ESPN Secures Exclusive Pay TV Rights in Latin America and the Caribbean for ATP World Tour 500 Tournaments

ESPN, ATP and ATP Media have reached a multi-year agreement for broadcast rights throughout Spanish-speaking Latin America and the Caribbean to all thirteen ATP World Tour 500 events, it was announced today by Tim Bunnell, senior vice president, programming and production, ESPN International.
Under the terms of the new agreement, ESPN’s rights include full exclusivity for pay TV and co-exclusive digital rights alongside the ATP’s online streaming service in Spanish-speaking Latin America and the Caribbean. Each year, ESPN will present hundreds of hours of ATP World Tour 500 event coverage, showcasing the world’s elite men’s professional tennis players.
The new agreement begins with the first ATP World Tour 500 event of the 2018 season: the ABN AMRO World Tennis Tournament in Rotterdam, Netherlands February 12 – 18. ESPN Play, ESPN’s live streaming and VOD platform in Latin America and the Caribbean, will serve as the main destination for all the ATP World Tour 500 events with the final of each event being aired across ESPN’s linear networks and on ESPN Play.
“We are pleased to add the ATP World Tour 500 tournaments to our roster of top-tier tennis,” said Bunnell. “The ATP World Tour 500s are a great compliment to our existing coverage of the ATP World Tour Masters 1000 and Nitto ATP Finals and highlights our commitment to our viewers to telecast the highest-quality sports programming from around the world.”
Stuart Watts, COO of ATP Media commented, “We are delighted to once again be able to partner with ESPN to showcase the ATP World Tour 500s. ESPN are a highly valued broadcast partner of the ATP World Tour and their commitment to show more coverage than ever before, including on their linear network, is fantastic for the sport and its fans in Latin America and the Caribbean.”
Events included in the ESPN ATP World Tour 500 agreement:
Date | Event | City |
Feb. 12-18 | ABN Amro World Tennis Tournament | Rotterdam, Netherlands |
Feb. 19-25 | Rio Open presented by Claro | Rio de Janeiro, Brazil |
Feb. 26-March 3 | Dubai Duty Free Tennis Championships | Dubai, U.A.E. |
Feb. 26-March 3 | Abierto Mexicano Telcel presentado por HSBC | Acapulco, Mexico |
April 23-29 | Barcelona Open Banc Sabadell | Barcelona, Spain |
June 18-24 | Gerry Weber Open | Halle, Germany |
June 18-24 | The Queen’s Club Championships | London, Great Britain |
July 23-29 | German Tennis Championships 2018 | Hamburg, Germany |
July 30-Aug. 5 | Citi Open | Washington, DC |
Oct. 1-7 | China Open | Beijing, China |
Oct. 1-7 | Rakuten Japan Open Tennis Championships 2018 | Tokyo, Japan |
Oct. 22-28 | Erste Bank Open 500 | Vienna, Austria |
Oct. 22-28 | Swiss Indoors Basel | Basel, Switzerland |
ESPN in Latin America
Formed in 1989, ESPN International in Latin America includes offices and production facilities in Argentina, Brazil, Colombia, Mexico and Miami. ESPN’s pan-regional Latin America networks are divided by North, South, Brazil and the Caribbean localized services to serve the fans in each region, broadcasting in Spanish, Portuguese and English. ESPN offers regional networks that include ESPN2, ESPN+ Sur (Argentina, Paraguay, and Uruguay); ESPN+ Andina (Chile, Bolivia, Peru, Ecuador and Colombia); ESPN3 (Spanish-speaking Latin America), ESPN, ESPN Brazil and ESPN+ (ESPN HD in Brazil). In addition to TV, ESPN serves fans in the region via multiple platforms including leading online destinations: ESPN.com, ESPN.com.br, ESPNFC, ESPNTenis.com, Scrum.com and ESPNRun.com. ESPN also continues to expand its broadband services with ESPN Play, WatchESPN and the ESPN App throughout the region.
About The ATP
The ATP is the governing body of the men’s professional tennis circuits – the ATP World Tour, the ATP Challenger Tour and the ATP Champions Tour. With 64 tournaments in 31 countries, the ATP World Tour showcases the finest male athletes competing in the world’s most exciting venues. From Australia to Europe and the Americas to Asia, the stars of the 2018 ATP World Tour will battle for prestigious titles and ATP Rankings points at ATP World Tour Masters 1000, 500 and 250 events, as well as Grand Slams (non ATP events). At the end of the season only the world’s top 8 qualified singles players and doubles teams will qualify to compete for the last title of the season at the Nitto ATP Finals. Held at The O2 in London, the event will officially crown the 2018 ATP World Tour No. 1. For more information, please visit www.ATPWorldTour.com.
About ATP Media:
As the broadcast arm of the ATP World Tour, ATP Media was formed in 2001 as Tennis Properties Limited; providing the centralised exploitation across the ATP World Tour, host broadcast production for the Nitto ATP Finals, Next Gen ATP Finals, ATP World Tour Masters 1000s and world feed production for the ATP World Tour 500s. ATP Media has unrivalled access and expertise in the full-service broadcast production of men’s professional tennis with an end to end solution for global broadcasters incorporating: rights sales, multi-platform production, a global fibre distribution network and a market leading digital archive.
For more information, please visit www.atpmedia.tv.
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