VALERIE CAMILLO: Good morning, everyone. Welcome to Indian Wells. I'm so happy to have you here as we kick off Media Day and the 2026 WTA Finals.
I want to thank you all for being here and for your continued support and coverage of the WTA and our athletes. We truly value the role you play in telling the stories of our sport and connecting our players with fans around the world.
Before we look ahead to the exciting week in front of us, I'd like to take a moment to address the livestream feeds on the practice courts that picked up some player conversations without their awareness.
First, I want to apologize on behalf of the entire WTA for these occurrences. The WTA is sensitive to player privacy and has policies and procedures in place to balance players' needs for safe spaces with opportunities to bring fans closer to the game.
There were several breakdowns in our execution of the livestream given our own policies and procedures. There was a lack of advanced notice and clear signage to assist players about the recording equipment operating in the area. It was also not our intention to capture conversations on the livestream of practices, but rather to record ambient sound.
So clearly there was a failure in our technical execution and monitoring.
As the chair of the WTA, I'm committed to leading an organization that delivers the best for our players, tournaments and fans. Our execution here did not meet that standard.
I want to specifically apologize to Jessica Pegula and Mark Knowles. What happened was regrettable and unacceptable. Jess is one of the WTA's best advocates and biggest stars. She does not deserve this distraction.
As a member organization, one of the primary responsibilities of the WTA is to protect our players whenever possible. That did not happen here. The players deserve better and we will continue to work to raise the bar for the WTA.
Now let's turn to the week ahead. The best players in the world come here to compete for one of the most prestigious titles in our sport. The level of competition, the storylines and the depth of talent make for an incredible week of tennis.
But the WTA Finals is about more than competition, it's about celebrating our extraordinary athletes and engaging our fans, that they connect even more to our stars.
There are a few exciting elements that make this year's Finals particularly special.
Last night in Los Angeles we celebrated our partnership with Mercedes-Benz at a special event which brought people from across sport, music and entertainment. It was also an opportunity to unveil a very special prize for our singles champion.
The winner this year will take home a one-of-a-kind, custom Mercedes-Benz made in the WTA's signature purple color. It will be displayed here on-site, so I encourage you all to go and check it out.
We're also proud this year to be celebrating 10 years of impact through the WTA Foundation, with special programming throughout the week focused on empowering women and girls around the world, including a dedicated women's health day on November 14th.
And lastly, just a few hours ago we launched an exclusive feature in Vogue showcasing our players both as athletes and as style icons. The feature is a celebration of their individual styles and personalities, and the influence these athletes have well beyond the court.
Six out of the 10 top highest earners in tennis are women because of the interest brands have in our stars. So we embark on our championships. We are delighted to welcome the world to watch our athletes compete at their very best.
The tennis you will see will be world class. I hope you enjoy the show. Thank you again for being here and I look forward to seeing you throughout the week.
Now I'm happy to take a few questions.
Q. Just wanted to ask you about the new merchandise, Hello Kitty, just how did that come to fruition and your excitement with the opening launch?
VALERIE CAMILLO: So one of the ambitions of the WTA is to offer more opportunities to go deeper with our brand, with our athletes, and with our storylines. Retail is a great way to do that. Obviously it's a major way that other sports properties connect with fans.
We were very excited as we had the initial ambition to go deeper in retail, to think about collaborations that not only were clever but also fun. I think we can all agree Hello Kitty is pretty fun. If you've seen some of the mock-ups, I think it's quite cute, quite adorable, and the feedback we've gotten from fans so far is that they're delighted by that.
And we intend to do more collaborations as we progress into next year's Finals in Charlotte. I think you'll see a lot more of that.
Q. The problem, was that one incident with Jessica on one court on one day or a more widespread problem?
VALERIE CAMILLO: The livestream with the audio that was trying to catch ambient sound was active for a period of time, and it's been corrected. It's been taken down. There is no more audio recording happening on the practice courts.
Q. Right. But did it affect more than one player?
VALERIE CAMILLO: It was up for a few days. Again, it was a matter of how close various players were to the microphones, whether or not different sound conversations were captured.
Again, it was an unintentional capture of sound. It wasn't a purposeful capture of voices. It was intending to do something different.
Q. What do you mean by ambient sound?
VALERIE CAMILLO: The desire was to capture the sound of the surrounding environment, of balls bouncing. It was something that was done last year with success.
Again, it's a matter of, I'm not a sound engineer, but if it's not calibrated correctly, you can pick up more than you intend. That was the case here. That is why the ambient sound has been disabled across all the courts.
Q. This is the first time in about a decade that the season-ending championships are coming to a venue that already has an ardent fan base. I'm just curious about the connection between the fans who already know tennis and how you decided to bring the WTA Finals to this venue?
VALERIE CAMILLO: As we were thinking about where we would bring the Finals for 2026, top of mind for me was to deliver a world class experience for the players and fans. We knew that in partnership with the Desert Champions team, we could deliver that here at Indian Wells.
We've seen strong sales, strong interest from our brand partners. The athletes have commented on how every touch point has been met with care. So we're delighted to be here.
Q. What have the sales been like? Do you have any preliminary numbers?
VALERIE CAMILLO: We can get preliminary numbers of where we are. In fact, they're more than preliminary before we go in.
We are sold out on a couple days during the week. We have strong sales during the week. Amy can follow up on those.
FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports