec. 2 at Barclays Center in Brooklyn. The rest of the schedule has yet to be announced but will sit entirely in the month of December, according to WTT CEO Stephen Amritraj -- intentionally outside of the ATP, WTA and Grand Slams’ calendars, which generally combine to run from January to November. WTA No. 5 Jessica Pegula is signed on to compete, and Amritraj told SBJ the league has deals with other “top 10, top 20″ players that will be announced later.
“A team concept -- mixed-gender, men and women on the same team, contributing equally to the score -- in tennis is something that is truly special,” Amritraj said. “[The product] needed a sizable revamp for what the actual nuts and bolts of this were going to be.”
Amritraj, the former director of college tennis at the USTA and chief tennis officer at UTR, purchased WTT’s intellectual property via a Charleston-based private equity outfit he founded, Intrepid Sports Group, in 2024 from the league’s previous owners, Eric Davidson and Fred Luddy.
The vision for this iteration of WTT, in Amritraj’s words, is to “create a sports and entertainment property that can attract top players and create the best product possible for fans.”
It will feature:
- A new competition format that will see teams play five condensed sets (no-ad scoring) -- two men’s singles sets, two women’s singles sets, and one mixed-doubles tiebreaker set;
- Athletes receiving equity in the league, emulating recently launched startup properties like Unrivaled and TGL;
- Fan engagement elements like a technology partnership with Hawk-Eye Innovations for its electronic line-calling and tracking-data-based broadcast visualizations (including a ball trail graphic that Amritraj compared to Fox Sports’ old “glowing puck” for NHL games).
WTT now has about 10 full-time staff, Amritraj said, including former Refinery29 CMO Patrick Yee (CBO); veteran tennis operator Bill Oakes (COO), who has worked as Sr. Dir/Professional Tennis, Sales and Marketing for USTA Southern and tournament director of ATP 250 events in Atlanta and Winston-Salem; and the WTA’s former VP/Data & Technology Tony Cho (Chief Competition Officer). Event coverage will be produced by Emmy-winning producer Michael Davies and his production company, Embassy Row. L.A.-based creative agency Outset assisted in developing the league’s branding.
Additional details are scarce or yet-to-be-announced. WTT is backed by a slew of individual investors -- including Gotham FC part-owners Bobby and HyeMi Cho, NZ Breakers owner Marc Mitchell, Red Giraffe Sports principal Sapna Shah, Refinery29 co-founder Justin Stefano, and Nutrafol founder Giorgos Tsetis, among others -- but Amritraj declined to comment on how much funding the league has received. He said talks are ongoing with potential media partners and sponsors but did not yet have information to share. He also could not say the number of events WTT plans to stage, how many city-based teams it plans to field, or how much it will be compensating athletes -- though he said the teams will be owned by WTT at the league level, and the player compensation structure will be a combination of appearance fees, prize money and equity. Some of these details will be announced in the coming months, he said.
