(The Center Square) – Efforts to bring the Western & Southern Open professional tennis tournament from Ohio to Charlotte may hinge on whether lawmakers opt to appropriate taxpayer funds toward a $133 million incentive package.
New owners of the men’s sanction for the Western & Southern Open, one of the world’s largest tennis tournaments held in Ohio since 1899, are considering competing bids to determine whether the event stays put or moves to Charlotte in 2026.
The latter option would require the construction of a new $400 million facility, and the tournament’s owners, Beemok Capital, the family office of Charleston, South Carolina billionaire Ben Navarro, requested a third from public funding.
The Charlotte City Council in June approved spending $65 million “on amateur sports-related assets on the campus such as two stadiums, indoor and outdoor courts, and parking required for amateur sports events” at a 50-acre site in the River District, according to the council action.
Charlotte spokesman Lawrence Corley wrote in an email to The Center Square the funds would come from the city’s Convention Center Fund, which is fueled by taxes on prepared food and beverages, and hotel sales taxes. Corley contends “any expenditure of funds is predicated on the tennis tournament relocating to Charlotte.”
With an additional $30 million pledged by Mecklenburg County in July, officials in North Carolina have secured $95 million toward the deal, with hopes lawmakers in Raleigh will kick in the remaining $38 million as they work to craft a budget for the fiscal year that started July 1. A vote is expected in the next two weeks.
Republican leaders have told the media the funding has not been a topic of budget deliberations, but they haven’t ruled out the possibility of contributing toward the proposal. Officials at the North Carolina Department of Commerce that oversees many state development deals contend the money would have to come through a legislative appropriation.
Corley did not respond to questions about details of the plan or whether the facility, which would be owned by the city, would be open to ordinary taxpayers.
Officials in Ohio, meanwhile, have appropriated a requested $50 million toward a $150 million renovation of the Linder Family Tennis Center in Mason, home of the tournament since 1979. The Western & Southern Open was founded 124 years ago in Cincinnati.
Beemok Capital plans to nearly double the size of the event next year, going from 56 players to 96 in the men’s and women’s singles draws and extending it from one week to two. Officials estimate the tournament, one of only nine top tier men’s tennis events in the world, could draw 350,000 in attendance and $275 million in spending if it moves to Charlotte.
“It’s a dramatic economic impact … and we’re in the game fighting to keep it,” Warren County, Ohio Commissioner David Young said, estimating the impact there between $70 million and $100 million. “We’ve competed nationally … with a lot of economic development deals and we’ve done very well. I’m very optimistic we’re in very good shape.”
Officials at Beemok Capital have said they expect to make a decision on the fate of the Western & Southern Open sometime after this year’s tournament, which runs Aug. 12-20.
Beemok Capital purchased the men’s sanction for the Western & Southern Open from the United States Tennis Association last August. Nevarro, founder and CEO of Sherman Financial Group, owns other smaller tennis tournaments, a hotel, restaurant, and entertainment properties across the Southeast.
With a net worth estimated at $3 billion, Nevarro was among bidders for the Carolina Panthers NFL franchise in 2018, but lost out to billionaire David Tepper.
As previously reported by The Center Square, Tepper, worth an estimated $18.5 billion, is now negotiating with Charlotte over $1.2 billion in renovations to the Bank of America Stadium, with a request for half from the city’s Convention Center Fund.
