UpAndComing
Veteran
As a big Tennis fan, I'm hype 
"Been seeing the commercials for the past 2 months on TNT, and it's finally almost here. It's obvious TNT wanted a replacement for the sports coverage now that their NBA coverage will diminish. I always said there needs to be more coverage/marketing for Tennis in the US. This is a step in the right direction
Tennis television coverage needs a new dawn. Can TNT’s French Open provide it?
Change rarely comes quickly to tennis media. Coverage of a Grand Slam tournament today doesn’t look all that different from 10, 20 or in some cases 30 years ago, despite huge technological advances. The camera angle slanting down from above, which can flatten the real shape of the players’ shots. Two familiar voices, likely stars from decades past, reciting the most entrenched ideas about the people on court. Post-match analysis from different voices in the same demographic, mostly looking ahead to the next match and divining what, if anything, the result means for the grand narrative of the tournament.
As many have done, another media network is vowing that it has found a better way. This time, it is Warner Bros. Discovery (WBD), the owner of TNT Sports and the new U.S. rights-holder for the French Open. WBD and the French Tennis Federation (FFT) agreed a 10-year deal worth $650 million in June 2024, putting an end to a hodgepodge of coverage that had previously aired across NBC, the Tennis Channel, Tennis Channel+ (its streaming service) and Peacock.
Its promise to tennis fans is something different. Interviews with coaches mid-match, some of whom will be mic’d up. Interviews with players at practice sessions. New camera angles. And whip-around coverage reminiscent of the NFL’s Red Zone, which spends game days hopscotching from one game to another when teams have scoring opportunities. In Paris, where tension and drama arise, TNT says, the cameras will go.
Some of these innovations are not new. Courtside discussions happen at the Laver Cup, the annual ATP-sanctioned exhibition, as well as at the United Cup, the mixed international team event that opens the season. A new camera angle at the Madrid Open, which pans with the players’ movement and is set around their strike zone, reveals the magnificent arcing of their shots (while shadows from the stadiums make them disappear).
Some of the voices using those innovations will be new. Venus Williams, the seven-time Grand Slam champion, will join Andre Agassi on TNT’s roster, along with contemporary players and recent retirees, including Sloane Stephens, Chris Eubanks, Caroline Wozniacki and Sam Querrey.
Max, formerly HBO, will stream every match, a full-circle moment since HBO made a name for itself in part with coverage of Wimbledon in the 1980s. Familiar faces John and Patrick McEnroe and Chris Evert will be on hand. And at the center of this bid to do what myriad networks have not quite managed is a former college tennis player: Craig Barry, the chief content officer for TNT. He played at Menlo College in Atherton, Calif. and came of age in the first golden era of professional tennis, when larger-than-life luminaries Jimmy Connors, Björn Borg, John McEnroe, Guillermo Vilas, Evert and Martina Navratilova dominated the sport."
"Been seeing the commercials for the past 2 months on TNT, and it's finally almost here. It's obvious TNT wanted a replacement for the sports coverage now that their NBA coverage will diminish. I always said there needs to be more coverage/marketing for Tennis in the US. This is a step in the right direction
Tennis television coverage needs a new dawn. Can TNT’s French Open provide it?
Change rarely comes quickly to tennis media. Coverage of a Grand Slam tournament today doesn’t look all that different from 10, 20 or in some cases 30 years ago, despite huge technological advances. The camera angle slanting down from above, which can flatten the real shape of the players’ shots. Two familiar voices, likely stars from decades past, reciting the most entrenched ideas about the people on court. Post-match analysis from different voices in the same demographic, mostly looking ahead to the next match and divining what, if anything, the result means for the grand narrative of the tournament.
As many have done, another media network is vowing that it has found a better way. This time, it is Warner Bros. Discovery (WBD), the owner of TNT Sports and the new U.S. rights-holder for the French Open. WBD and the French Tennis Federation (FFT) agreed a 10-year deal worth $650 million in June 2024, putting an end to a hodgepodge of coverage that had previously aired across NBC, the Tennis Channel, Tennis Channel+ (its streaming service) and Peacock.
Its promise to tennis fans is something different. Interviews with coaches mid-match, some of whom will be mic’d up. Interviews with players at practice sessions. New camera angles. And whip-around coverage reminiscent of the NFL’s Red Zone, which spends game days hopscotching from one game to another when teams have scoring opportunities. In Paris, where tension and drama arise, TNT says, the cameras will go.
Some of these innovations are not new. Courtside discussions happen at the Laver Cup, the annual ATP-sanctioned exhibition, as well as at the United Cup, the mixed international team event that opens the season. A new camera angle at the Madrid Open, which pans with the players’ movement and is set around their strike zone, reveals the magnificent arcing of their shots (while shadows from the stadiums make them disappear).
Some of the voices using those innovations will be new. Venus Williams, the seven-time Grand Slam champion, will join Andre Agassi on TNT’s roster, along with contemporary players and recent retirees, including Sloane Stephens, Chris Eubanks, Caroline Wozniacki and Sam Querrey.
Max, formerly HBO, will stream every match, a full-circle moment since HBO made a name for itself in part with coverage of Wimbledon in the 1980s. Familiar faces John and Patrick McEnroe and Chris Evert will be on hand. And at the center of this bid to do what myriad networks have not quite managed is a former college tennis player: Craig Barry, the chief content officer for TNT. He played at Menlo College in Atherton, Calif. and came of age in the first golden era of professional tennis, when larger-than-life luminaries Jimmy Connors, Björn Borg, John McEnroe, Guillermo Vilas, Evert and Martina Navratilova dominated the sport."
