After losing Wimbledon, NBC Sports Group hung on to win the television rights to the French Open tennis tournament.
NBCUniversal on Sunday announced a multi-year contract with the French Tennis Federation, which will keep the clay court classic on NBC through 2024. By the conclusion of the arrangement, NBC will have served as the U.S.-based broadcaster of the French Open, one of the four Grand Slam tennis tournaments, for 42 consecutive years. ?
The victory was a comeback of sorts for NBC, which last year lost the rights to the most coveted event of the tennis year -- Wimbledon, hosted by the All England Club on the outskirts of London. ESPN triumphed over NBC, in large part, because tennis fans were increasingly frustrated by NBC's coverage of late tournament matches. The network refused to preempt its lucrative morning program?"Today" to provide live coverage of Wimbledon semifinals, spoiling the thrill for hard-core tennis fans.
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The agreement with the French Tennis Federation includes 10 additional hours of live television coverage and increased digital rights. The extension brings coverage over the Memorial Day weekend to NBC as well as the women's semifinals.
NBC made the announcement Sunday, the same day the network televised the men's tennis finals at the Summer Olympics as part of its coverage from London. Sunday's event was a rematch of last month's hard-fought Wimbledon final. But this time, Andy Murray from Scotland captured the Olympic gold medal by thumping his nemesis, Swiss maestro Roger Federer, who last month clocked Murray at the Wimbledon final.
NBC in 1975 became the first American television network to provide coverage of the French Open. CBS broadcast the tournament from 1980-82 and it returned to NBC in 1983, where it has remained. CBS has the rights to the U.S. Open in New York, which begins later this month.
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