New Zealand public-service broadcaster TVNZ has said it will not televise the Wimbledon tennis championships this year due to the event clashing with football’s ongoing Fifa World Cup.
The UK’s grand slam starts on Monday and has been broadcast by TVNZ in recent years. However, TVNZ has declined to bid for the rights to the 2014 championships and the Fairfax Media news agency said they have now been picked up by pay-television broadcaster ESPN.
“A key consideration for us not to pursue the tennis rights this year was that we’re showing the football World Cup live on TV One,” TVNZ spokesperson Georgie Hills said. “There would have been scheduling conflicts and the passionate fans of one sport might not be warmly disposed on one sport being shown ahead of the other, also people prefer to watch sport live, rather than delayed.”
Digital free-to-air channel Sommet Sports said it would have been interested in the Wimbledon rights but only found out at a late stage that they were available.
“Wimbledon is something that we would be interested in,” Sommet Sports general manager Mark Cathie said. “But it was something we understood would be covered by others in New Zealand and picking it up at this late stage meant our ability to leverage its value would be very minimal. For it to be so close to the wire, for us to go out there and try to sell around it, to make it sense for us to acquire it, is really on the edge.”