LONDON – The ATP and ATP Media, the broadcast arm of the ATP World Tour, announced this week that live match production at ATP World Tour Masters 1000 tournaments will be significantly increased from 2016.
More than 100 additional ATP singles matches will be produced, as well as increased coverage of doubles matches. In all, 24 additional courts will be produced across eight of the ATP World Tour Masters 1000 tournaments starting in 2016. The increased production will start from the 2016 BNP Paribas Open in Indian Wells in March where a minimum of 96 live ATP matches across eight courts will be produced.
The broadcast enhancements are underpinned by a $300m investment in television production over the next 10 years, which will see more matches than ever produced from the top two tiers on the ATP World Tour.
Matches will be made available to ATP Media’s global broadcast rightsholders and will also be shown on its official live streaming service TennisTV.
The enhancements were announced at the inaugural ATP Media Broadcaster Forum, which took place at the Chelsea Harbour Hotel in London on 2 and 3 December 2015.
The event saw representatives of broadcasters in attendance from around the world across two days of collaboration between ATP Media, ATP World Tour and its top broadcast rightsholders to discuss future plans and enhancements for the Tour, the television production and broadcast distribution.
Both Mark Webster, CEO of ATP Media, and Chris Kermode, ATP Executive Chairman & President, addressed the audience at the start of the event, which outlined how ATP Media would take tennis television production, services and enhancements to the next level.
“The ATP World Tour has seen has seen tremendous growth in global TV viewership in recent years,” said Kermode. “We are in the content business, and ATP Media’s increased level of production for 2016 will allow more fans to engage with more of our content from our top tier of events than ever before.”
“As the demand for world class tennis from broadcasters and fans around the world continues to rise, we are delighted to be able to step up our production levels even further in 2016,” said Webster. “This is the first step in a series of broadcast enhancements ATP Media will be making in the near future.”
The ATP World Tour’s global TV audience has soared in recent years and is projected to exceed 900 million viewers globally in 2015, while ATP sponsorship revenues are at an all-time high. More than $1.3 billion in broadcast revenue is forecast over the next 10 years across the nine ATP World Tour Masters 1000s, 13 ATP World Tour 500s, and the season-ending Barclays ATP World Tour Finals.
