Eurosport, the channel that has historically broadcast the Melbourne tournament, is no longer on Sky
Where can you watch the Australian Open? Still on Eurosport, which has been broadcasting the first Grand Slam tennis tournament since 1995 and holds the exclusive rights until 2031. From this year, however, things are changing. The Melbourne tournament is in fact the first major Warner Bros. Discovery sporting event not available to Sky subscribers. This is because the contract for the lease of Eurosport 1 and 2 expired last summer. This is not a minor change, since Sky accounted for over 70% of the total audience for the two channels.
How did Warner Bros. Discovery remedy this? Essentially in two ways. The distribution partnership with DAZN has been strengthened, with DAZN obtaining a sort of anti-Sky exclusivity in exchange for an increase in the rental fee. For the Australian Open, DAZN will offer its subscribers, at no additional cost, access to four more channels in addition to Eurosport 1 and 2, for a total of six simultaneous live windows. The same applies to Timvision users. Given that Eurosport can also be activated on Discovery+, the holders of the television rights in Melbourne are betting heavily on HBO Max, which has just been launched in Italy. The streaming platform offers films and TV series from the American group’s rich production (Marco Bellocchio’s Portobello, dedicated to the Tortora case, will also be coming soon), with the addition of major tennis, the Olympics, and cycling. A subscription to HBO Max can also be activated via Amazon Prime Video and Timvision, which in this case act as aggregators. While we wait to see what will happen with the finalization of Netflix’s purchase of Warner Bros. Discovery (excluding linear channels such as Eurosport), one thing is certain: this year, to follow all the Slam events, you will need two subscriptions. The rights picture is as follows: Australian Open and Roland Garros exclusively on Eurosport; Wimbledon exclusively on Sky (which also offers all ATP and WTA tournaments, including the Finals); US Open on Sky, simulcast with SuperTennis.
