Emirates Airlines will sponsor the St. Petersburg Open, which will be held in St. Petersburg from September 19 to 25, 2016. The Open St. Petersburg Company LLC (owns the rights to organize the tournament) signed a four-year contract with Emirates, says its CEO Ruslan Linkov. Emirates did not respond to Vedomosti’s request yesterday.
Emirates’ advertisements will be placed on the grids of the central court, on the wall that falls into the line of sight of cameras, and on other media, says Natalia Kamelzon, executive director of the tournament.
Emirates is the premium partner of the ATP (Association of Professional Tennis Players). The airline itself chooses the stage of the ATP World Tour that it will support, says Linkov. During this year, the ATP will host 62 tournaments, which will be watched by 880 million spectators, the association’s website says.
The first St. Petersburg Open was held in Petersburg in 1995, in 2014 the tournament was not held. The title sponsor and management company of the tournament since 2015 is Gazprom Export. Last year, the tournament’s budget was about 200 million rubles, and the prize fund was $ 1 million. According to Kamelzon, they have not changed.
The tournament will reach recoupment not earlier than in five years, said yesterday the deputy chairman of the board of Gazprom, Alexander Medvedev (quoted by Interfax). In total, the tournament has 46 sponsors and partners, of which 25 are informational, the website says. The package of the official partner, to which Emirates belongs, costs $ 150,000 a year, says one of the sponsors.
The tournament will be held at the Sibur Arena (accommodates over 7000 people). Tomas Berdych (6th in the ATP rating), Milos Raonic (8th), Stanislav Vavrinka (4th), Mikhail Youzhny (57th), Andrey Kuznetsov (43rd) and dr.
Last year, 19,000 people attended the men’s tournament, says Kamelson. This year she expects to see an increase in attendance due to the stellar line-up. Ticket prices range from 50 to 2000 rubles, says Kamelson. There are also free tickets, for example, for children’s schools, she says. For comparison: at the Winston-Salem Open, daily tickets cost from $ 5 to $ 52.
Airlines often support clubs and tournaments, says Sport Media Group CEO Sergei Panteleev. This is an image story, the airline seeks to remind about its flights that fly from St. Petersburg, he said. In 2015, Emirates Airlines served more than 120,000 passengers from Pulkovo, according to the airport’s website.
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