French pay-television operator the MCS TV Group acquired rights for the Women’s Tennis Association’s Premier Tournaments for four years, from 2013 to 2016, in a deal brokered by the IEC in Sports agency and digital media company Perform.
The MCS TV Group, which owns the Ma Chaîne Sport, MCS Extrême, MCS Bien-être and MCS International channels, will show exclusive coverage of over 400 matches per year from 22 WTA Premier Tournaments, including the end-of-season Championships.
MCS plans to launch a new specialist tennis channel which will carry the WTA coverage, as well as showing men’s ATP World Tour content which it holds under a separate rights deal.
IEC is distributing the global television rights, excluding the US and Canada, for the WTA’s top-tier Premier tournaments under a deal with Perform, the digital media company. Perform has a deal with the association for its global cross-platform media rights in 2013 to 2016. IEC leads the negotiations with broadcasters while Perform is responsible for exploiting the digital rights, including internet and betting rights.
MCS’s channels are distributed across a number of territories including France, Belgium, Luxembourg, Israel, Portugal and selected territories in sub-Saharan Africa.