[crazillo]

There have been many rumours whether ES is going to broadcast tennis live next year outside the Slams. They will not continue so. Some fellow German posters and me contacted ES and they confirmed the sad news. The reason seems to be the WTA tour's new strategy to promote tennis rights decentrally as we have seen by some of the deals that have been made the last couple of weeks.

For Germany this is very likely to be the end of live tennis coverage on TV. Maybe Stuttgart is going to be broadcasted by another channel but I cannot imagine any other channel to buy the rights for all premier events to be honest. It seems to be a bit better in other countries as we have seen by the deals that have been made already.

For me personally, I will REALLY miss the English Eurosport commentators. They have accompanied me for years (actually more than a decade!) whenever I wanted to watch tennis, and I always preferred the Eurosport commentators over others. The fact to probably not hear them again in the same constellation is the saddest fact about the loss of TV rights.

EDIT

That's the mail a fellow poster and me both receieved


Quote from Eurosport Media GmbH

Quote:
Dear Mr xxx,
the way you have read and interpreted (the news) are correct. Eurosport will not broadcast the WTA Tour from 2013 onwards, because the contract with the WTA for a paneuropean broadcasting has not been extended. Tennis still remains an important sport in our programme. We will again broadcast three of the four Grand Slams (Australian, French and US Open) live and partly exclusive. Furthermore, we will show some selected ATP tournaments and perhaps one or another smaller WTA event. We are still negotating new rights packages, but cannot comment any further on the current situation yet.

Until the end of October we will still be live and exclusive on air on the way to and during the WTA Championchips.

Best,

xxxxx
Press & PR Manager
Eurosport Media GmbH
Original see below
Quote:
Zitat von Eurosport Media GmbH
Lieber Herr *******,

Es ist richtig, was Sie gelesen und daraus geschlossen haben. Eurosport wird ab 2013 die WTA Tour nicht mehr übertragen, da der Vertrag mit der WTA für eine paneuropäische Übertragung nicht verlängert wurde. Tennis bleibt trotzdem ein wichtiger Sport in unserem Programmangebot. Wir werden im kommenden Jahr mit den Australian, French und US Open wieder drei der vier Grand Slams live und teilweise exklusiv übertragen. Hinzu kommen ausgewählte Turniere der ATP Tour und vielleicht das eine oder andere kleinere WTA Turnier. Wir verhandeln über neue Rechtepakete, können über den aktuellen Stand an dieser Stelle aber noch nichts sagen.

Bis Ende Oktober sind wir aber auf dem Weg und während der WTA Tour Championships live und exklusiv dabei.

Liebe Grüße,

*********
Press & PR Manager
Eurosport Media GmbH

[Sombrerero loco]

agasport no more?

[Richie's]

Another tragic move from WTA.

[Jorn]

You mean only German ES?

[Patrick345]

If I can watch the majority of matches of the high-end WTA events on streams instead of only six matches total on TV, because the rest of the matches are blocked by the TV stations, I´ll gladly take that.

[ShiftyFella]

whaaat? no tennis in hd?

[Sammo]

Eurosport:

[ce]

Wtf

[crazillo]

Originally Posted by Jorn

You mean only German ES?

I don't think this is restricted to Germany because ES held the rights for the whole of Europe. I am quite sure this news refers to all ES channels (correct me if I'm wrong please).

[Patrick345]

WTA had to act imho. If ES rather shows summer ski-jumping over a WTA-Tour semifinal/final then you have to protect your product. They basically gave the WTA no priority or protection. From handball to motorsports to youth football to snooker to summer ski-jumping. What´s next? Snow long-jumping over the WTA Championships? I won´t miss ES coverage.

[DokDi]

OMG. I grew up watching tennis on Eurosport, more than a decade for me too...

How does WTA think? For sure the majority of Europeans followed tennis on Eurosport (at least in Scandinavia). Now we have to search for shitty streams the whole year? And they talk about reaching out to more people, yeah right...

[GoofyDuck]

OMG I'm gonna miss watching tennis on TV so much

[Pavstry.]

Originally Posted by Richie's

Another tragic move from WTA.

because ES was paying peanuts for years? Yeah, how tragic WTA wants to make more money...
Not to mention ES player was a pile of crap. Hopefully there will be something better.

[crazillo]

Originally Posted by Patrick345

WTA had to act imho. If ES rather shows summer ski-jumping over a WTA-Tour semifinal/final then you have to protect your product. They basically gave the WTA no priority or protection. From handball to motorsports to youth football to snooker to summer ski-jumping. What´s next? Snow long-jumping over the WTA Championships? I won´t miss ES coverage.

Well, tennis has definitely been outsourced a lot ever since ES 2 was on air. ES themselves had always stated they had never aired more tennis than in the respective year though. I for sure will miss it. I don't mind streams but if I can enjoy tennis on my 40'' HDTV, then I will.
On the other hand, ES did not pay a lot to the WTA tour so I can somehow understand their new strategy. Maybe ES just can't afford a massive increase of money to pay the WTA as much as they would have liked.

[sammy01]

Originally Posted by Patrick345

WTA had to act imho. If ES rather shows summer ski-jumping over a WTA-Tour semifinal/final then you have to protect your product. They basically gave the WTA no priority or protection. From handball to motorsports to youth football to snooker to summer ski-jumping. What´s next? Snow long-jumping over the WTA Championships? I won´t miss ES coverage.

But who else is going to show it? I can't think of a channel in the UK that would show women's tennis. Sky aren't gonna touch it and if they do it would maybe be only the premier mandatories that the men also play so they could have better coverage, but they aren't going to show charleston or stuttgart ect.