British Eurosport completed its Tennis Grand Slam today by securing the LIVE rights to next month’s US Tennis Open, the richest tournament in tennis. The new deal means that British Eurosport now has the rights to all four
grand slams.
Coverage begins on Monday 27th August going through until Sunday 9th September.
British Eurosport has secured the rights for the next four years, with Eurosport’s in-house Media Rights Agency awarded exclusive distribution rights throughout Europe.
The best way for fans to follow the US Open will be on the Eurosport multi-media platform. As well as extensive coverage on British Eurosport, fans will be able to follow all the action on eurosport.co.uk with live updated scoring, results and features on all the top players.
The British Eurosport commentary team in Flushing Meadows will be led by Simon Reed and include 1983 semi-finalist Jo Durie, former doubles champion Frew MacMillan and Sam Smith.
The build up to the US Open begins next week on British Eurosport with coverage of five warm-up tournaments in Stanford, San Diego, Los Angeles, Toronto and New Haven.
The arrival of the US Open adds to British Eurosport’s outstanding portfolio of tennis which includes LIVE coverage of the Australian and French Opens, Wimbledon highlights, 27 Sanex WTA Tour events and 15 ATP tour events. The Eurosport network handles the world-wide distribution rights to the Sanex WTA Tour, except in the US.
Record audiences are predicted for the US Open on both British Eurosport and eurosport.co.uk after the successes of the 2001 Australian and French Opens. Over 46m viewers were recorded in total for each event, the highest ever
reaches for tennis on the channel.
British Eurosport will broadcast over 900 hours of tennis in 2001 as the sport continues to grow in popularity. All eyes will be on Jennifer Capriati to see if she can win her third Grand Slam title of the year in Flushing Meadow, while Andre Agassi will also be in the spotlight following
the news that he and Steffi Graf are expecting their first child in the autumn.
British Eurosport is the most widely available sports channel in the UK broadcasting world class sport with a British perspective via Sky Digital, NTL, Telewest, ITV Digital, and Kingston Communications to over 9m UK homes.
British Eurosport is 100% owned by TF1. Premium TV invests in British Eurosport by way of a contractual joint venture. Premium TV is backed by NTL.
Eurosport.co.uk was launched in December as a local site for eurosport.com. Dedicated to the UK market, the site covers a full range of sports including Premiership football, rugby, cricket, motorsport and golf. From its close working relationship with eurosport.com it offers all the best European sports news as it happens.
For further information:
Colin Banks / Michelle Guy
British Eurosport Press Office
0207 468 7777
cbanks@eurosport.co.uk / mguy@eurosport.co.uk