US Open - Novità varie

Tra le novità di maggior rilievo ci saranno la diffusione live delle immagini da tutti e 17 i campi su cui si disputano gli incontri degli US Open (attualmente sono solamente sei quelli coperti dalle telecamere) e lo spostamento alla sessione serale delle semifinali femminili, che si disputeranno il giovedì della seconda settimana, e di almeno una delle semifinali maschili, che avranno luogo invece il venerdì. Com e previsto dunque verrà mantenuto il giorno di pausa tra le semifinali e la semifinale maschile introdotto quest’anno nonostante il ritorno della finale maschile al suo slot originario della domenica.


Articolo tratto da Ubitennis.


Tutto questo dal 2015, quando ESPN avrà i diritti sul torneo. Niente Super Saturday, niente finale di lunedì, tutte le partite... grandi cambiamenti, direi.

For decades, the United States Open tennis tournament was a mainstay of broadcast television, along with the Super Bowl, the World Series and the Masters. From Billie Jean King and Rod Laver to Roger Federer and the Williams sisters, viewers knew they could watch superstars, rising talents and upstarts play in the men’s and women’s finals and semifinals — and more — on CBS.

But that is about to end. The latest assault on the fraying broadcast sports model came Thursday when ESPN announced that it would take control of the tournament in 2015, ending CBS’s role in it after what will be 46 years.

ESPN already has the tournament’s cable rights and will pay $825 million over 11 years to combine what it has carried since 2009 with what CBS has televised. It also promised that every match would be seen live on ESPN, ESPN2 or ESPN3, the broadband network.

“Look, this is just about ESPN,” John Skipper, ESPN’s president, said in a telephone interview. “It’s not about cable or broadcast. We feel that sports rights are the most valuable commodity in media. The difference between broadcast and cable is inconsequential.”

ESPN’s acquisition of the United States Open advances a trend in which cable networks like ESPN and TBS scoop up increasingly important sports events. Nearly every college football bowl game is on an ESPN network. Chunks of the Major League Baseball and N.B.A. postseasons have been on cable for a while. And the N.C.A.A. men’s basketball tournament that had been CBS’s sole domain since 1991 is now shared with three Turner Sports networks. One of them, TBS, will carry the Final Four semifinals next year and the Final Four and championship game every other year from 2016 until 2024.

And the new college football playoff will be on ESPN. Only the Super Bowl and the World Series seem safe on broadcast television, but maybe for another decade or so.

Cable networks have increasingly used their revenue from subscribers and advertisers to lavish cash on leagues, college conferences and other rights holders. Broadcasters have reasoned that they sometimes cannot compete with cable networks, especially ESPN, for high-end sports rights, or that they do not need them as they once did, as CBS has concluded with the United States Open.

Its United States Open viewership tumbled to a 25-year low of 2 million in 2012 from as many as 3.4 million 10 years earlier. And rain has forced the postponement of the men’s final from Sunday to Monday for five straight years.

With money to spend, ESPN and other cable channels like TNT and TBS have for years been encroaching on the turf of broadcast networks, which have long carried games on weekends and occasionally in prime time. Their strategy has been similar to the one deployed with great success by cable networks like USA, AMC and A&E, which developed original dramas, comedies and reality series that have forced broadcasters to reimagine their futures as viewers have left them in droves.

The acquisition of all rights to the United States Open follows a similar move by ESPN two years ago to end NBC’s 43-year grip on Wimbledon with a 12-year deal worth nearly $500 million. When the United States Open deal starts in two years, the only tennis Grand Slam left on broadcast television will be the French Open on NBC, which has the rights through 2024.

CBS was looking at losing money on the United States Open if it had to raise its annual rights payment to the United States Tennis Association to about $32.5 million in a new deal, from $20 million.

“We could not come to an agreement with the U.S.T.A. that made economic sense for CBS,” said Sean McManus, the chairman of CBS Sports.

ESPN’s $75 million annual payment for the Open nearly quadruples what it has been paying. It will combine what it had been paying with what CBS has been paying and absorb a sizable increase. Still, it amounts to pocket change for ESPN, which in 2014 will start a long-term deal in which it will pay $1.9 billion a year to continue to carry “Monday Night Football.”

U.S.T.A. officials sounded so enamored of ESPN’s power to reach tennis fans that on a conference call with reporters Thursday they sounded ready to move on, immediately if possible, from CBS.

The U.S.T.A.’s executive director, Gordon Smith, said the deal “puts the U.S. Open at the center of American sports culture as never before.”


New York Times

Buone notizie. Sono anni che non riesco a vedermi una finale dello US Open per intero.

giuseppe liucci, 17/05/2013 19:14:

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Buone notizie. Sono anni che non riesco a vedermi una finale dello US Open per intero.

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Io l'ultima finale slam non vista per intero risale a Roland Garros 2008 XDXD

rogerthebest94, 23/05/2013 22:25:

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Io l'ultima finale slam non vista per intero risale a Roland Garros 2008 XDXD

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Ti capisco, anch'io avrei voluto spegnere la tv ad un certo punto

giuseppe liucci, 23/05/2013 23:17:

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Ti capisco, anch'io avrei voluto spegnere la tv ad un certo punto

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No, non ero a casa e non avevo il registratore.. Io di solito le guardo a prescindere dal risultato.. anche se quella andò molto male per re roger :(