On the first day of 2017, ATP media platform TennisTV has announced that they will not be broadcasting this week’s Brisbane Open or the Apia International in Sydney.
The unexpected move comes only hours after the start of the Brisbane tournament, which will feature five top 10 players in the men’s draw. In a brief statement uploaded to their official website, TennisTV didn’t state the exact reason as to why they will not be broadcasting the events. Instead, they said the decision has been made due to ‘unforeseen circumstances’.
“Due to unforeseen reasons, ATP World Tour is unable to broadcast matches from the two ATP World Tour 250 tournaments in Brisbane and Sydney on TennisTV this year.” The statement reads.
“While we are deeply disappointed and apologize for not delivering coverage from Brisbane and Sydney, this year Tennis TV will stream more ATP tennis matches live and on demand than ever before.”
Tennistv is a subscription service with a current monthly fee of £9:99 or an annual price of £74:99. This year is the first time that the service will only broadcast men’s tennis matches since its launch in 2006. They aim to show in the region of 2000 matches throughout 2017 from all levels of the ATP Tour, ranging from 250 tournaments to the year-end finals.
The redevelopment has already seen changes to the website and it is planned that the service will work on platforms, Apple TV, Roku, Amazon Fire and Chromecast in the future. This month TennisTV will still stream tournaments from Chennai, Auckland and Doha, but all of these are subject to restrictions in certain countries.
As ambiguity surrounds TennisTV and their latest announcement, the WTA Tour also finds themselves in a dilemma. They are yet to announce the date of when their new streaming will will launch. In December the WTA unveiled their intention to allow fans to ‘view every WTA singles match and many doubles semifinals and finals’.
“After the digital rights for the WTA Tour became available at the end of the 2016 season, we decided to take control of our story by streaming women’s tennis on our own platform. It was an opportunity the WTA could not miss, but we do require a new platform – so while it gets built, there will be an inevitable delay, for which we ask your patience.” Wtatennis.com reported.
Since posting the statement on December 22nd, there has been no information provided about the cost of the service.
