Blue is the new red. On the opening day of next year's grass-court season, to the familiar façade of Queen's Club, West London, the secondary colour after the green of the courts will be the blue seats and backdrops. Where once was Artois, now is AEGON.

It will take some getting used to, but when the life insurance and pensions company's £30 million embrace with British tennis was joined yesterday, it became the new emblem of the second-most important event in the domestic calendar. There is a lot more to the deal - revealed in The Times yesterday - than simply providing a blue carpet for the megastars next June, for the five-year agreement embodies every facet of the LTA's desire to drive the sport through a period of sustained and dynamic growth. But the showcase will be the AEGON Championships.

It is understood that the Queen's Club membership knew nothing about the deal until they picked up this newspaper yesterday and their board meeting tomorrow evening will want answers to some leading questions, not least how much control the club will have over what many still consider to be their tournament. There are a lot of members who have not forgotten the acrimonious “sale” of the club by the LTA to them in 2006, when an an out-of-court settlement arrived at a £35 million price tag, and will believe that some Andy Murray-like muscle-flexing is appropriate.

Chris Kermode, the tournament director, has been attempting to negotiate the field in 2009 along the lines of this year's spectacular success. How much of AEGON's largesse will be used to retain the services of Rafael Nadal, the world No 1 and champion, Novak Djokovic, the runner-up, Murray, the British No 1, Andy Roddick et al next summer was not answered directly, although Roger Draper, the LTA chief executive, said that “silly money” would not be spent on the guarantees that are written into the contracts of the marquee players.

Although the bigger picture was emphasised yesterday, how the LTA and its new best friend handle themselves when the world is watching will go a long way to determining its success. “We are looking at the whole event experience and want to take it to a new level of innovation and entertainment,” Draper said of the AEGON Championships. “One of the best ways to inspire young people is to see stars like Nadal, Djokovic and, of course, Andy Murray playing tennis in Britain. The standards that have been set at the tournament have been extremely high, but we believe we can do better.”

There is nothing “silly” about the deal that Draper and his commercial team have put together in the teeth of a financial downturn that has struck at the heart of the investment banking system, but did not put off the Edinburgh-based company from dipping into its £273 billion in assets under management and throwing some loose change in the direction of Roehampton, the LTA's southwest London headquarters.

There was much talk of sea changes and mould-breaking. Stuart Smith, the LTA president, waxed effusively about the transformation of the game “from top to bottom”, aided by AEGON's investment over and above that which the governing body receives annually from the surplus from Wimbledon. Having chosen first to spend at the sharp end of the sport, the LTA is concentrating on the pyramid's base, saying that its priority is to increase the number of juniors competing from the present 18,000 to something approaching six figures.

Otto Thoresen, the AEGON UK chief executive, accepted that there has been much volatility in financial markets, but said that he had a sense of real resonance with tennis because the three things that mattered most to his company - quality, excellence and people - were at the soul of the sport.

“As tennis is our only major sporting sponsorship, you can be assured that we will be fully focused on making this partnership an outstanding success,” Thoresen said. “We believe it will resonate strongly with our customer base and that tennis and the company will develop as we learn more about how each of us does business.”