Latest in U.S. Open

Fox has sold NBC Sports media rights to the United States Golf Association, including the U.S. Open with years of the deal left running through 2027. NBC owns the Golf Channel and has rights to the PGA Tour. The Wall Street Journal, which first reported the story, said Comcast's NBC Universal is paying significantly…

New York Governor Mario Cuomo announced today that the U.S Open of Tennis will go forward this year, but without fans. The annual event has been pushed back several days, but will still reside in its traditional late-summer window, running from August 31-September 13 in Flushing Meadows, Queens. Commentator Patrick…

Tennis fans tuned in en masse to Sunday’s U.S. Open men’s final to watch Rafael Nadal outlast Daniil Medvedev in a five-set thriller. Overnight ratings for the match from Flushing Meadow jumped by 33% over last year and earned the best numbers for a men’s final since 2015. Nadal-Medvedev served up a 2.0 overnight…

Last night’s women’s semifinals at the U.S. Open, which saw Serena Williams defeat Ukrainian fifth seed Elina Svitolina 6-3, 6-1, earned a 1.6 rating for ESPN. That’s up 14% from a year ago and equals the sports network’s best for that round since 2017 when all four players were Americans. The telecast’s rating peaked…

The 2019 U.S. Open coverage on ESPN has grown in the ratings compared with last year on each of its first four days, the network said Friday. And that’s before Saturday’s primetime showdown in the year’s final tennis Grand Slam tournament featuring 15-year-old U.S. phenom Coco Gauff against defending champ (and…

Fox’s coverage of the final round of U.S. Open scored a hole in one this weekend as it dominated weekend prime time. The telecast delivered a 5.2 metered market household rating/12 share, making it the best for final round coverage since 2013. The telecast, which aired 2 to 9:45 PM ET, was up +44% over 2018 (3.16/9)…

Naomi Osaka, the young tennis star whose mortification across the net from her idol, Serena Williams, added to a memorable TV spectacle at the U.S. Open Saturday night, has rebounded to score a major endorsement deal. Nissan held a news conference to announce it had signed the 20-year-old Japanese player as a brand…

U.S. Open tennis is serving up better numbers for ESPN so far this year. The Worldwide Leader said today that overnight ratings for its first three days of coverage are up 20% from 2017 — a 0.6 vs. 0.5. The highest-rated telecast so far was Wednesday night's six-hour, 15-minute block that featured Serena Williams…

ESPN today kicks off what it is calling “first ball to last ball” coverage of the 50th U.S. Open and the 41st edition held in the major tennis tournament’s Queens home, which just wrapped up five years of major renovations. The Disney-owned network hopes that the $600 million in enhancements to the Billie Jean King…

The coincidence was not lost on anyone who has caught a glimpse of ESPN’s wall-to-wall coverage of the U.S. Open tennis championships this week. The chairs of the umpires on the televised courts are splattered with the Time Warner Cable logo on all sides, making it visible in virtually any wide shot from the…

For now, at least, the ball’s in Time Warner Cable‘s court. As the company’s carriage stalemate with CBS drags on, TWC said today that will offer its digital subscribers in the CBS blackout area a free preview of the Tennis Channel from August 26 to September 9 as its serves up coverage of the U.S. Open. The channel…

Less than two weeks before the launch of its 24-hour national sports network, Fox Sports has swung a surprise deal for golf’s U.S. Open. The 12-year multimedia pact, which starts in 2015, marks the first time a PGA Tour major tournament will air on Fox. The pact announced today makes Fox Sports the domestic broadcast…