The WTA will stage the season-ending Finals in Charlotte, North Carolina from 2027 on a three-year deal, and will move its global headquarters to the city as part of the agreement. The league frames the move as a bid for stability after the tournament changed host cities six times in seven years and as a step toward building what it calls the "Super Bowl of women's sports."
Charlotte's Spectrum Centre, home of the NBA's Hornets, will host the Finals. Because the Hornets' regular season will be under way in November, the event will be cut from eight days to five, a scheduling change the WTA expects will reduce match windows and is likely to affect revenue. The organisation has begun talks with players about alternative formats, and officials say a retained round-robin phase could force finalists into daily matches.
WTA chair Valerie Camillo framed the change as an assertion of control. "The WTA has always owned the WTA Finals, but now we are going to operate it, too," she said. She added the organisation plans to manage revenue creation and expense control directly, a step she said will allow the tour to "control our own destiny."
This year the Finals will be held at Indian Wells, California, before the move to Charlotte in 2027. Prize money for the 2027-29 deal has not been announced. The pot for this year's Finals will be $10m (£7.4m), which is $5.5m (£4.1m) less than the sum provided by Saudi Arabia last year.
The WTA's decision follows a chaotic run of hosts. A planned 10-year residency in Shenzhen lasted one year, and the event has since visited Guadalajara, Fort Worth, Cancun and Riyadh. The agreement for Riyadh to host a third time ended a year early, a decision the WTA attributed in part to instability stemming from the United States-Iran conflict and to waning interest from Saudi Arabia's Public Investment Fund. The PIF has recently ceased support for other sports projects, including LIV Golf, and the Saudi Arabia Snooker Masters was another casualty earlier this year.
Camillo said 2026 will be a transitional year. "2026 is a year of transition for the WTA," she said, adding that the organisation is tightening belts while absorbing the one-off costs of relocating that year's Finals. She said the WTA has a clear path to deliver consistent, sustainable financial performance in 2027 and beyond, supported by revenue and audience growth.
The move centralises the Finals under WTA operational control and relocates key administrative functions to Charlotte, shifting both the tournament's staging and the tour's institutional base ahead of the 2027 season.
