Sky Italia extends ATP rights deal

Pay-television broadcaster Sky Italia has agreed a three-year extension to its ATP Tour rights deal.

Sky’s previous deal had been due to expire at the end of the 2020 season, but will now run until 2023.

The agreement with ATP Media, the ATP’s broadcast rights sales and production arm, includes the rights to all nine ATP Masters 1000 tournaments – in Indian Wells, Miami, Monte Carlo, Madrid, Cincinnati, Toronto/Montreal, Shanghai, Paris and Rome – in addition to the ATP Finals. The finals will be hosted by the Italian city of Turin from 2021.

Sky’s tennis portfolio also includes some ATP 500 and 250 tournaments, as well as rights to the Wimbledon grand slam event through to 2022.

ATP Media distributes its worldwide broadcast rights in conjunction with the IMG agency.

Marzio Perrelli, executive vice-president of Sky Italia, said: “I am very proud to announce this new agreement with ATP which, after the partnership with the Italian Tennis Federation (FIT) last spring, confirms that tennis occupies a prominent place in the programming of Sky Sport.

“2019 was a historic year for our tennis. We reported about Fabio Fognini’s victory in the Rolex Monte-Carlo Masters, the experience of Matteo Berrettini at the Nitto ATP Finals and the entry into the top 100 of Jannik Sinner.”

In April, specialist tennis channel SuperTennis was announced as a domestic broadcaster of the ATP Finals in Italy for the five years from 2021.

FIT president Angelo Binaghi made the announcement at the official unveiling of Turin as the host city for the Finals. He said that the ATP’s new broadcast deal with SuperTennis would run for the same length of time as Turin’s hosting deal (from 2021 to 2025).