Channel Seven’s run of covering the Australian summer of tennis will come to an end after 2019, with Channel Nine securing the rights to the Australian Open, as well as all lead-up events, for a five-year period beginning in 2020.
An official announcement is expected on Thursday afternoon, but the Nine Network, who for so long have had cricket as their summer sports headliner, will have exclusive coverage of the Australian Open, as well as the Hopman Cup, Sydney, Brisbane and Hobart Internationals from 2020 to 2024.
The five-year deal is reportedly worth almost $60 million a year, with Nine blowing Seven out of the water once their exclusive negotiating period ended in March.
The current deal with Tennis Australia is only worth $35 million per year.
Nine chief executive Hugh Marks said in a statement to the Australian Stock Exchange that the network was excited to be covering the tennis from 2020.
“The timing of tennis, and the audience demographics, are a perfect fit with Nine’s audiences and advertisers,” said Marks.
“We are impressed with Tennis Australia’s approach to further growing both its events, particularly the Australian Open, and the associated broadcast proposition in Australia, and are excited to be part of that future.”
Seven have covered the Australian Open since the mid-1970s, but were unable to match the deal put forward by nine for the next five-year deal. Seven, who are Australia’s Olympic Games broadcaster, will cover their final summer of tennis – including all lead-up events – in 2019.
The announcement of the new Australian Open broadcast detail follows a boom for tennis, with all four grand slams set to be shown on free-to-air TV in some capacity in 2018 for the first time in many years.
The new deal for tennis throws the race for the next cricket broadcast rights up in the air. While Nine have covered the cricket for decades, it’s begun to grow stale on the Australian sporting public, with apparent losses being turned over each year on the broadcast agreement.
Cricket Australia were reportedly chasing up to $200 million per year for their next agreement, which begins in the upcoming summer and would cover both international cricket and the ever-popular T20 Big Bash league.
Seven, Nine and Ten, as well as pay-TV broadcaster Fox Sports, are all reported to be interested in the rights for cricket played in Australia, but negotiations have currently been put on hold after the ball tampering incident during the third Test of Australia’s current tour to South Africa.
Gmd
Guest
The first letdown of channel 9 broadcast is Mac... Jim is so much better at doing interviews. We got used to an American at AO, why another one who is not even half as good and asks lame questions ? Don't we have any talent there in Aus.
ginger neimo
Guest
SBS shows the French Open- not in full but a few hours- peasants cannot be greedy- I am grateful for that as I do not have or want foxtel, Better things to do with my hard earn money
Ginger Neimo
Guest
Oh crap !!!! Forgot about that?? The commentary is very important. With channel 7 it was always good, so lets hope channel 9 do not stuff it up.
clipper
Guest
Ch 9 have the rights to the FO and US Open, but we only get a half hour highlights package at best. What's going to change now? Ch7 did show quite a bit of Wimbledon on the secondary channels - will Ch9 do the same? It's unfortunate for tennis that the AO is out of ratings and the other GS are not prime viewing hours. Perhaps it's aiming for a better demographic spread to get premier ad rates. Will be interesting to see the impact this has with the Cricket negotiations.
Malo
Guest
They better hope Kyrgios is on fire or it is a waste of money.
jamesb
Guest
Geez, alot happening today. The tennis rights, Sydney Stadiums, cricket crisis and the FFA releasing expansion details. FWIW, I hope Ten gets all of the cricket, with a little help from CBS.
Jonathan Carroll
Guest
Sorry Tenbis fans, you are about to be expoaed to the worst sports broadcaster in the country. Hope this keans ten gets all the cricket.
The real SC
Roar Rookie
I think its about time for a change. Channel 7's coverage used to be good back in the days, but now it has gone stale. I'm sick of the replays and recaps on Channel 7 instead of concentrating on the main matches. This year, I had to suffer listening to Basil Zempilas and Hamish McLachlan calling the games. I think that this type of commentary is so amateurish and they could not pronounce player names correctly. How many times do we have to put up with the relentless MKR and Australian Spartan promos? It will make me more than enough to throw my shoe in front of a TV. Thankfully, Channel 9 gets the rights, I hope that they can fix up the Australian Open coverage.
Liam Salter
Roar Guru
Yeah, Seven's tennis coverage has always seemed overtly commercialised to me.
At work
Roar Rookie
But there’s a bit of truth in there. Who’s coming through that the public are interested in watching. I’m sure 9 have faith a new breed of interesting players will emerge from Federer and Nadals giant shadows! Or at least they’ve staked a lot on that hope.
WazP
Guest
Good point, it is more than likely 9 will get into bed with 10 for the cricket rights (AFR last Friday on a joint bid, locking out Fox Sports for domestic rights as 10 is now owned by CBS). It didn't get into specifics about Big Bash, but would assume it would float across networks. 9 will have to max out their secondary channels for it when cricket is also on. 9Life might now be used over summer for their The Big Bang Theory marathons! 7 have gone downhill with the tennis in the bits that I saw earlier in the year. It had pretty much sold off their coverage to the highest bidder for the ad nauseam level of absurd product placement marketing branding exercise for sponsors. 9 will more than likely do the same but in a worse tacky manner than 7!
Liam Salter
Roar Guru
That's a cynical view at things!
Christo the Daddyo
Guest
Tennis dodged a bullet with James Bradshaw moving to Seven this year...
Kris
Guest
Channel 7 have always been seen to overpay for Tennis because they can use it promote their upcoming shows leading into the ratings season. It is a large audience that they can bombard with ads for football, Better Homes and Garden, Sunirse and MKR. Cricket doesn't deliver the same punch for Channel 9 because it is rarely able to hold a prime time audience.
Bill Peters
Roar Guru
Wow. That is massive in regards to where cricket will be broadcast next summer. Surely 9 can't do both justice at the same time? On another point, given that 9 has the worst set of commentary teams for both cricket and rugby league, who will they get to do the tennis?
anon
Roar Pro
Nine realise that Federer will likely not be playing in a couple years right? The rights aren't worth so much when you're watching Dimitrov play Raonic in a final.