TNT Sports and Eurosport have announced details of their coverage of the French Open, the year’s second grand slam event on the professional tennis tour, taking place at Roland-Garros Stadium in Paris for two weeks starting May 25.

TNT Sports will operate two on-site studios from Musketeers Square, where distinct shows will be presented for U.S. and U.K. audiences.

This year marks the first time that U.S. TV coverage of the French Open—a staple of NBC for more than four decades—has moved from broadcast to cable. Last year, TNT inked a $650 million deal for U.S. broadcast rights to the French Open for the next 10 years, starting in 2025.

TNT Sports and Eurosport will present Roland-Garros exclusively for viewers across Europe (excluding France) and the U.S. through a single global on-site production. TNT Sports will operate two on-site studios from Musketeers Square where distinct shows will be presented for U.S. and UK audiences, in addition to a dedicated set between courts four and five for truTV viewers in the US. Eurosport’s live broadcast will take place from around the grounds, as it has done in recent years, offering viewers across Europe unique perspectives and giving them an authentic taste of the atmosphere at Roland-Garros.

In the U.K. and Ireland, TNT Sports 4 will feaure wall-to-wall coverage alongside TNT Sports 1, which will show the biggest matches. Viewers across Europe can tune in to Eurosport 2 for daylong coverage during week one, with evening coverage on Eurosport 1, before all the action comes to Eurosport 1 in week two.

For U.S. viewers, live on-court action begins across all platforms each day at 5 a.m. ET. Live shows will also air before all 11 night sessions, with play beginning from around 2:30 p.m. ET; ahead of the men’s and women’s singles semi-finals from around 8 a.m. ET; for the women’s final from around 9 a.m. ET on Saturday, June 7; and the men’s final at the same time on Sunday, June 8.

Harnessing its network of local free-to-air channels in Europe, viewers in Germany (Eurosport 1), Denmark (Kanal 5 and 6’eren), Sweden (Kanal 9), Finland (TV5) Norway (Rex), Spain and Turkey (DMAX) will also show selected matches throughout the tournament alongside Eurosport’s wide-ranging premium coverage.

TNT Sports’ U.S. television coverage will be served to viewers on TNT, focusing on the best matches and key storylines, as well as expansive daily whiparound action on truTV from 5 p.m. ET, in addition to hosting daily morning and evening shows from its Roland-Garros studios.

In total, more than 900 matches, including all the Legends, Wheelchair and Junior contests ,will be made available to Max viewers in the U.S. and Europe, with Max and Discovery+ viewers in Austria, Italy, Germany and the U.K. able to select commentary in up to 21 languages no matter where they are watching from. All 16 match court feeds will be available, as well as additional press conference feeds and cameras from across the grounds. Innovative in-app features, such as timeline markers, which enable users to quickly scrub back to key moments such as set point, are also included.

“The combined skillset of the broadcasting superpower that is TNT Sports and Eurosport means that coverage of Roland-Garros in 2025 is going to be the most elevated and comprehensive tennis broadcast ever witnessed, said Scott Young, group SVP, content, production and business operations, WBD Sports Europe. “Our sports and production expertise are unparalleled and together we can operate one global production, telling the most authentic and engaging stories from on-site at Roland-Garros, connecting to over 49 territories, with a locally relevant editorial slant for our viewers - no matter if they are watching in Washington or Warsaw, London or Lisbon.

“Our extraordinary lineup of presenters, experts, and commentators will leave no stone unturned in our pursuit of every story,“ Young added..“Through our distinguished tennis heritage as a passionate broadcaster of Roland-Garros for 36 years in Europe, coupled with the fresh and innovative approach TNT Sports U.S. brings, we will deliver a pioneering 21st-century production that will celebrate the players and set a new standard for tennis fans all around the world.”

With published reports indicating that Warner Bros. Discovery is fighting an last minute battle to retain some rights to air NBA games, WBD’s TNT Sports has strengthened the company's sports offering with a 10-year agreement with the French Tennis Federation to add The French Open (also known as Roland-Garros) to its portfolio of premium sports rights in the U.S. beginning in 2025. 

The Athletic reported that the agreement is valued at $650 million. NBC previously owned the rights in the U.S. 

This agreement with TNT Sports in the U.S. now makes WBD the largest global broadcast partner for Roland Garros building on a long-standing relationship with Eurosport (dating back to 1989), which distributes the event to 55 countries outside the U.S.

Per the agreement, TNT Sports will exclusively present all live action from the Parisian Grand Slam in the U.S. including: 

• Featured live matches on TNT, with additional live coverage across TBS and truTV;
• truTV with all-day studio, match and whiparound coverage;
• All live matches available on Max – nearly 900 matches across all competitions – including simulcasts of matches airing on TNT, TBS and truTV;
• In-depth highlights, behind-the-scenes and ancillary content airing across all platforms (TNT, TBS, truTV, Max, Bleacher Report, House of Highlights and HighlightHER).

"TNT Sports is thrilled to partner with the French Tennis Federation and exclusively present unprecedented coverage of Roland-Garros – one of the most prestigious sports events every year – across our full array of platforms,” said Luis Silberwasser, chairman and CEO, TNT Sports. “Roland-Garros perfectly aligns with our global sports strategy and our commitment to adding premium live sports content to our TNT Sports portfolio. We look forward to serving fans with a best-in-class content experience and providing them with direct access to more live Roland-Garros coverage than ever before.”

“We’re very proud to sign this agreement with Warner Bros. Discovery, one of the world’s leading media groups. It will enable the Federation to ensure maximum exposure for Roland-Garros in the USA and help further promote the tournament. With this long-term agreement, we aim to win over new fans in this key territory for the FFT,” said Gilles Moretton, president of the French Tennis Federation.

The deal was facilitated by IMG, the French Tennis Federation’s exclusive media rights representative in the U.S.

PARIS—France’s largest television broadcaster France Télévisions partnered with NEC Corp. and other 8K vendors to conduct a successful transmission of live 8K video over 5G at the French Open in May.

In the demonstration, NEC's "VC-8900" 8K material transmission encoder, which utilizes real-time video compression technologies, was used to transmit high-definition live 8K video of the tournament. The 8K signal was available on DTH platform Fransat and Orange TV and displayed on 8K video monitors and 5G smartphones and tablets in the France Télévisions showroom at Roland Garros.

"Building on the success of this initiative, NEC will further promote the realization and expansion of next-generation broadcasting services using high-definition video in 2020 and beyond," said Takeshi Inoue, General Manager, Broadcast and Media Division, NEC Corp.

More information on the test is available here. 

PARIS—While Roland-Garros is currently hosting the world’s best for the two-week French Open tennis tournament, the stadium is also playing to host a preview of what could be the future of how the tournament is broadcast to fans.

Throughout the tournament, two showrooms have been setup in collaboration from the French Tennis Federation, France Televisions and Orange to showcase a live 8K broadcast of matches using a 5G trial network.

The official setup features France Televisions’ 8K cameras installed on the Philippe-Chatrier court, which are linked to a service platform that handles the live encoding of the images, replay and VOD of the matches. This is then connected to 5G Orange transmitters that are deployed in the Roland-Garros stadium. The 5G signals will be received in fixed and mobile mode via Oppo’s 5G technology and displayed on 8K TVs in the showrooms.

France Televisions will also be testing out Orange 5G retransmission capabilities for their cameras.

For a more technical look at the setup for this 8K experiment, check out the France TV Lab blog.

LONDON—The French Open tennis tournament is currently underway in Paris, and fans in the U.K. will be able to catch all the matches on the Phillipe Chatrier court in 4K UHD with HDR courtesy of Virgin Media and Eurosport. Virgin will provide the hi-res content, which it says is a first for a U.K. broadcaster, with HLG technology on its V6 set top box.

Eurosport will feature 4K coverage of the tournament every day for its two week run. Customers with a V6 set top can access the 4K content by pressing the red button on their remote while watching Eurosport channels or Virgin TV Ultra HD channels. Customers’ TVs must also be HLG compatible.

“We are upping our game once more this summer by broadcasting one of the most prestigious tennis competitions in the highest picture quality available,” said David Bouchier, chief digital entertainment officer at Virgin Media. “Our customers will be able to get even closer to the action with HDR technology on our V6 box bringing the action right into the homes of our customers.”

PARIS—Tennis fans had access to the courts of Roland Garros through a virtual reality viewing experience through ATEME and its Titan Live software. The live video system provided 180- and 360-degree VR viewing experiences during the entire two weeks of the 2017 French Open.

The virtual reality experience for the French Open was created by LiveLike, which used the Titan Live to encode UHD signals at various bitrates to offer the VR experience on tablets and smartphones. The experience was available for free on iOS and Android devices.

Titan Live is a software compression system designed for cable, DTH, OTT live delivery of SD, HD and UHD content. The pure CPU platform is hardware agnostic and runs on OS, Linux, Windows and Virtual Machine. It is based on ATEME’s fifth generation Stream compression engine.

PARIS—Tennis fans will get to partake in the French Open in a brand new way, as one of the sports four majors will offer 360-degree live broadcasts in 4K for the first time. According to a blog from rolandgarros.com, France Télévisions and the French Tennis Federation are teaming up to provide this new broadcast feature, utilizing VideoStitch’s Orah 4i Live Spherical VR camera, as well as FireKast for its digital processing technology on the cloud.

The RG360 virtual reality app, which was created by FireKast, will allow fans to view live or replayed matches in full immersion 360-degree 4K. The app is available free on iOS, Android and Samsung Gear VR.

France Télévisions will also 360-degree replays through its francetvsport’s YouTube and Facebook pages. In addition, France Télévisions has teamed up with Stikke to offer a 3D full body scan booth, which will create digital avatars for visitors and then place them on a virtual tennis court. A Web3D platform for interactive and immersive media experience will also be offered by France Télévisions.

The French Open is currently underway and will run through June 5.