Spain’s Rafael Nadal plays against Germany’s Alexander Zverev at Court Philippe-Chatrier during the second day of the French Open tennis tournament at the Roland Garros complex in Paris on May 27, 2024 Reaction during men’s singles match.
Anne-Christine Poujoulat | Anne-Christine Poujoulat AFP | Getty Images
Warner Bros. Discovery TNT Sports will become the new exclusive U.S. broadcaster of Roland Garros, also known as Roland Garros, starting in 2025, the company announced Tuesday.
The entertainment company signed a 10-year contract with the French Tennis Federation, averaging about $65 million per year, according to a person familiar with the matter.
The deal will make Warner Bros. Discovery Channel the largest global broadcast partner of the Grand Slam tournament, which hosted 675,000 viewers this year. Eurosport, a division of Warner Bros. Discovery Channel, has broadcast the French Open to 55 countries outside the United States since 1989, according to a press release.
“Roland-Garros fits perfectly with our global sports strategy and our commitment to adding premium live sports content to the TNT Sports portfolio. We look forward to providing fans with a best-in-class content experience and giving them direct access to more live Roland Garros content coverage than ever before,” TNT Sports Chairman and CEO Luis Silberwasser said in a press release.
Under the agreement, the game will be broadcast live on TNT, TBS and TruTV, including a simultaneous broadcast on the company’s streaming platform Max.
Prior to the deal, games were broadcast by ABC Comcast NBC has partnered with streaming service Peacock and the Tennis Channel through sublicensing agreements.
TNT Sports has announced live coverage from the Roland Garros Arena in Paris, including studios and an announcement team in multiple locations, with more details on coverage to be announced in the coming months.
The news comes as Warner Bros. Discovery is launching a syndicated sports streaming service called Venu disney ESPN and fox. Venu will launch this fall with channels including TNT, TBS and TruTV.
The addition of the French Open is further evidence that the company wants to add live sports events if the price makes sense for the investment. In the past three years, TNT Sports has acquired rights to the National Hockey League, NASCAR, NFL, College Football Playoff (through a sublicensing deal with ESPN) and now the French Open.
Warner Bros. Discovery Channel, meanwhile, remains in talks with the NBA to expand its partnership to broadcast games. While NBCUniversal has made an offer for the game package that TNT Sports has been offering, Warner Bros. Discovery Channel is focusing on a different game package, according to previous reports from CNBC.
Media giants have been relying heavily on sports as a way to attract bigger audiences and more advertising dollars as the Hollywood writers’ strike and cost-cutting measures impact the entire industry, including the Warner Bros. Discovery Channel.
Revealed: Comcast is the parent company of NBCUniversal and CNBC.
—CNBC’s Alex Sherman contributed to this report.
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