No tennis tournament is more valuable to ESPN than the U.S. Open. (Photo: Sarah Stier/Getty Images)
The U.S. Open will be broadcast on ESPN for the foreseeable future, at no small cost.
ESPN announced Wednesday that it had signed a 12-year extension to its contract with the New York City-based tournament, extending its ownership of the rights through 2037. The Athletic reports the price tag is $2.04 billion.
This amounts to roughly $170 million per year.
The ESPN deal was originally set to expire after 2025, but the new deal gives the network exclusive broadcast rights in Latin America, the Caribbean and Canada, as well as expanded streaming and broadcast rights for the tournament’s middle and final Sundays on ESPN’s broadcast partner, ABC.
From ESPN:
“We are incredibly proud of our 15-year relationship with the USTA,” said ESPN Chairman Jimmy Pitaro. “This agreement reinforces our longstanding dedication to tennis, our ability to present one of the flagship events on the annual sports calendar, and The Walt Disney Company’s industry-leading commitment to women’s sports as the first sporting event in the world to offer equal prize money to female and male competitors.”
ESPN also currently holds the rights to Wimbledon and the Australian Open, but a 10-year, $650 million deal with Warner Bros. Discovery will see the French Open move from NBC and the Tennis Channel to TNT in 2025.
There are several reasons why admission prices for the U.S. Open are high, but the most obvious is the time zone advantage it enjoys as the only Grand Slam tournament held in the United States. The tournament is more popular domestically than the other Grand Slams, and its celebrity among both players and spectators often provides value beyond the broadcast.
With Roger Federer and Serena Williams retiring, Rafael Nadal set to join them and Novak Djokovic turning 37, the deal is also a bet that tennis will produce a new superstar over the next decade.