Canadian Stacey Allaster steps down as CEO of the WTA Tour

In a surprise announcement Tuesday morning, the WTA Tour announced that Stacey Allaster, its Canadian CEO, is leaving as of Oct. 2.

The 52-year-old native of Windsor, Ont. is resigning, stepping down, or transitioning. But in 10 days, after six years, Allaster will no longer be the well-known, public face of the biggest professional women’s association on the planet.

She cited the recent death of her brother-in-law as well as the death two years ago from Lou Gehrig’s disease of her counterpart at the ATP Tour, Brad Drewett, as a “personal wake-up call about life, family and priorities”. She re-iterated those reasons to the New York Times in an interview Tuesday.

Years ago, Allaster and husband John Milkovich adopted two children from Siberia, Jack and Alexandra.

The timing, it has to be said, is rather curious. The season is far from over and next month, the season-ending WTA Tour finals in Singapore, arguably the crown jewel of the deals Allaster negotiated during her tenure, will be held for the second time.

If it was a life decision, it certainly would be more logical to end her WTA career there, with an appropriate send-off, the likes of which Allaster attended to celebrate the retirement of various players. Or, at the very least, end things at the end of a season, just as she began her career at the beginning of one – especially as the organization does not appear to have a replacement at the ready.

Allaster’s rise in the tennis ranks was impressive from her humble beginnings at the Welland Tennis Club. She was a teaching pro, ran programs for the Ontario Tennis Association, and started at the bottom at Tennis Canada before working in corporate sales, and then under legendary long-time tournament director John Beddington.

She succeeded Beddington 20 years ago, at the young age of 32 and at a time when you didn’t see women at the head of Masters 1000-level tournaments. Nearly a decade ago, she was hired as the chief operating officer at the WTA Tour and, just four years later, was promoted to CEO.

In 2011, she had her contract extended until 2017.

The press release credits Allaster as being instrumental in the equal prize money fight, as playing an “integral role in the development of the Roadmap, the plan to streamline the schedule and enhance the overall health of the players". As well, the WTA secured “one billion dollars in diversified contracted revenues” under her tenure – more than half of which was an announced $535 million US deal with the Perform Group late last year to make all of the singles matches at all of its tournaments available for broadcast, beginning in 2017.

Certainly she was by far the most visible chief the WTA has ever had; can anyone remember what her predecessor, Larry Scott, looked like? Scott, who left in 2009 to head up the Pac-10 conference in US college athletics, also was credited with many of the same accomplishments upon his departure, as well as the last title sponsorship the WTA Tour had, with Sony Ericsson.

Allaster has been a strong, powerful advocate for women in sport, both on the athletic side and the management side. She has spoken at innumerable conferences and symposiums and received numerous awards, always looking to increase the visibility of women’s tennis and find ways to grow the sport’s global brand.

There’s no doubt, in a challenging economy, Allaster left no stone unturned. It was a mammoth job that sent the wife and mother of two on the road probably half the year, and included the relocation of her entire family from Toronto to the WTA Tour headquarters in St. Petersburg, Fla.

Allaster looked to Asia as the area where there was money to find for women’s tennis, with the addition of a number of new WTA Tour events as well as a five-year deal with Singapore to host the WTA Tour Finals, which was a tremendous success last year in its inaugural edition after three years in Istanbul, Turkey.

In an interview with Sports Business Journal that ran Monday, Allaster said she expected a new lead sponsor for the tour to be in place by the end of this year.

It has been the one big-ticket item that Allaster has failed to secure, since Sony Ericsson left after 2012.

The broadcast deal remains rather short on specifics and details, although the 2017 target date to implement it remains a long way away. It's a massive undertaking that will nearly quintuple the number of matches currently available, to over 2,000.

The production agreement seems in place, at least on a broad scale; but according to this piece in The Guardian, it seems the bigger challenge will be to actually sell the newly expanded schedule of broadcasts around the world.

Fans of women’s tennis in Canada currently face major roadblocks finding WTA-only events on the sports networks (that doesn’t include the Grand Slams on TSN, or the joint events, including the Rogers Cup, on Sportsnet). More often than not, they are shown on tape delay at ungodly hours if they are shown at all, which doesn’t help the WTA’s exposure during most of the weeks on the calendar.

As with any CEO, the true value of Allaster’s contribution will only be measured years from now, as these initiatives she put into motion before her departure fall into place. The search for a successor has begun.

The WTA community wasted no time in sending its good wishes on social media.