The Volvo Car Open, the largest stand-alone WTA Tour stop in North America, is shifting to Tennis Channel in 2017, leaving ESPN after 15 years with the network.
ESPN televised about 10 hours of the 2016 event on ESPN2, and streamed other matches on ESPN3. Tennis Channel plans a first-ball-to-last-one coverage, dedicating 55 live hours and more than double that for replay. It is a similar strategy Tennis Channel employed in luring the Washington, D.C., Citi Open away from ESPN two years ago, which includes a central news desk on the grounds.
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The Charleston, S.C., event is among the WTA’s largest singles draws.
Photo by: AP IMAGES
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The big difference now is since the January acquisition of Tennis Channel by Sinclair, the number of homes the channel is in has leapt from about 35 million to over 50 million, and should hit 60 million next year. That is still far short of the nearly 90 million homes ESPN2 boasts.
Jeremy Langer, Tennis Channel’s vice president of programming, said the network makes up for the gap by telling the whole story of the tournament and making the event easier for fans to find.
Compared to other events that left ESPN in an apparent round of belt tightening, ranging from the British Open and U.S. Open of golf, NASCAR and the French Open Tennis Championships, this is a fairly small one. There is no rights fee, and the early April event had paid ESPN to get on the air. Nevertheless, the Charleston, S.C., tourney decided to end a 15-year run with ESPN and sign an eight-year deal with Tennis Channel.
“ESPN wanted to renew, no question about it,” said Bob Moran, tournament director of the Volvo Car Open, which is owned by magazine publisher Meredith.
In a statement, ESPN said, “We are sorry to see one of our longest tennis relationships end, but we recognize the decision the tournament made and remain on good terms.”
When ESPN had the event, the tournament produced the feed and sold the advertising. Under the Tennis Channel deal, production will fall under the WTA’s new TV pact with Perform, and Moran expects to get help selling ads from Sinclair.
The event in April drew 91,000 fans, Moran said, and had a 56-woman singles draw, one of the largest on the tour. Events that are combined with ATP events, like the Miami Open, have larger draws.
Staff writer John Ourand contributed to this report.
