How the ITA Is Working with Potential Sponsors to Promote and Grow College Tennis with Erica Perkins Jasper

Summary

Erica Perkins Jasper, representing the Intercollegiate Tennis Association (ITA), discusses the organizational effort to grow the commercial and media profile of college tennis — from national sponsorship development to fan engagement initiatives, media rights, and the campaign to build college tennis into a mainstream collegiate sport alongside basketball, football, and soccer. Her framing of tennis’s structural challenges and opportunities reveals why a professional team tennis league like INTENNSE occupies a strategically interesting adjacent space.

Guest Background

Erica Perkins Jasper held a leadership role at the Intercollegiate Tennis Association (ITA), the national governing body for college tennis. The ITA oversees national rankings, championships, and coaching standards for men’s and women’s tennis across all NCAA divisions.

Key Findings

• College tennis has an elite competition problem, not a participation problem. The ITA’s sponsor development challenge is that college tennis produces world-class players but struggles to convert that into mainstream viewership. The sport’s existing fanbase is deeply knowledgeable but small; casual fans have few entry points.
• Sponsorship for college tennis requires reframing the value proposition. Traditional metrics (TV ratings, attendance) understate college tennis’s value. The ITA has developed alternative metrics around demographics (high-income, highly educated families), attendance quality, and social media engagement. Jasper advocates for sponsors to think about college tennis as a lifestyle brand fit rather than a mass media buy.
• The BNP Paribas MasterU partnership (see also 2016-12-13 episode) is cited as a model for how international brands can activate meaningfully in the college tennis space. The sponsorship created a showcase event that elevated both the brand and the sport simultaneously.
• Media visibility is the primary growth lever. The ITA is working to increase match broadcasts on ESPN3 and streaming platforms, arguing that once people see college tennis, they become fans. The barrier is discovery, not quality.
• The international player debate affects sponsorship value. Jasper acknowledges the tension: rosters heavy with international players reduce the “American story” narrative that domestic sponsors find compelling, but removing international players would reduce the quality of play that justifies sponsorship interest.

Actionable Advice for Families

1. Attend live college tennis matches — the quality of play is often spectacular and the access is significantly better than professional events.
2. Follow the ITA on social media to understand which programs and players are rising; this intelligence is useful in the recruiting evaluation process.
3. Understand that sponsorship and media coverage of college tennis is still being built — which means the recruiting environment and scholarship landscape will evolve significantly over the next decade.

INTENNSE Relevance

• The ITA’s sponsorship framing challenge is INTENNSE’s as well. Both organizations compete for the same pool of tennis-adjacent sponsors with unconventional value proposition arguments. Jasper’s strategy of alternative metrics and lifestyle brand positioning is directly applicable.
• “Discovery is the barrier, not quality” mirrors INTENNSE’s market development challenge. The league’s product is strong; the strategic priority is creating discovery moments.
• BNP Paribas MasterU as a model — a title sponsorship that created a new marquee event rather than attaching to an existing one — is a structural parallel to how INTENNSE could approach league naming and anchor event partnerships.
• College tennis as INTENNSE’s feeder ecosystem. The ITA’s development work and the college tennis pipeline produce the players INTENNSE recruits. Maintaining good relationships with ITA-connected coaches and programs is a strategic sourcing imperative.
• The international player tension surfaces a relevant question for INTENNSE: what is the right ratio of American to international players on rosters, and how does that affect sponsor narratives and fan engagement?

Notable Quotes

“Tennis is the only sport where the people watching are often better qualified to understand what they’re seeing than the commentators explaining it. That’s both our challenge and our secret asset.”

“We don’t need people to choose tennis over basketball. We need them to discover tennis exists as a live, competitive, elite sport. Once they discover it, they stay.”