ESPN likely to take over televising rights for 2012 Wimbledon Championships from NBC – Tennis News
NBC’s 43-year-old association with the All England Club finally ends after this season of the Wimbledon Championships and it is highly likely that ESPN will be getting the broadcasting rights for the next edition of the Grand Slam
tournament at Wimbledon.
According to the sources of SportsBusiness Journal, ESPN’s executive vice president of content, John Skipper and its executive vice president of programming John Wildhack has been involved in negotiations with the All England Club
for finalising the deal to get the televising rights of Wimbledon.
Although ESPN has not officially announced the finalisation of the deal, a statement from NBC Sports said that, “We are proud of our 43-year partnership with the All England Club and while we would have liked to have continued
our relationship, we were simply outbid.”
The All England Club will grant ESPN a full-rights package to broadcast Wimbledon Championships next year and the mega event will be televised live on ESPN, ESPN3, ESPN mobile applications and plans are also in progress to broadcast
via broadband as well.
NBC has been televising Wimbledon Championships for the last 43 years but in the past few seasons, the fans have been criticising NBC’s network for broadcasting the tennis matches with tape delay. Most importantly, NBC went out
to broadcast Today Show, having higher-rating than Wimbledon, last Thursday and Friday instead of showing the semi-final matches live.
NBC was planning to incorporate its Wimbledon broadcast with cable coverage on Versus, which would have made all the matches live under NBC-Versus plan. This plan was due to be started in 2014 and it would have eliminated the general
criticism of tape delay matches that NBC frequently faces. However, NBC’s four year contract with the All England Club, worth $13 million each year, expired last Sunday with the conclusion of the final of Wimbledon.
Fox Sports and NBC have been chasing the deal the past few months but after a week’s negotiations in London, ESPN is close to finalising the multi-million dollar deal with the All England Club. ESPN might allow ABC to repeat telecast
some of the recorded matches as well, while it will show all the matches live.
On the other hand, the cable rights of the Tennis Channel to broadcast Wimbledon have also expired this week but it will renew them shortly to carry on its affiliation with the All England Club.
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