Scottish tennis icon Andy Murray is used to touring and playing on many a center court, including the famous Centre Court of Wimbledon. Now, he is taking the spotlight on a very different tour, one that will bring his new show Centre Stage to four U.K. venues in the run-up to Wimbledon 2025.
Murray developed the interactive live stage shows with a screen with video footage behind him with WME and its IMG Tennis team. In them, the former world number 1 player will look back at his tennis career, sharing anecdotes and insights on life on tour, the circuit, and beyond.
“In conversation with sports broadcaster Andrew Cotter, they’ll recount intimate and untold moments from Andy’s career,” a description of the show promises. “Having decided to retire after his final professional tournament at the 2024 Paris Olympics, Andy is going to explore what life is like off the court.”
Murray won three Grand Slam singles titles – two at Wimbledon, one at the US Open – as well as two Olympic gold medals.
His show will bring the star to three cities throughout the U.K. grass court season. Kicking off with the debut this Wednesday, June 18 at the SEC Armadillo in Glasgow, the city where Murray was born, it will travel to the Playhouse in Edinburgh the following day, before heading to the Eventim Hammersmith Apollo in London’s Hammersmith neighborhood on Saturday, June 21. The grand final is set for Sunday, June 29, the night before the Wimbledon Championships, at the New Wimbledon Theatre.
The Edinburgh appearance sold out about 20 minutes after the general sale of tickets started, Hammersmith sold out within a day, and the Wimbledon show sold out in less than one hour.
Watch a trailer for Andy Murray: Centre Stage here.
The WME and IMG team working on the show say that Murray didn’t simply want to be a talking head or analyst for a TV network or move into a similar traditional role for athletes once he retired from tennis.
“He’s one of the few tennis players who really transcends the sport. He’s also unique in the sense that he’s very intelligent and very articulate. And he has a great sense of humor and is very knowledgeable about many different topics,” Chris Helliar, agent at IMG Tennis, tells THR. “When you have a client like that, it’s really a duty to think outside the box.” IMG Tennis clients just swept the men’s and women’s singles titles at the Paris Open, with Carlos Alcaraz and Coco Gauff winning the tournament, marking the second singles sweep in Paris in a row.
When Murray and the agents first brainstormed ideas when he was still an active player, they came up with all sorts of opportunities. “We focused not only on what Andy would be good at but what he would also enjoy,” Helliar recalls. “Many of those ideas are still being talked about. We thought about the tour idea then, but it was after Andy retired that we sat down with him and went through a bunch of different ideas, and this was one that really stood out to him. It was a chance for him to speak to his fans.”
Chris Payne, personal appearance agent at WME, shares that Murray needed some convincing that his fans would come out for a stage show. “We had to overcome Andy being so humble,” he tells THR. “And show business is so showy that there was a conversation we had about how to present this in a way that is very Andy Murray. When communicating it to fans, it had to feel like it came from the man himself, so that we could ensure the authenticity of this experience.”
Meera Patel, tour marketing agent at WME, echoes that. “The concept of the tour and its announcement had to be such that fans knew straight away what they were going to watch, because for a tour, especially one that’s not music-based, you don’t really know what you’re going to see,” she explains. “We had to make sure the wording was right, even down to the press shots that we put out, the artwork. Even in terms of video, we used a clip of one of his last interviews that was so raw and so emotional. Even when I watch it now, I still get goosebumps.”
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 hardcore fans had an early chance to get tickets, but how do you organize pre-sales 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 pre-sales 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.”
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