Warner Bros. Discovery (WBD), whose Max streaming service is the exclusive host to Eurosport, the leading sports broadcaster in Europe, announced that it plans to broadcast every match live from tennis’s 2024 US Open for the first time ever. The US Open takes place in New York, Aug. 26-Sept. 9.

Eurosport, for its part, will showcase the best matches on its television channels in 45 markets across Europe, with exclusivity in 41 countries, in its 24th consecutive year of broadcasting the tournament. Selected matches in Denmark (6'eren), Norway (Rex), Sweden (Kanal 9) and Finland (TV5) will be shown free to access. TVN will also show the women’s final on its free-to-air channel in Poland should five-time Grand Slam champion and national hero Iga Świątek make it through to the final round in her bid to reclaim the title she won in 2022, the streamer said.

Tennis legend John McEnroe, who is also covering the matches for U.S. host broadcaster ESPN, will be pulling double duty, providing insight and analysis for Eurosport’s pan-European feed along with seven-time Grand Slam winner Mats Wilander and former Grand Slam doubles finalist Barbara Schett while viewers in France will be able to watch a localized studio show featuring seven-time Grand Slam champion Justine Henin and five-time Grand Slam doubles champion Nicolas Mahut who joins Eurosport’s expert team for the first time.

In 2024, Eurosport secured its biggest ever tennis audiences for its live coverage of the Grand Slams and Olympic Games. For its exclusive coverage of the Australian Open, Eurosport reached more than 50 million people across all platforms and followed by delivering its biggest ever Roland-Garros audience in its 35-year history, growing unique streaming viewers by almost a third following the launch of Max in Europe, the streamer said.

NEW YORK—As the U.S. Open heads into its final weekend, Gravity Media has laid out some of the technologies and resources it used to facilitate the broadcast of the 142nd consecutive edition of the prestigious tennis tournament. 

Getting everything rigged and ready for the first day’s play required a full Gravity Media crew of over 150 skillful individuals arriving on site in early August, installing and testing the core Host Broadcast Facilities, whilst working closely with an abundance of vendors to ensure successful delivery of the tournament, the production services company reported.

On site at peak periods, Gravity Media deployed over 70 talented technical crew members plus an additional 81 expert production and technical crew to facilitate coverage. 

Across the tournament, Gravity Media is responsible for providing extensive coverage of the entire US Open Tennis Championship, ensuring fans won't miss a moment of the action, from the exciting early-round matches to the finals. 

The technical set up on site involved the Gravity Media team setting up five production control rooms for the host linear courts production with four associated audio control rooms, one PCR & ACR for domestic production, one multi-transmission control room for international, 14 ViBox production desks for outer court production and two associated Audio Control Rooms. 

In addition to this, the team deployed a full EVS VIA server and infrastructure, with over 30 Servers, 15+ XTAs and 20+ IP Directors as well as three online Avid Symphony Edits,  seven “Lite” Media Composers Edits and 2 After Effects stations plus three voice-over booths and three announce booths. All in all over 170 cameras were deployed by Gravity clients.

Embracing the latest technological advancements, this year's broadcast of the US Open Tennis Championship featured state-of-the-art technical innovations including Ashe produced in UHD with Dolby Atmos and full EVS Via Server rollout and associated upgrade to XHub Via and Xsquare VIA Suite of tools. 

The coverage from the 2023 US Open Tennis Championship also used Gravity Media’s Specialty Cameras. 

Introducing a range of cutting-edge technological innovations, promising an even more immersive and engaging experience for viewers, the team deployed NetCams across three course, three “Towel Cams” – mini PTZ cameras on Ashe, 11 MRMC AFC 100’s, 32 “Special Cams” around the grounds and on the courts, RF Gimbal Cameras and 10 RF Cameras capturing site wide coverage. 

“Gravity Media is proud to be a part of this iconic sporting event for yet another year, showcasing the world's best tennis players as they compete for glory on the grand stage,” explained John Williams, Gravity Media’s director – media services & facilities. “We are truly dedicated to capturing the essence of this tournament and bringing it to the homes of millions of fans, making it an unforgettable experience for all. This year's US Open offers a platform to showcase the versatility and depth of our services, demonstrating the remarkable synergy that unfolds when we unite as a team.”

“The US Open provides an excellent opportunity to highlight the flexibility and depth of our services, and how we can really make the magic happen when we all join forces and come together,” added Ed Tischler, Gravity Media’s managing director. “As a premier global provider of sophisticated live broadcast facilities, the annual US Open presents an exceptional occasion for us to harness our collective expertise and resources to capture, shape, and produce compelling content that ignites passion and exhilaration. The outstanding coverage thus far reflects the dedication and teamwork of every crew member who has collaborated seamlessly to bolster the unilateral facilities. We extend our heartfelt gratitude to everyone who has played a vital role in this endeavor.”

LIBERTY CORNER, N.J.—One of professional golf’s four major tournaments has a new broadcast home, as the United States Golf Association has announced that NBC will be taking over the broadcast contract for the U.S. Open, effective immediately.

In 2015, Fox Sports signed a 12-year deal with USGA to serve as the broadcaster for the USGA championships, which included the U.S. Amateur, U.S. Women’s Amateur, U.S. Women’s Open and, most notably, the men’s U.S. Open. However, because of the coronavirus pandemic and the U.S. Open’s date shift to September, Fox Sports would have faced a conflict with its broadcast commitments for the NFL, MLB and college football.

USGA shared in its press release that Fox and NBC/Golf Channel originally attempted to figure out how they could collaborate on the broadcast, but it ultimately led to NBCUniversal taking over all of the USGA media rights for the remaining seven years of the contract. NBC was the home of the U.S. Open prior to the deal with Fox, from 1995-2014.

A report from the Associated Press said that NBCU would pay for just under half of the rights fee through the rest of the contract. The report also said that the decision for Fox Sports to drop its rights came when the option of moving the tournament to FS1 for this year was not received well by the USGA.

NBC’s golf slate now includes PGA Tour events like the Players Championship, The Open Championship (aka the British Open) and the Ryder Cup, which is also scheduled to take place in 2020.

“Partnering with NBCUniversal, including Golf Channel, gives us an unparalleled opportunity to connect and engage with the core golf audience more directly and routinely, and as a nonprofit, to continue to have a significant and lasting impact on the game,” said Mike Davis, CEO of the USGA.

In addition, as part of being in partnership with NBCU, the USGA tournaments will also be able to be shared on the new Peacock streaming platform.

The previous deal with NBCU and USGA had the weekday rounds of the U.S. Open air on ESPN. It is not clear at this time what the plan will be for this year’s tournament.

The 2020 U.S. Open will take place at Winged Foot in New York from Sept. 17-20.

For more information, read the entire announcement from USGA. 

LOS ANGELES — Fox Sports will hit the links with video production sizzle as it begins coverage of the 118th U.S. Open Golf Championship at Shinnecock Hills Golf Club in Southampton, N.Y., June 14 at 9:30 a.m. on FS1.

Among the production tech will be Fox FlightTrack for fairway shots, Green Reader, DirecTV Featured Group in 4K and a trial of a 5G network for wireless contribution.

“We are confident the technology complement we are taking to Shinnecock Hills will create an amazing experience for our viewers,” says Zac Fields, Fox Sports SVP Graphic Tech & Innovation.

[Read: Fox Sports To Test 5G Wireless 4K Camera Links At U.S. Open]

As it’s done throughout 2018, Fox Sports will deliver ball tracing on all 18 holes. Each tee box at Shinnecock Hills will be equipped with Trackman radar technology. Eight holes are set up to deliver a standard ball trace over live video with club and ball data. The remaining 10 will provide Fox FlightTrack, a live trace over a graphic representation of the hole.

Feature Tees will make their debut during the coverage. This new offering moves between tee boxes while focusing on data and statistics related to a player’s shot. Information includes real-time data for each tee shot, leaderboards and individual advanced metrics, Fox Sports said.

Three RF cameras will be equipped with Toptracer technology to provide trace on approach shots, and FlightTrack will be used on fairway shots on the No. 5 and No. 16 holes. When the ball is on the green, Green Reader will be used to predict the path of a putt.

Fox Sports, working with Fox Innovation Lab, Ericsson, Intel and AT&T, will use an ad hoc 5G networks for wireless 4K camera shots. 

In cooperation with DirecTV, Fox Sports also will produce a featured group of 4K HDR shots from three 4K HDR wireless cameras and 19 4K HDR wired cameras throughout the course.

More information is available the Fox Sports website.

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LOS ANGELES—Fox Sports will put 5G to the test for wireless camera contribution next month during the 118th U.S. Open Championship at the Shinnecock Hills Golf Club when it will use an AT&T ad hoc 5G network to transmit 4K HDR shots from two cameras on the course’s par-3 seventh hole to the Fox Sports production truck covering the tournament.

“We have a fair amount of 4K flying around the U.S. Open,” says Michael Davies, senior vice president, Field & Technical Operations for Fox Sports. “We are doing some native 4K production for DirecTV as we’ve done the last two years. This [the wireless camera use] is more of a proof of concept. But overall, these cameras will be incorporated into that 4K workflow, so if production needs them, they have them.”

[Read: DirecTV To Offer Quad-Screen, 4K U.S. Open]

Deploying 5G for 4K wireless camera contribution is a collaborative effort of Fox Sports, Fox Innovation Labs, Ericsson, Intel and AT&T. Ericsson will provide the 5G radios, baseband, simulated network core and 4K video encoder and decoder; Intel will supply its 5G Mobile Trial Platform, a compact 5G device capable of transmitting 1.6 Gbps that will provide 5G to IP translation; and AT&T will set up a temporary millimeter wave network connection to deliver the 4K shots from the seventh hole.

The seventh hole is in a secluded part of the course, so when Fox Sports did its site survey of Shinnecock, that hole made the most sense for the 4K wireless camera test, says Davies. Wireless 4K contribution will be in addition to, not in place of, Fox Sports’ HD shots from the seventh hole.

“When technology is in its early stages, like this, we layer base cameras on top of what we have,” he says. “The only difference is these cameras will probably stay at the seventh hole. They won’t roam the course.”

The sports network has established “some reasonable goals” for the test, which include limiting the range of the test cameras from their 5G receiver, he adds. “In theory, a future 5G network would allow you to walk wherever you have coverage.”

“I was first exposed to the promise of 5G at the Mobile World Congress a couple of years ago,” he says. “I thought about 5G but never really knew how powerful it was going to be. But now it’s clear this technology has the ability to increase our capabilities by exponents, not percentages.”

In Davies’ view, there is nothing in the broadcast business that isn’t potentially touched by 5G technology. From very large shows like the U.S. Open to small shows where there is no need to wire cameras, 5G will make its presence felt, says Davies.

[Read: The Dazzling Future Of 5G Wireless]

That’s especially true now that Fox Sports and others in the industry are on the IP production path with the adoption and deployment of SMPTE ST 2110. “What's nice is the way we are doing production in IP. IP and 5G are going to meet up quite nicely in the future,” he says.

“Obviously, it’s a lot of wait and see [regarding 5G], but I think we will look back at this small test as our very first shot at using this technology to get our heads around what it’s capable of. I think ultimately this technology will be extremely disruptive,” he says.

While testing 5G technology is the primary objective, there are other benefits. “We get to know companies like Ericsson, Intel and AT&T, and they get to see how we work,” Davies explains. “When they are thinking about things at this very early stage, we’ve got a chance to explain to them what we think could be very useful in the future and they can build that in.”

Although the shots from the seventh hole will be the first Fox Sports use of 5G at a golf tournament, AT&T already has provided 22 live 5G links to support 3,8000 terabytes of network capacity in February at the Winter Olympics in PyeongChang, South Korea.

The 118 U.S. Open Championship will air on Fox and FS1 June 14-17.

xDALLASand EL SEGUNDO, CALIF.— AT&T/DirecTV will again offer the U.S. Open in 4K UHD starting Thursday. Coverage will include a 4K/UHD broadcast of three holes on the Erin Hills, Wisc., course during all four rounds on DirecTV 4K channel 106. With Fox Sports and the USGA, AT&T will provide expanded coverage with its U.S. Open Experience on DirecTV channels 701-705.

Each channel within the quad-screen U.S. Open Mix Channel—DirecTV channel 701—is in HD, fully produced with its own announcers. It includes the network simulcast on 702; Fox/FS1 featured group 1 and 2 on 703 and 704 respectively, and featured holes on 705. Each channel in the quad can be tuned to full screen.

DirecTV subscribers with 4K Ultra HD equipment and qualifying service can also get 4K coverage of holes 13, 14 and 15 on channel 106.4

Alongside the video, the red button on the DirecTV remote activates interactive features such as top five leaders, the full leaderboard, access to stats on individual golfers and other information. The Mix Channel will be available &8220;during broadcast hours&8221; all four days of the tourney.

In addition, AT&T Sports Networks announced the rebranding of its regional sports network, Root Sports with new logos and graphics packages. Now referred to as AT&T SportsNet, the network will continue feature local sports coverage in Pittsburgh, Rocky Mountains and Southwest regions. The on-air transition will take place on Friday, July 14.

AT&T/DirecTV has offered several sporting events in 4K, including last year’s U.S. Open.

CHARLOTTE, N.C.—Fox Sports will have some new tools to play with for its upcoming broadcast of the 117th U.S. Open Championship. Taking the course this year for the broadcaster’s coverage of the golf tournament will be new gear for augmented reality, expanding use of shot-tracing technology, weather-gathering instruments and aerial drone footage.

Viewers will be treated to augmented reality offerings with the help of a 75-foot Strada Camera Crane, which will enable graphic elements to be displayed on course, as well as a studio jib for analysis in a studio setting.

To increase its shot-tracing efforts, Fox Sports will equip all 18 holes with tracing ability with either live video or through a graphic representation of the hole. Nine tee boxes will have Toptracer technology, allowing for live ball trace over video. The remaining tee boxes are equipped with Trackman radar for a combination of ball tracing and enhanced data. A reverse tracer for shots coming into the 15th green is also expected to be employed, as is three roaming RF Toptracer units to show fairway shots.

Five weather instruments will also be deployed across the course to capture wind direction and wind speed in an effort to display any impact on play.

In addition, Fox Sports will work with DirecTV to offer three holes in 4K through DirecTV’s Featured Hole Channel, and 216 microphones will be positions around Erin Hills.

The 117th U.S. Open at Erin Hills takes place June 15-18 and will air on Fox, FS1, Fox Deportes and Fox Sports Go. 

NEW YORK—Arthur Ashe Stadium has been the home of the US Open tennis tournament since 1997, but some new features present new challenges and opportunities for ESPN, which heads into its second year of broadcasting the event. ESPN’s Scott Guglielmino, senior vice president of programming, and Jamie Reynolds, vice president of production, spoke recently with media during a conference call on these and other elements of the upcoming production.

Arthur Ashe Stadium

One of the major renovations for this year’s tournament is a roof that has been constructed on Arthur Ashe Stadium. Reynolds told the press that cameras are currently being installed and audio technicians have been testing what effect the roof has had, but the question remains how it will be when the stadium is full of 20,000 fans, which is something Reynolds simply described as “baited anticipation.”

Beyond the technical aspects, the roof could play a part in the program scheduling for ESPN, removing stretches where rain/inclement weather cancels all matches and having center court play available after a short delay. However, the timing it takes to close and open the roof could extend delays for shorter storms. It is something Guglielmino and Reynolds said they will test and figure out.

The roof isn’t the only thing new to the stadium for the production team to consider. A new grandstand has been added, which Reynolds said ESPN was part of the designing process. “If you look at their new house, you look at the National Tennis Center, what Danny Zausner, his group, the USTA have done, we’ve adopted a mindset that this is their party, this is their coming out, where it’s all about the venue this year,” said Reynolds. “So everything from our perspective, our capturing the event, both as host broadcaster and domestic carrier, is designed to feature that.”

To do so ESPN is bringing back a host of technologies that it used in its first year of covering the tournament. Features like SpiderCam and RailCam are returning; there will be a 70-foot crane in the southwest corner of the stadium; Steadicams will have a presence; and freeD 360 replay technology will also return, as ESPN is in its second year of a three year deal with the company.

Reynolds also talked briefly on the new Louis Armstrong Stadium that is being constructed for 2018, and how they are preparing for that. “We look at ourselves a little bit like general contractors in partnership with the USTA and the tennis center specifically to really figure out how we’re going to get fiber connectivity, can we build some recessed positions for cameras in advance, can we prewire for future protected camera positions at the venue… Coming in with what we think we ought to be prepared for three years, four years, five years from now, we don’t have to go in and retrofit the venue. Like the current grandstand, it will be a future-proof project.”

Outside of production, the question of how digital viewing could affect TV numbers was also raised, especially after the recent example of the Olympics. “Our view is and always has been that it is something that’s complementary to the overall audience,” explained Guglielmino. “I certainly don’t expect, especially coming off of the year we had last year—ratings up on television as well as digital—I don’t expect a scenario whereby the digital piece is going to harm TV numbers.” Dave Nagle, media contact for ESPN, also said that with digital viewing ESPN raised its number of younger viewers and total audience in 2015, with the total watch number four times as the year before.

The 2016 US Open tennis tournament will begin Aug. 29 and run through Sept. 11.

HUNTSVILLE, ALA.—All Mobile Video, a New York-based production company, is prepping for the upcoming U.S. Open tennis tournament and has decided to go with PESA’s Cheetah 288XE coax and fiber routing switcher and DRS digital audio routing system as part of its international distribution system.

AMV will use the PESA router to receive signals from the host broadcaster and distribute them to on-site and off-site United State Tennis Association clients. The production company will house the router in a trailer across from Arthur Ashe Stadium.

The Cheetah router features 288 inputs and 480 outputs. During the tournament AMV expects the router to receive 90 video and audio sources from the host broadcaster, as well as more from on-site broadcasters and monitoring inputs for a total of 272 inputs. This will result in embedding and de-embedding of audio, much of which will be in MADI format. The router supports both fiber and coax I/O for cable management flexibility, and fiber sources can be connected directly to each frame.

The U.S. Open tennis tournament will begin on Aug. 29 at Arthur Ashe Stadium in Flushing Meadows, N.Y.

LIÈGE, BELGIUM—EVS was on hand for the 2016 U.S. Open at Oakmont Country Club, providing video systems for the Fox Sports production, including 4K coverage. The UHD footage was sent from holes 3, 15 and 17 to the Game Creek Video’s Glory production unit, which utilized EVS’ XT3 media production servers with LSM easy remote capabilities.

The rest of Fox Sports production was also equipped with EVS products, including an additional 17 XT3 servers with 10 Gig Ethernet supported DNxHD in Game Creek’s Encore remote production truck. The broadcast also had 16 channels of audio and Super Slow Motion Phantom cameras; eight IPDirector content management suites for live streaming and the movement of assets; dual XFile3 systems to move files from Avid editing systems; and XTAccess gateway software for transcoding and archiving functions.

New to the Encore production for 2016 was the addition of EVS’ MultiReview system with 80 ISO records split between the front and back nine of the course. This allowed for multiple channels of EVS replay for a given time code and event to be available to a director or operator to create a playlist of clips. The system allows up to 16 camera angles.

EVS also provided an archive workflow that comprised of 12-channel XT3 servers and an IPDirector to Fox Sports and International feeds.

DALLAS—AT&T and DirecTV are hitting the links once again, as the pair will once again offer 4K coverage of a major golf tournament, this time the U.S. Open. The companies previously provided special 4K coverage of the Masters in April and the AT&T Byron Nelson in May; they have also provided 4K broadcasts of some baseball games as well.

DirecTV customers can see 4K coverage from holes 3, 13 and 17 at the Oakmont Country Club in Pittsburgh for all four rounds. To receive the DirecTV 4K broadcast, viewers need to subscribe to the Ultimate or Premiere TV package, a DirecTV 4K ready TV or the latest Genie HD DVR. DirecTV 4K customers can tune-in to channel 106 to watch the broadcast.

The U.S. Open will begin Thursday, June 16 and run through Sunday, June 19.

LOS ANGELES—Now in its second year of broadcasting the U.S. Open, Fox Sports looks to “grip it and rip it” in terms of the technology it will bring to enhance the viewing experience of the major golf championship. Among the new tech that was announced by Michael Davies, Fox Sports senior vice president of field operations, and Zac Fields, senior vice president of graphic tech/integration, were the use of virtual reality, aerial drones, shot tracers, fairway rangefinders and graphic overlays.

With its virtual reality partner NextVR, Fox Sports will offer 360-degree views of the tee boxes and greens on holes 9, 17 and 18, as well as roving capability between holes 10 and 12, which neighbor each other. Live look-ins at the driving range will also be available, in addition to U.S. Open themed video on demand features. Lexus is sponsoring the multi-camera offering.

Example of Fox's green-shading graphics

Aerial drones will once again be part of Fox Sports U.S. Open coverage, providing course flyovers and high and low mapping to show changes in daily hole locations. A new feature for this year includes the capability to overlay graphics on-screen.

Protracer systems will be placed on 13 tee boxes on the course that will offer a variety of uses, including providing club speed, ball speed, picture-in-picture graphics showing the aerial flight path of the ball, and cameras for low-angle shots. Three radio-frequency mobile rangefinders have been added to this year’s broadcast to provide yardage and tracers for approach shots.

The Fox Sports broadcast will deploy 202 microphones across the course, including 18 cup microphones on all greens to capture natural sound and conversations. Also on the greens, Fox Sports will display green-shading graphics to show changes in slope on screen.

The 116th U.S. Open will take place at the Oakmont Country Club in Oakmont, Pa., from June 16-19.

UNIVERSITY PLACE, WASH. – Jordan Spieth was crowned the new U.S. Open champion at Chambers Bay this past Sunday as Fox Sports concluded its first ever broadcast of one of golf’s major championships. Fox Sports’ broadcast was able to make some more history thanks to Game Creek Video, who was the exclusive provider of remote production facilities for what was the largest single event broadcast in remote television history, according to Game Creek.

Inside one of Game Creek's remote production facilities.

Game Creek Video captured more than 155 hours of coverage from the tournament through its various mobile units. The “Encore,” with a large scale IP-based routing system, was the primary home for event coverage, but Game Creek’s “Glory,” “Pride,” and “Justice” were also used to cover Fox Sports’ U.S. Open 360 program, studio shows and feature group/hole coverage.

Using Sony cameras, including 10 new Sony 4300s, Game Creek provided 65 of the 118 cameras on site. They also provided the Evertz EXE SDVN to facilitate router salvos, source virtual ports, destination virtual ports, images, TX Paths and discrete feeds. Game Creek also employed more than 200 microphones and stored 5,751 clips and 1600 hours of record space on the EVS Network for replays.

“We began planning for this event 18 months ago,” said Mike Copeland, Game Creek’s project manager. “Countless hours of preparation led to the largest single event in the history of remote television, and an outstanding on-air product for our longtime partner and client – Fox Sports.”

Game Creek Video is offers mobile production systems for live broadcasts and recordings. They are headquartered in Hudson, N.H.