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Nine nabs Wimbledon, Roland-Garros rights.

Nine has secured grand slam tennis rights in new three-year deals.

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Nine has secured broadcasting rights to Wimbledon and Roland-Garros in new three-year deals.

This sees Wimbledon, which was cancelled in 2020, shift from Seven and Foxtel, and Roland-Garros from Foxtel and SBS.

Coverage will appear across Nine and Stan subscription offerings.

CEO Hugh Marks said, “Today’s announcement sees us secure two of the world’s great tennis tournaments and gives us the flexibility to develop the right mix of games which will appear on free-to-air television while ensuring all games are available to Stan Sport subscribers live and ad-free on Stan.”

Mick Desmond, Commercial & Media Director, AELTC, said: “We are delighted to be announcing a return to Channel Nine’s multiple platforms as our exclusive broadcast partner for The Championships in Australia. Wimbledon has a long and proud history in Australia, and we look forward to seeing The Championships unfold across Nine’s impressive network.

“I would also like to take the opportunity to thank Channel Seven and Foxtel for their efforts in broadcasting Wimbledon over the past decade.

“We are very happy to have signed this agreement with Nine. The multiple viewing platforms they offer will only increase the renown of Roland-Garros Down Under, where tennis fans boast a real passion for the game,” explains Bernard Giudicelli, President of the French Tennis Federation.

17 Responses

  1. Well this probably means I’ll only be subscribing to Kayo for the US Open next year.

    Also wonder if all games means all games or just the show courts? Foxtel used to only show two matches of the French Open at any one time and for Wimbledon, I think Foxtel showed about six matches at once but then Seven also had exclusives too.

  3. What exciting news, and at least will be better than Seven or SBS have done.

    David do you know what about The US Open, contract status??
    Would be a great addition and can have all 4 Grand Slams.!!

  4. To all of you who are wondering: Stan Sports will be an optional add-on to their service, that’s what they have stated on their twitter. There will be no price hike.

  5. Let’s hope Nine use some of our own Aussie commentators. One of my peeves about 7’s Wimbledon coverage was mostly world feed voices, with less insight, especially when discussing our own players.

  6. Lets look at Foxtel and what sport has done for them?? Rising debts and the future looks bleak. Now Nine are travelling down that same road. Hope they have sponsors with big wallets…

    1. They’ve already said they’re not going to be a one stop shop for sport like Foxtel/Kayo. Adding Tennis which is their main summer sport makes sense. I doubt they will be going for every sport that’s up for grabs

  7. Quite interesting. Seems Foxtel continues to lose sport. Having Stan as a sport broadcaster will be interesting. I suspect we will see a bit of a price hike honestly. As for the coverage, we will see how it plays out i suppose. They’ve done alright before but that was due to Foxtel being in charge mostly so being the sole Australian broadcaster might mean they put in a bit of effort. We will see.

  8. I find 9’s push with sport on Stan interesting, because they’re never going to be able to compete with Kayo in terms of number of sporting events, so I would’ve thought it’d be better to push sport streaming on 9now (like they have been doing for a few years with the NRL and Aus Open).

  9. Big news. I hope at least for Wimbledon Nine will still show the tournament on TV, at least Week 2, otherwise that’ll be disappointing for fans and a step back from Seven’s coverage in recent years.

  11. I wonder if Nine now regret letting their studio box lease lapse at Wimbledon (which they had for over 30 years) after they gave up Wimbledon and did it as a cost cutting exercise??

    1. I would expect they regret it. We are moving into the era where a network doesn’t even need to have a presence at the tournament. Many sports now have host studios in their countries and use international feeds. A lot cheaper and still even looks like you’re there.

      1. Hopefully they’ll still have someone on the ground, preferably Australians, probably commentators/experts who are already there working on the world feed or global broadcasters (like Todd Woodbridge) they can cross to live from a studio back in Australia? That’s what Seven did.

        1. This week has been a big week for 9 where they nabbed the rights to RU. Now, 9 regained the rights to French Open & Wimbledon.
          It looks like Bracey, Molan will be unavailable due to NRL. They’ll still have someone to host mid year tennis coverage.

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