By Richard Pagliaro | Thursday, May 4, 2017
"We guarantee that every play, every game, every set that is shown on a world-wide feed in one of the WTA events that we have, it will be shown live," said beIn Sports USA's Rafael Torres.
Photo credit: Porsche Tennis Grand Prix
Keep your eye on the ball is a traditional tennis tenet.
Maria Sharapova’s comeback match in Stuttgart showed sometimes that can be a tricky task for players and programmers.
Watch: Eliminate On-Court Coaching
The five-time Grand Slam champion’s first match following a 15-month doping ban generated global attention and had some American viewers watching the bouncing ball fly across multiple platforms.
The Sharapova vs. Roberta Vinci match began on beIn Sports television, but because of a contractual commitment to televise a soccer game, it was bumped in progress to beIn Sports Connect’s digital tennis channel beIn 10.
The sports cable network also offered a free live stream of the match through its web site beIn Sports.
Sometimes programming tennis, like playing, requires multi-tasking across multiple platforms.
“Our first goal—and one we have been able to accomplish—is to guarantee that every WTA match that we get that is produced and offered through the world feed, you can access it at home through beIn,” Rafael Torres, Senior Director of Sports Programming at beIN Sports USA told Tennis Now. “Since there was such a high interest in the Sharapova comeback match, we were able to do a live streaming through our website so anyone can watch that Sharapova match through our website. We tried to give everyone who was interested in that match the ability to see it.”
In January, beIn Sports launched the first year of its contract as the exclusive broadcaster of WTA in a deal that runs through 2021.
Dexterity is a key component to the cable channel’s coverage, which often begins on beIn Sports television—when there is not a contractual conflict with soccer rights—and can also be seen on beIn Sports Connect, the network’s streaming service available to subscribers. All of its tennis coverage is streamed across beIn Sports Connect channel 10.
Madrid, Rome, Strasbourg, Nottingham and Birmingham are among the upcoming WTA tournaments beIn will broadcast.
We caught up with Rafael Torres to discuss the challenges beIn Sports faces four months into its role as the exclusive broadcaster of WTA Tour in the United States, Spain, Australia and across Middle East and North Africa, as well as the network’s vision for the future of televised tennis.
In this interview, Torres discusses why the four-and-a-half year-old network invested millions in a five-year deal with the WTA, why tennis is an attractive television sport, what Sharapova’s return means for audience growth and how he envisions beIn’s coverage evolving over the next five years.
Tennis Now: What’s the size of beIn Sports’ audience in the United States?
Rafael Torres: The reach of our channels is around close to 50 million and worldwide, I don’t have the exact number, but we’re in 33 countries around the world.
So we’re in 18 countries in the Middle Eastern, Northern-Africa region. We’re in Asia. Recently, we launched in Turkey, Spain, we’re in France, Australia, New Zealand. We’re going to be five years old in August so it’s a pretty good start and a good growth rate.
TN: beIn’s strengths are soccer and rugby. Why did you do the five-year deal with the WTA? Why tennis?
Rafael Torres: I guess the short answer is: Why not? Tennis is a good complement to our premium soccer. I mean, they both offer top-level competition at the highest level, great personalities, it has that strong global flavor that complements the same thing we have with our premium soccer. Soccer has drama and interest on a team scale and tennis has it on a one-to-one basis of the battle. It’s a great complement for us.
TN: How do you view the future of tennis telecasts? Is tennis best served as a television sport or as a digital sport?
Rafael Torres: I think the best tennis coverage you can do will be a combination of both. The challenges that tennis presents for the TV scheduling, you can complement that with the digital offering. The hardest thing for tennis, in terms of programming and scheduling it on TV, is the uncertainty of the length of play, the uncertainty of the start time of some of the matches because that’s just the nature of the sport.
For us, we have our linear or TV offering and then we have beIn Connect, which has 11 other streaming channels. We label beIn Connect 10 as our tennis channel as it’s a good way to remember tennis with the number 10. So beIn Connect 10 is our (digital) tennis channel. We guarantee that every play, every game, every set that is shown on a world-wide feed in one of the WTA events that we have, it will be shown live. You can access it live anywhere you are through beIn Connect.
How we complement it on TV is because it’s a global sport, depending on where it’s played, we will start in the morning with our coverage. We present the best match of the day with highlights and a wrap-up of the tournament, the draw and everything else on a prime-time slot at 10 p.m. Eastern time, 7 p.m. Pacific time every night. That’s what we’re trying to do to give it the exposure that hopefully will help it to continue to be strong and keep growing.
TN: I was watching the Maria Sharapova comeback match. It started on beIn television then jumped to beIn Connect 10 through your website. Is that something you do commonly—switch coverage from TV to digital? Is it because of contractual obligations for soccer?
Rafael Torres: It usually occurs if there is a conflict with some premium soccer commitments in terms of airing and so on and so forth. And that was the case today with Sharapova. We started on TV. We also, since there was such a high interest in the Sharapova comeback match, we were able to do a live streaming through our website so anyone can watch that Sharapova match today through our website. It’s also on beIn connect 10. So we tried to give everyone who was interested in that match the ability to see it.
Hopefully, whoever hasn’t gotten the news that beIn is the home of the WTA, then they will get it through being able to watch the match today. We started it went to the Barcelona game but gave the ability to the people to watch it on any of the digital platforms. I was actually watching it on my phone at some point. I guess if I was at home I would be mirroring it on my TV at home.
TN: Is that something you did because Sharapova’s comeback generated so much interest and was so hyped? Or is it something you could do in the future? Or was it something unique to this case because it’s such a big global story?
Rafael Torres: It’s a little bit of both. It’s something once in a while we do. We don’t do it on a regular basis because of our commitment with our service providers and so on and so forth, but it helps to get the word out. Today, unfortunately there was a conflict, and if there wasn’t a conflict then that match would be on air. But since we knew there was going to be that conflict, we didn’t want to get anyone upset. We wanted to give everyone that option to be able to continue watching it through the platforms.
Also, sometimes people forget the fact that you can stream it and mirror it to your TV. If I’m home, I will be doing that for sure.
TN: Soccer has such a strong following because of the traditional teams, the franchise loyalties fans establish over the years. Tennis is different because it is an individual sport that’s a star-driven sport in terms of ticket sales and TV ratings. How important are stars like Serena, Sharapova, Venus to tennis success as a television sport?
Rafael Torres: I think every sport, actually any kind of entertainment for that matter, the more personalities and stories that can be shared through social media and transcend the sport in terms of the field, the pitch or the court are definitely a big plus for the whole of the sport. And Sharapova is definitely one of those stars, a former world number one, she’s active in social media, she’s done a lot of advertising campaigns in the past, she’s one of those big-name star personalities like Serena.
Sometimes in sports the purists don’t like that part. I’m all about entertaining and when I watch something I want to have a connection with what I’m viewing. So those personalities who have a wide reach that transcend beyond the sport, it’s definitely going to help.
TN: Do you envision partnering with Tennis Channel or ESPN to share tournament television rights in the future?
Rafael Torres: That’s something we haven’t looked at yet. I mean I can’t predict the future, but right now we’re trying to make the best of how we can offer tennis to our viewers. We have more than 40 WTA events through the end of the year. We also have nine ATP events that we show through the year. So we have a very robust calendar of tennis matches that we’re trying to do the best we can televising it.
As I said, our first goal—and one we have been able to accomplish—is to guarantee that every match that we get that is produced and offered through the world feed, you can access it at home through beIn. We’re proud to be able to do that and we’ll continue to do that. We’ll continue to try to make the shows better and that’s a given. As a producer, that’s always what you are striving for every single day. How do we make everything about the broadcast better.
We welcome any feedback, any constructive criticism. From the fan point, we’re proud to be able to offer all the matches we have. If you are a tennis fan and you have beIn and you have access to beIn Connect you will have issues trying to go to sleep at night because you can have 12 and 14 hour days of live tennis from all over the world. I will say: It is a good time to be a tennis fan in the U.S.
TN: Would you ever share streaming through the WTA website? Or do you want to establish beIn 10 as the WTA digital home for match coverage?
Rafael Torres: Well, we’re in the early stages of the relationship with the WTA. We’re both very excited. We’re constantly talking. We’re constantly trying to get together so how do we strengthen our relationship and how do we offer the best viewing experience to the fan? And how do we offer the most coverage to the fan? So we’re working together with the WTA with that goal in mind: To make the best viewing experience we can possibly offer for the tennis fan.
TN: What is the long-term vision for beIn’s coverage over the course of this five-year deal with the WTA?
Rafael Torres: The basic building block is that: That every match offered through the world feed, you can see at home through beIn. But now that we’re doing that it’s about building the offering. It’s about getting more exposure to the players through our digital offerings, through social media. How do we work together with the WTA to get all the stories, not only the matches on the court, but all those other things that happen on Tour that as a fan I want to see? That’s our plan going forward. How do we increase that exposure and all of those production elements that we can and should do. We have been talking about developing different digital properties around the WTA and tennis in general.
So you’re going to be seeing different things going forward in the years to come. Not only from the national or local side in the U.S. but also beIn as a global network, the WTA is a big part of that. So we’re talking with the WTA to see what else we can develop that will increase the sport’s popularity and the appeal with the audience.
TN: What’s been the biggest challenge getting the message across to viewers that beIn is the home of the WTA? Obviously, it’s the first year of the deal, but people were so used to going to TennisTV or Tennis Channel for WTA matches previously.
Rafael Torres: The challenge has been we’re still four-and-a-half years old so getting the brand out there so that it comes to the top of mind for people is one of the hurdles that we encounter. We’re doing everything we can through marketing, through social media, through the air, through grass-roots events, to getting the brand out there and letting people know who we are.
At the beginning, like you mentioned, maybe we were seen as a soccer network. Now, it’s different look of the network where yes we have premium soccer as one of our main properties, but the other main properties that make the channel—especially the English channel—are the WTA, the fact that we have the whole vertical of motor cycle road racing and now that we’re getting into college sports through Conference USA. So those are kind of the four sports we have in building our channel and the WTA is a very important part of that.
TN: How does tennis, and the WTA, sell to advertisers? Are you finding advertisers receptive to buying ads? Are you bundling tennis ads with your other sports properties? How is WTA selling with sponsors?
Rafael Torres: Well, remember we just started four months ago with the WTA. So our sales department is now entering into the upfront season so now is the time when they’re bringing it together. Of course, they informed all of their clients and potential clients, but now this is where we’re going to see how it’s received. I think it’s one of those opportunities to get some of those companies that maybe were looking to reach a different demographic, getting to the female audience, things that are endemic to tennis and that audience. We’re hopeful that the response will be positive. I don’t see why not when it’s the sport that has the personalities and that is is involving in other avenues as tennis.
TN: You touched on demographics. What was beIn’s gender demographic before signing with the WTA and what impact do you think WTA coverage can have on the demographic of your audience?
Rafael Torres: Well, I think every sports network is always going to skew more male. What we’ve seen in research up to now is that it’s no different than any other sports network in that respect. We skew a little younger than our competitors. I don’t have the numbers with me, but that is part of the conclusion we have seen through the numbers. I would think just by the nature of it being women’s tennis the WTA will close the numbers in terms of the male and female aspects.
Not that the WTA is an exclusive female audience—I’m a big fan—I think the WTA numbers in terms of the share of women’s audience should help us a bit. Like I mentioned, it’s the nature of a sports network. We skew younger than the rest and our differences between male and female are not so big (compared to competitors). Soccer is also popular with women. That’s why I told you at the beginning, I think tennis is a good complement to our premium soccer coverage because I think it has a lot of similarities with the fans that follow it.
TN: Anything that I didn’t ask you that tennis fans and viewers should know about beIn’s coverage and the future of the WTA on beIn? It’s the start of a big contract.
Rafael Torres: The only thing is we hope to make people comfortable and feel free to communicate with us and send us any kind of suggestions, observations through any of our social media, through our website there’s a section if you want to send us any comment.
Like I said at the beginning of our conversation: We’re new, we’re young, we want to do things that are attractive to our audience. We want to serve our audience. This is the goal: How do you make the fans happy? If anyone has any kind of comment, criticism, observations, please feel free to contact us any which way and we’ll do our best to keep getting better. That’s our commitment.