NBC Extends French Open Coverage Through 2024

 NBC Sports Group Sunday announced that it has struck a multi-year deal for expanded coverage of the French Open.

The deal extends coverage through 2024 and includes expanded digital rights and 10 more hours of coverage on NBC, including Memorial Day coverage and the women's semifinals.

"The French Open is one of the world's most celebrated sports events," said Jon Miller, president of programming for NBC Sports and NBC Sports Network in a statement. "This ground-breaking agreement will extend our relationship with Roland Garros through 2024, and provides tennis fans with more comprehensive coverage than ever before, including live streaming of more matches."

NBC has been covering some portion of the tournament since 1975--with a two-year break in 1980-82, when CBS had the rights.

As it is doing with the London Olympics, NBC will live stream all its coverage on NBCSports.com.

The announcement Sunday comes as Tennis is much on the Washington agenda of parent Comcast, which is challenging an FCC decision that Comcast favored NBC Sports Network and Golf Channel over Tennis Channel in tier placement.

John Eggerton

Contributing editor John Eggerton has been an editor and/or writer on media regulation, legislation and policy for over four decades, including covering the FCC, FTC, Congress, the major media trade associations, and the federal courts. In addition to Multichannel News and Broadcasting + Cable, his work has appeared in Radio World, TV Technology, TV Fax, This Week in Consumer Electronics, Variety and the Encyclopedia Britannica.