Talk about burying the lede. In an article by Mike Reynolds of Sports Video Group about Tennis Channel’s French Open production, we learn that the network’s live presence at the U.S. Open has ended. Tennis Channel which had shared the U.S. Open cable rights with ESPN2 dating back to 2008, will no longer air live matches. Tennis Channel had been negotiating with ESPN since the Alleged Worldwide Leader snatched the full rights to the tournament in 2013.
Reynolds says Tennis Channel which had been a live morning match from Arthur Ashe Stadium in the first week of the tournament, then focused on the outer courts in the day sessions, and live night matches in the middle weekend, no longer has those rights. Instead, Tennis Channel will have highlight rights after all of the day’s matches on ESPN/ESPN2 have ended. This is similar to how Tennis Channel treats Wimbledon by airing highlights of matches that aired on BBC.
Reynolds reports that Tennis Channel President Ken Solomon is citing “fiduciary responsibilities” in passing on sublicense rights. In essence he’s saying that ESPN’s asking price for the rights to live matches was too high for the network. Instead, Solomon says use the money for production on other tournaments such as Indian Wells and Miami, studio production and its online subscription over the top channel Tennis Channel Plus which streams live matches that aren’t aired on television.
Reynolds adds that Tennis Channel will focus on shoulder programming for the U.S. Open:
“Plans also call for expanding the daily preview show from one to three hours.
Solomon says, with that schedule, Tennis Channel will retain its position as a valuable US Open source for viewers and advertisers.”
It’s a big blow for Tennis Channel which was hoping to retain live matches from the U.S. Open. It remains the main U.S. cable rightsholder for the French Open and sublicenses live matches from ESPN for the Australian Open, but only has highlight rights for Wimbledon and now the U.S. Open.
And this certainly won’t help in expanding the network’s subscriber base. Tennis Channel has struggled in picking up cable providers over the years and it has used the U.S. Open for free preview weekends in hopes of getting more viewers, but now without the tournament on Labor Day Weekend, it’ll be tough to convince its current cable providers to open up the channel.
So the U.S. Open will be an all-ESPN production starting in late August all the way through 2026. Unless ESPN puts some action on ABC which is highly unlikely, the U.S. Open will become an all-cable affair just like the Australian Open and Wimbledon.
