How Tennis Icon Andy Murray Is Moving From Centre Court to ‘Centre Stage’ on the Road to Wimbledon

There is a special twist to the stage show. “Given the exclusive and intimate nature of the event, the show will be a phoneless experience, and all mobiles will be placed in lockable Yondr pouches,” according to a note on the tour website. How was that decision reached?

“The show is a way for him to really speak to his fans who have watched him for so long and supported him and give them something special and unique,” Helliar explains. “He likes to step out of the comfort zone, which this is, and it’s something that hasn’t really been done before by a tennis player.”

Keeping away mobile phones is also part of the special fan club access feeling and experience that the stage show wants to provide. “This is such a unicorn that the idea of locking it off from the digital world is very exciting,” Payne tells THR. “It makes it a real pressure cooker, almost.”

The stage show will have a rough structure but “it definitely won’t be scripted,” Helliar tells THR. “That’s not really Andy’s style.”

Murray also wanted to make sure his hard-core fans had an early chance to get tickets, but how do you organize presales opportunities when you don’t have a music star-like fan mailing list? “We decided to work with Wimbledon LTA, which is the Lawn Tennis Association, and Andy’s hotel in Scotland, Cromlix,” Patel shares. “We ran presales through them 48 hours before the general on-sale to give them the exclusivity that you would give music fans, and it worked really well. They helped with our marketing as well.”

So, super-fans were in focus for everyone. Or maybe a different word is more appropriate. “Fan is just such a word thrown around, but if you are a fanatic about something, you will go to great lengths to see it,” Payne offers.

Helliar saw the benefits of being able to tap into the expertise and skills across the various parts of WME and IMG to craft the best possible stage show offering for Murray. “Chris and Meera have an idea of how shows sell, which I don’t, but I know tennis and Andy,” he says. “Being in an agency like this, where you have experts in every division, is so amazing. You can really put something tailored like this together for a client like Andy and for his fans.”