Fiend at Court Unplugged
In the United States television broadcasts of the 2021 Roland Garros tournament (more popularly known as the French Open) was carried by a partnership between NBC and the Tennis Channel. For the first time in history, the addition of lights at Roland Garros enabled a night session at the tournament. The tournament organizers decided that the start of the night session would be 9pm time in Paris. From a media perspective, this should have created a viewing bonanza in the United States. Unfortunately, tennis fans will likely remember what happened this year as the Peacock disaster.
NBC took an entirely different strategic approach to carrying Roland Garros this year from what tennis fans are accustomed to when ESPN owns the broadcast rights for a Grand Slam. ESPN and the Tennis Channel both prioritize showing the matches of the bankable superstars of the sport. As a result, broadcasts will stick to what is essentially a walkover rather than showing an alternate compelling match with lesser known players. The assumption is that fans only want to see the stars.
The alternate approach meant that with NBC chose to put the Roger Federer night session on the premium “Peacock” streaming service. While that match was in progress, NBC aired reruns of matches from earlier in the day. To make matters worse, the matches that NBC showed were the exact same matches that the Tennis Channel originally chose to carry live. The over-the-air broadcast was punctuated by Mary Carillo delivering a tutorial to viewers on how to access the Peacock platform.
Tennis fans were furious that the only way to watch what arguably may have been Federer’s last career match at the French Open was through the purchase of a premium streaming service. Tennis fans have become accustomed to Federer matches featured prominently on the standard channels for whatever company owns the rights. This was an unanticipated departure from the norm and reflected an entirely different business model.
It is too early to know if NBC garnered a spike in subscribers to the Peacock service. It is doubtful if they will ever directly acknowledge the impact if it didn’t produce the benefit it expected. What they did however is essentially introduce an alternate business model into airing those events. The de facto approach is that the matches of the superstars are “free” on the standard channels while the matches of everyone else is “premium” for tennis super fans. The NBC approach was that the matches of the stars are the “premium” content.
Flipping the business model to broaden the exposure of lesser known players engaged in compelling matches is arguably exactly what tennis needs to prepare for the future. It won’t be long before the sport has to operate without the current aging superstars of the game. However, introducing that concept to the consumer market certainly wasn’t handled very well by NBC. Alienating the current fan base is probably not a good approach.
The Peacock disaster sparked an interesting thought exercise. The current broadcast business model for tennis is all about maximizing current ratings rather than building the future of the sport. The NBC model if executed correctly could be a part of the solution. The status quo is bad for the future of tennis. Airing reruns of matches while live tennis is in progress is even worse.
- ‘More atmosphere on the moon!’ – Federer match timing frustrates fans, TennisHead, June 6, 2021.
