Coco Gauff of the US lifts the winners trophy after her victory towards Aryna Sabalenka within the Ultimate of the Girls’s singles competitors on Court docket Philippe-Chatrier throughout the 2025 French Open Tennis Match at Roland Garros on June 7, 2025, in Paris, France.
Sipa by way of AP Photos
The Tennis Channel is extending its take care of the Girls’s Tennis Affiliation that can see the cable TV community and streaming service proceed to broadcast greater than 2,000 matches every season.
Whereas phrases of the deal weren’t disclosed, Tennis Channel CEO Jeff Blackburn instructed CNBC in an interview there was a “fairly massive step up in our funds” to the WTA for the U.S. media rights, which incorporates worldwide tournaments and the WTA Finals occasion. The brand new settlement lasts by 2032.
“Our purpose and mission is to simply cowl professional tennis and the sport of tennis like nobody else, day-after-day, each hour, all 12 months spherical. There is not any offseason,” Blackburn mentioned. “WTA performs an enormous position in that and it was a giant precedence for me to guarantee that we renewed our relationship and prolong it as long run as we have been ready.”
The unique rights renewal comes because the Tennis Channel is within the midst of a transition on a number of fronts.
Final 12 months, longtime Tennis Channel CEO Ken Solomon was ousted from the corporate. Blackburn stepped into the position in early Might, following a 24-year profession at Amazon, the place he helped to construct out Prime Video and develop the streaming service into sports activities, amongst different companies.
In the meantime, Sinclair, the proprietor of broadcast stations in addition to the Tennis Channel, had lately thought of offloading the community, CNBC beforehand reported. The dad or mum firm, nevertheless, is not exploring a sale of the Tennis Channel, notably since Blackburn has taken the helm, in line with an individual accustomed to the matter.
Within the backdrop, Tennis Channel, like its community friends, is contending with the continued lack of prospects from the pay-TV bundle. Whereas reside sports activities garner the most important audiences — and leagues have reaped enormous rights payouts consequently — media corporations are targeted on rising the profitability of their streaming companies.
In 2014 the 24/7 tennis community took its first step into streaming with Tennis Channel Plus, and later in 2022 launched TennisChannel 2, a free, ad-supported streaming channel. Whereas Blackburn mentioned TennisChannel 2 has been profitable and attracted a youthful viewers, he’s targeted on beefing up the Tennis Channel’s lately launched direct-to-consumer streaming app.
The app, which launched in November 2024, prices $9.99 a month or $109.99 yearly and gives the identical programming because the pay-TV community. Media corporations are more and more providing the identical reside sports activities featured on pay-TV networks on their counterpart streaming options — most notably with the launch of Disney’s flagship ESPN app later this 12 months.
“What’s essential concerning the partnership is that they are committing to doing extra with us,” mentioned Marina Storti, CEO of WTA Ventures, the business arm of the WTA. “They’re dedicated to that elevated publicity throughout all of their platforms. They’re dedicated to making sure this type of equal publicity for ladies and men, the place they’ve the rights. And so they’re making a major dedication. There’s a substantial enhance within the rights charges, which is a giant milestone for us as a part of our plan and dedication to rising.”
The Tennis Channel’s settlement with the WTA covers a big swath of the WTA’s tournaments exterior of North America by the season-closing WTA Finals.
The viewers for WTA occasions on the Tennis Channel has been rising, notably among the many youthful demographic. Viewership amongst 18- to 34-year-olds on the Tennis Channel has grown yearly for every of the previous two years, in line with a information launch.
‘Equal footing’
Analyst Martina Navratilova with visitor Maria Sharapova on Tennis Channel’s Wimbledon desk
Photograph: Fred Mullane/camerawork, usa.
The deal comes as American feminine tennis gamers have shot to the highest of world rankings and girls’s sports activities normally has seen an increase in reputation and funding funding.
Already in 2025, two American ladies have received two of the highest majors: Madison Keys took the Australian Open in January, and Coco Gauff was topped the winner of the French Open in June. Gauff and Keys will likely be among the many individuals at Wimbledon, which kicks off on Monday.
“Tennis is basically the one main sport the place the lads’s and girls’s recreation is on equal footing, and that is actually essential,” mentioned Blackburn. “I feel for tennis it makes it distinctive. The expansion of girls’s sports activities general? Possibly basketball and soccer will get there, however I feel tennis is manner forward by way of offering that for the fan.”
The Tennis Channel2 free streaming choice has earmarked each Tuesday as “Girls’s Day” — exhibiting solely ladies’s match protection — and Blackburn highlighted the community’s roster of heavy-hitting feminine expertise, together with former gamers and Corridor of Famers Martina Navratilova and Lindsay Davenport, amongst others.
The deal extension additionally builds on WTA Ventures’ latest efforts to develop its business income and construct the profiles of its athletes.
In 2023 the WTA fashioned a strategic partnership with non-public fairness agency CVC Capital Companions, which invested $150 million for a 20% stake within the newly created WTA Ventures. The entity was fashioned to concentrate on rising business income by sponsorships and media rights offers, with the purpose of tripling its income by 2029.
In 2024 WTA Ventures mentioned it anticipated to extend income by 24% in its first full 12 months.
The media rights extension marks the first renegotiation with the Tennis Channel below the WTA Ventures framework. The WTA’s longstanding media rights take care of streaming service DAZN expires on the finish of subsequent 12 months, and talks have begun for brand spanking new offers that may start in 2027, mentioned Storti.
WTA Ventures mentioned its world viewers surpassed 1 billion viewers on broadcast and streaming final season, and Storti mentioned the U.S. is amongst one of many WTA’s largest development markets, together with China and Poland.
“We’re a totally mass market product that pulls a whole bunch of tens of millions of followers the world over, and I’d say we ship a product that stands type of shoulder-to-shoulder with the lads counterpart,” Storti mentioned.
The WTA has additionally lately emphasised enhancements for gamers.
This 12 months it is has introduced a paid maternity depart funded by the Saudi Arabian Public Funding Fund, in addition to a brand new coverage permitting gamers to guard their rankings throughout fertility therapies
Nonetheless, tennis will not be with out its problems with disparity. Whereas the U.S. Open awarded equal prize cash to women and men starting in 1973, it was a long time forward of Wimbledon and different majors. And whereas equal prize cash is given on the majors degree, there’s nonetheless a substantial pay hole at decrease degree tournaments.
The game additionally drew criticism across the 2025 French Open when the vast majority of primetime slots went to males’s matches.
