DEVELOPING: ESPN Appears To Have Ended NBC’s 43 Year Association With Wimbledon

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This story coming just as NBC’s coverage of Wimbledon signed off today. Sports Business Journal’s John Ourand has the story that ESPN has apparently won the full rights to air the entire Wimbledon tennis tournament starting next year. NBC’s contract with the All England Lawn Tennis and Croquet Club expired at the end of its coverage today and the network was hoping to continue its relationship with Wimbledon, an association that has lasted since 1968.

John reports that under the contract which would probably be made official sometime next week, ESPN2 would air the entire tournament making Wimbledon an all-cable affair joining The Open Championship and the Bowl Championship Series that ESPN has brought under its fold without any scraps to over the air television.

In addition, ESPN says it would air the entire tournament live which would end the practice of maddening tape delays that had marred NBC’s coverage throughout its time with Wimbledon, particularly the last few years when fans could find backdoor websites to watch overseas live matches.

John also writes:

ESPN plans to make some taped programming available on ABC for weekend afternoon programming. It also will make matches available via its broadband (ESPN3) and mobile (Watch ESPN) applications.

The fact that ESPN also would be taking Wimbledon rights from NBC, which has been trying to build Versus as a potential competitor, also was an impetus to ESPN’s push for the deal.

NBC’s current four-year deal, which averages out to $13 million per year, ended Sunday at the conclusion of this year’s tournament.

So if you’re scoring at home the TV rights competition between ESPN and NBC to date this year, it’s ESPN with two sports properties (Pac-12 and Wimbledon) and NBC with 2 (NHL and Olympics).

I’ll have a timeline of NBC’s coverage at Wimbledon in the next post.

UPDATE, 4:35 p.m.: NBC has confirmed to Sports Business Journal that it will no longer carry Wimbledon. Here are tweets from John Ourand.

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