Charleston’s WTA Tour tournament has a new title sponsor, and its stadium has a new name.

Charleston Tennis LLC, which owns the tournament, announced Wednesday a multiyear agreement with Credit One Bank to be the title sponsor of both the event and the stadium being renovated at LTP Daniel Island, The Post and Courier reported. The stadium will be called Credit One Stadium. The tournament’s new name will be announced later, WCSC Live 5 News reported.

The deal runs at least five years, tournament director Bob Moran, president of Charleston Tennis LLC, told The Post and Courier.

“This is what I would call a new era in tennis and in entertainment for the city of Charleston,” Moran said.

A sponsor with a family tie

The sponsor and the tournament have the same man at the top. Credit One, a financial services company based in Las Vegas, is owned by Sherman Financial, whose founder and CEO is Charleston businessman Ben Navarro, according to The Post and Courier. Navarro also owns Charleston Tennis LLC.

His company, Beemok Sports LLC, bought all of Charleston Tennis in September 2018 from Meredith Corp. and California-based Moorad Sports Partners.

Credit One already sponsors NASCAR, the NFL’s Las Vegas Raiders and the NHL’s Vegas Golden Knights, among others, the newspaper reported.

“We want to grow the Credit One brand name throughout the region while continuing to invest in entertainment and community programs important to our customers and fans,” said John Coombe, Credit One’s senior vice president of marketing, according to Live 5.

The bank has worked with the tournament before. When the pandemic canceled the 2020 event, Credit One partnered with Charleston Tennis on the Credit One Bank Invitational, a TV-only event, The Post and Courier reported. This year’s tournament in April was played without spectators.

Volvo steps back

The tournament has been the Volvo Car Open for six years. Volvo Cars, which builds cars at its plant in Berkeley County, signed on as title sponsor in 2015, replacing Family Circle magazine, whose name the event had carried since its founding in 1973.

Volvo will stay involved as the tournament’s official vehicle, Moran told The Post and Courier.

A bigger stadium

The naming deal lands in the middle of a rebuild of the 20-year-old, city-owned stadium. Charleston Tennis announced the renovation last October with the city of Charleston, The Moultrie News reported.

The renovation’s $40 million cost is being privately funded, for the most part, by Ben and Kelly Navarro as a gift to the city, The Daniel Island News reported in March. The city has agreed to budget $3 million over the next few years.

The work will expand seating from 7,500 to 11,000 and add 16 permanent suites, new concessions and more bathrooms, according to The Post and Courier. A 75,000-square-foot Stage House with a partial roof will hold locker rooms, a gym and training facilities, production and media space, catering areas and an outdoor rooftop restaurant and bar.

The goal is a venue that can also book concerts and other events. Moran said the past year and a half had been hard on the business.

“After nearly 18 months of navigating postponements and cancelations, we look forward to bringing world-class tennis back to Charleston each April and broadening our reach to bigger and better concerts and special events throughout the year,” he said, according to Live 5.

The stadium is scheduled to be finished next March, ahead of the tournament’s 50th edition, which begins April 2, 2022.

WTA Chairman and CEO Steve Simon said keeping the Charleston event viable was “incredibly important.”

“We have too many events that don’t have this level of support from ownership to sponsors to cities to an infrastructure,” Simon told The Post and Courier. “The formula is there for this event to flourish.”

The event, the largest women’s-only tournament in North America, moved to Daniel Island from Hilton Head Island in 2001.