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As a subscriber you can listen to articles at work, in the car, or while you work out. Subscribe NowOfficials for the Indianapolis Tennis Center will hold a press conference at 3:30 p.m. Friday at the Omni Severin Hotel to discuss the sale of the ATP Tour event that traces its local roots back to the Woodstock Country Club in 1920.
Tournament director Kevin Martin said he will reveal the buyer of the tournament’s sanctioning rights, but won’t release financial terms of the sale.
Sources told IBJ last week that the U.S. Tennis Association Southern Section was in serious negotiations to buy the event and move it to Atlanta. Martin declined to comment on any potential buyers until the press conference.
Martin told IBJ earlier this week that money generated from the sale would go toward paying off any of the event’s lingering expenses. It is not clear if there will be any money left over for the not-for-profit’s charitable causes.
The local professional tennis tournament fell on hard times after it lost its title sponsor, RCA, after the 2006 tournament and NBC subsequently pulled out as the event’s broadcast partner.
The week-long event, which drew nearly 100,000 paying spectators in its heyday in the1980s and 1990s, drew just more than 41,000 in 2009.
The decision to sell the tournament comes after months of discussions with multiple tournament partners and prospective sponsors regarding options to sustain the event in Indianapolis.
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