French pay-television broadcaster Canal Plus has acquired rights to the latter stages of this year’s edition of the Paris Masters ATP World Tour tennis event, which it will showcase on its C8 digital terrestrial free-to-air channel.
C8 will show the semi-finals and final of the tournament, which runs from October 26 to November 3. The deal also covers the 2020 event.
Discovery-owned sports broadcaster Eurosport holds rights to ATP events in France under a five-year deal that runs to 2023. Through this agreement, Eurosport will broadcast all matches of the 2019 Paris Masters.
The deal, announced in October 2018, grants Eurosport rights to 37 ATP World Tour tournaments per year, including the season-ending ATP Finals, the Next Gen ATP Finals, all nine ATP Masters 1000 events, all 13 ATP Masters 500 events and 13 ATP tournaments.
Eurosport replaced pay-television broadcaster beIN Sports as the ATP’s rights partner in France. BeIN held rights from 2014 to 2018 but its agreement excluded rights to the Paris Masters and the Monte-Carlo Masters, with these rights having been held by Canal Plus for the same four-year period.
Earlier this year, Canal Plus struck a three-year sub-licensing deal with Eurosport to show the semi-finals and the final of the Monte Carlo Masters, another ATP Tour Masters 1000 event, on C8.
Last year’s Paris Masters was won by Russia’s Karen Khachanov (pictured).