This coming from Tom Perrotta of the Wall Street Journal who broke the story that NBC will allow the entire country to watch the Roger Federer-Novak Djokovic French Open semifinal Friday morning. It will be live in the East at 11 a.m., but delayed everywhere else as the Central, Mountain and Pacific time zones will also join in at 11 a.m. locally. But NBC knowing how tennis fans can be a militant lot when it delays matches will stream the match live at NBCSports.com meaning that viewers from the Midwest to the Pacific don’t have to wait until after Hoda and Kathie Lee are done kvetching to see the match.
Tennis Channel will carry the Rafael Nadal-Andy Murray match starting at 8 a.m. Eastern and carry it through the conclusion. If the match is still ongoing at 11 a.m. ET, NBC will join in progress live and then wait to carry the Federer-Djokovic match. Once the Nadal-Murray match is over, Tennis Channel will sign off and NBC will Fed-DjokerNole all to itself.
So fans don’t have to go to a backdoor website to see the match if they live outside the US Eastern time zone. Let’s hope NBC does this for Wimbledon as well.
