ESPN will bid adieu to the French Open, saying that the decision is not a cost-cutting decision but a control issue. The network is simply tired of playing third wheel to Tennis Channel and NBC, not getting the time slots, and therefore matches, that it wants to air.

Read the full article on SBJ here

“Ratings generally speaking for the French were a bit lower than the U.S. Open,” said Scott Guglielmino, ESPN’s senior vice president of programming, in this Sports Business Journal article written by Daniel Kaplan and John Ourand. “We are running a dynamic business, and it was a decision taken more as a strategic decision that had to do, at the heart of it, we were one of three distributors, or outlets if you will, for the French.”

ESPN had been running the early morning segment of Roland Garros in the U.S., and it was pointed out that the network’s regular programming generated more average viewers than the live tennis from Paris did.

NBCSN could pick up the extra matches, according to SBJ and Awful Announcing. Tennis Channel holds the French Open TV rights through 2023.