EQT’s Global Partnership With ATP Sets A New Baseline for Private Markets Firms

In a joint announcement, the ATP has confirmed that EQT has joined its Platinum Partner tier and become the Tour’s first-ever Official Private Markets Partner, in a multi-year agreement running through the 2031 season. It is the largest sports partnership in EQT’s three-decade history.

The deal will activate across 17 tournaments in 13 markets, from the Masters 1000 series through the 500 and 250 tour, reaching a global audience of more than a billion viewers and 5.6 million spectators on site each year. EQT will also take exclusive presenting rights to the ATP’s quarterly Business Insider publication, and players will feature in the firm’s brand work across the partnership.

The multi-year, multi-market partnership with a global sport is built on a principle EQT has spent 30 years practicing – that compounding small advantages, over long horizons, is how durable performance gets made. It is an ethos that is perfectly exemplified by the sport of tennis.

Every benchmark sets a new baseline

There is a statistic Roger Federer offered the graduating class of Dartmouth in 2024 that has been quietly turning up in boardrooms ever since. Across the 1,526 singles matches of his career, Federer won almost 80 percent of them. When asked what percentage of points he had won across those same matches, the audience guessed 70 percent, then 65 percent. The answer was just 54 percent.

It is not an outlier. Nadal sits at 54.5 percent. Djokovic, 54.5 percent. Sampras, 53.5 percent. Jimmy Connors, with 109 career titles, won just 49.7 percent of his career points. The greatest players in the history of the sport, across every era and surface, have won barely more than half of the moments they played.

It is a curious fact that closely resembles the pursuit of better, exemplified by EQT’s more than 30-year history. “Perfection is impossible,” Federer told the Dartmouth audience. “The point is not to win every point; the point is to play the next one well, and then the one after that, and to trust that a margin of a few percentage points, defended over a long enough horizon, is what eventually lifts a trophy.”

It is also, not incidentally, a fair description of how private markets create value. The win is recognized at exit. The work is done in the years of value creation and operational improvements.

Better Never Ends

The partnership coincides with EQT’s global brand relaunch under the new endline: Better Never Ends.

Daniele Sano, ATP’s chief business officer, said: “The scale of this partnership and its global footprint reflect EQT’s commitment to the ATP Tour. It’s an exciting moment for both organizations and another step in our focus on working with brands that share our values and are invested in the long-term future of tennis. EQT is a natural fit, with a shared emphasis on long-term development, active growth and with the aim to create value for players, fans and investors.”

Per Franzén, EQT’s managing partner and CEO, said: “Tennis has always been about more than athleticism – it demands strategy, discipline and the relentless pursuit of improvement. Those same qualities are reflected in EQT’s approach to investing. We are proud to partner with ATP, an organization that, like EQT, is defined by long-term thinking, high performance and a truly global ambition.”

The partnership begins with the 2026 season.

Read the full press release here.