Australia’s Channel Seven Serves Up Wimbledon Rights

The free-to-air TV rights in Australia for this year’s Wimbledon tennis tournament have been returned to Channel Seven.

An agreement was announced today, April4, revealing that Seven has signed an deal with The All England Lawn Tennis and Croquet Club on a multi-year basis.

Under the terms of the agreement, Seven will have first selection on the ‘best two matches’ of each day’s play through to and including the quarter-finals plus exclusive coverage of the singles semi-finals and finals and doubles finals in the Ladies’ and Men’s Championships.

A statement read: “Seven is planning extensive coverage of the Championships across its digital broadcast television platform in primetime, which will include live telecasts from the start of play on one of its multi-channels.”

Mick Desmond, Commercial Director of The All England Club, said: “We are delighted to be announcing this partnership with Seven. This agreement allows sports fans across Australia to enjoy Seven’s creative approach to bringing alive the stories and the colour of The Championships, while the development of multi-media and wireless platforms will provide viewers with an improved choice of how to access all the on and off court action and drama.”

Seven’s Head of Sport, Saul Shtein added: “Wimbledon is one of the world’s great sports events and Seven looks forward to being the network that delivers Australians the broadest possible coverage of The Championships on broadcast television.”

Wimbledon was previously broadcast on free-to-air by Nine which ended its association last June after claiming it was no longer rating well. It has also screened on FOX Sports.