By Rory Carroll
INDIAN WELLS, California (Reuters) – The tennis tournament in Indian Wells, California, will be officially called the BNP Paribas Open for at least the next five years after the French bank and event organizers announced a renewal of their title sponsorship deal on Friday.
The tournament has seen considerable growth since BNP Paribas first signed on 17 years ago, consistently drawing large crowds to the palm-tree-lined Indian Wells Tennis Garden for an event organizers have dubbed “Tennis Paradise.”
Players have voted it their favorite ATP Masters 1000 and WTA 1000 event for the past 10 years.
“When there is a good marriage, you stick with it,” Jose Placido, CEO of BNP Paribas USA, told a press conference.
“We may have bumps in the roads and so on and so forth, but they made it easy for us to be the title sponsor, and we want to continue,” he added. “Like any good marriage, you just renew your vows every five years. In this case, we signed a new contract.”
Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.
Peggy Michel, the assistant tournament director, said the key to staying on top would be to continue to look for ways to improve.
“Our motto here is that we’re never satisfied,” Michel told reporters.
“We don’t rest on our laurels. So every year we’ll start planning. As soon as this year is over, we’ll start planning for next year.
“The most important thing is we take care of our sponsors, take care of the players, and take care of the patrons that buy tickets. We look at all of those different aspects.”
The tournament and the Indian Wells Tennis Garden were transformed after they were purchased in 2009 by American billionaire and tennis enthusiast Larry Ellison, who has pumped tens of millions of dollars into it.
(Reporting by Rory Carroll in Indian Wells, California; Editing by Leslie Adler)
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