By Richard Pagliaro | Friday, August 28, 2015

 

The first all-ESPN US Open should be a game-changer for viewers, unfortunately some won't be able to see it.

Photo credit: ESPN

NEW YORK—The new retractable roof over Arthur Ashe Stadium isn't the only significant sight line shift at the 2015 US Open.

American television viewers will see dramatically different coverage of the Flushing Meadows major this month. For the first time in tournament history, ESPN owns exclusive US Open television rights. CBS' 47-year US Open coverage ended in 2014.

The first all-ESPN US Open is a game-changer for viewers.

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The good news?

*ESPN touts "130+" hours of live TV coverage and 1,100 hours of action from up to 11 courts simultaneously, on ESPN3 over the web, including the mixed doubles, women’s doubles and men’s doubles championships.

*Beginning with the quarterfinals Tuesday, September 8, all TV coverage will be on ESPN (except Wednesday evening)

*US Open women's semifinals will be televised on ESPN in prime-time on Thursday, September 10 starting at 7 p.m.

*Advanced camera technology — including "freeD” replay, “RailCam” at one end of the court, and “SpiderCam" — should make this the most visually stunning Grand Slam tournament you've ever seen with views you might think came from a CGI lab rather than the largest Grand Slam stage in the world.

*The same esteemed production crew and commentary team that brought you first ball to last ball coverage of Wimbledon will have a more expansive video canvas to work with in New York.

*The USTA will reap a reported $825 million through its 11-year rights deal with ESPN. The USTA has reportedly more than doubled its annual TV revenue compared to the last year of is contract with CBS —a cash infusion it can reinvest in the major renovation of the National Tennis Center as well as building the 100+-court state-of-the-art tennis facility in Orlando.

The bad news?

*No live TV coverage of this week's US Open qualifying

*For the first time in history, the US Open will not be available on free TV via CBS. This excludes about 15 million households that do not have ESPN or ESPN2.

*No first-week live TV coverage of the 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. matches the start the day.

*Diminished live TV coverage of outer-court matches. Tennis Channel televised live outer-court action from 11 a.m. to 7 p.m. on eight days during the 2014 US Open.

*A decrease of potentially as many as 64 hours of live television coverage compared to 2014 — depending on scheduling decisions during the tournament — lost live TV coverage hours that cannot be replaced by web streaming via ESPN3 or USOpen.org.

*No live match coverage for Tennis Channel, which has collaborated with ESPN on both US Open and Roland Garros coverage in the past.

While the USTA cashes in a reported $70 to $75 million annually through its pact with ESPN for both US Open Series and US Open rights, it comes at a cost to viewers.

There will be less live US Open TV coverage this year than last year.

The Open is officially closed for fans who don't have cable or internet access.

Is the US Open tuning out the very American fan base it turned on for generations?

Madison Keys has said seeing Venus Williams play on TV and being dazzled by the dress Venus wore, inspired her to play tennis. Activity on public park courts in the city and suburbs is booming during the two-week tournament. Late-career revival runs of Americans ranging from Jimmy Connors to Martina Navratilova to Pete Sampras to Andre Agassi have compelled American TV audiences, prompting some lapsed players to pick up racquets and return to the game. The rise of Venus and Serena was such a TV spectacle the USTA once shifted the women's final to prime-time Saturday Night on CBS envisioning years of Venus vs. Serena battles and ratings spikes.

The Williams sisters helped revolutionize US Open television coverage yet when Serena plays for history and the calendar Grand Slam some fans she inspires won't be able to watch the drama unfold.

Proponents of the new deal say the USTA is playing proactive tennis here by realizing ratings for the US Open finals have been declining (CBS' 2014 coverage generated an average 1.4 rating, the lowest on record), envisioning the global game's continuing migration to the internet as inevitable and knowing $70 million a year pays a lot of bills and provides resources to pour back into its projects and the game.

The USTA views this deal as a win-win: They gain security and financial strength over the next decade with an experienced partner. ESPN gains the exclusive control it craves while strengthening its ESPN3 platform, expanding its digital audience with live match coverage and growing digital ad revenue streams. The Grand Slam network makes ESPN3 a major destination.

Deal makers downplay the significance of an Open that is closed to free TV viewers and assert the digital age means fans are accustomed to viewing tennis on cable and internet platforms.

"We expect the audience for the US Open to increase, not to decrease, with all the platforms that we have digitally," ESPN President John Skipper said during a conference call when the deal was announced. "This sort of old canard that there's something to be lost by going from broadcast to cable, I would submit, has it wrong. It is just the opposite. Moving to ESPN allows the opportunity to reach more people across platforms, and that's what we believe will happen."

Opponents say combining digital and broadcast platform stats is simply spinning the numbers and does not address the reality of a diminished television presence nor resolve key questions.

The National Tennis Center is named in honor of Billie Jean King, whose mantra is "you have to see it, to be it."

How can you grow the American game when some Americans can't see their own Grand Slam?

How can you pull the plug completely on some fans and deny others morning television matches and expect to build buzz around the nation's premier tournament?

How can less tennis on free TV inspire more people to play?

Why would the USTA whose mission statement is "to develop and promote the growth of tennis" commit to a contract that denies millions without internet access live television coverage for the early matches and takes Open tennis off open TV?



Essentially, exclusivity comes down to a couple of key elements:

1. Money

2. Control

The USTA wants to maximize television revenue and ESPN wants complete control of US Open rights.

In previous years, Tennis Channel televised exclusive live coverage from 11 a.m. until 1 p.m. both the first and second week —and televised live outer-court matches from 1 to 7 p.m. However, under the USTA’s new ESPN exclusive deal, TC could not meet ESPN's asking price for live rights fees, according to sources. Tennis Channel, which will air a daily three-hour tournament lead-in show, Tennis Channel Live at the US Open, is relegated to replaying encore presentations of matches from 11 p.m. until 11 a.m.

"For us, it is a significant advantage to having all the live coverage on our platforms under our control, from a storytelling perspective, from a coverage perspective," Scott Guglielmino, ESPN senior vice president, programming and Global X told Tennis Now. "Also the reality of it is with ESPN3 and ESPN2 and 1, those are obviously broadly distributed platforms. So you think from a fan perspective and access points, we think that's going to be a terrific opportunity for the fan to be able to access that content live."

The fact that Tennis Channel, the only network in the nation devoted solely to tennis, will not televise a single live US Open match at the nation's most important tournament is an unsettling departure for some.

It's also a sign of the shifting tennis television landscape.

ESPN, which has billed itself as The Grand Slam Network for years, announced last month it has bid adieu to the French Open, ending a 13-year Roland Garros run. Tennis Channel owns Roland Garros rights and sub-licensed coverage to both NBC and ESPN.

ESPN divested from the French Open deal, according to execs, because it wasn't receiving favorable time slots for live coverage or the ratings to warrant renewal.

What does ESPN's departure from Roland Garros and Tennis Channel's diminished live match presence at the US Open mean for future partnerships between the two networks?

"Clearly with the Tennis Channel and with the US Open specifically, they will be on-site, and they do have rights from a re-air perspective once we get out of the live windows," Guglielmino told Tennis Now. "So we think that will be additive, as well. We are looking forward to continuing that partnership around the US Open."

If you're clutching a remote holding out hope ESPN and TC could collaborate with some shared live coverage of early Open matches, that's probably not in the picture given ESPN's 11-year agreement for US Open rights extends through the 2025 Open.

"We generally don't get too specific in terms of our agreements with our partners," Guglielmino told Tennis Now. "But I would say that the look that you will see this year, the way that's set up, I think that is certainly a long-term vision for us."

A vision that figures to be a game-changer for many viewers, while creating a black-out for millions of others.