NBC Extends French Open Rights Until 2024

The NBC Sports Group have secured a major multi-year renewal for French Open rights in the U.S.

In the agreement reached with the French Tennis Federation, NBC has secured multiplatform rights for the clay court Grand Slam event through 2024. The extension, superseding the final year of a contract that was set to expire at the end of the 2013 tournament, calls for 10 more hours of TV coverage annually.

NBC will air the opening Sunday of the French Open, as it did this year for the first time, as well as middle weekend tennis, the men’s and women’s semifinals and the men’s and women’s finals.

This extension brings key days of the tournament to the network, including Memorial Day coverage, and the women’s semifinals rounding out the network’s championship weekend. Some of that action had been carried by Tennis Channel, which last October inked a renewal with the FFT. The pact covers the Grand Slam fortnights from 2016 through 2022. Tennis and the FFT originally signed a contract encompassing Roland Garros from 2007 through the 2015 event.

At the conclusion of its new agreement, NBC will have served as the broadcast home of the French Open for 42 consecutive years.

“The French Open is one of the world’s most celebrated sports events,” said Jon Miller, president of programming for NBC Sports and NBC Sports Network, in a statement. “This ground-breaking agreement will extend our relationship with Roland Garros through 2024, and provides tennis fans with more comprehensive coverage than ever before, including live streaming of more matches.”

NBC has been covering some portion of the tournament since 1975–with a two-year break in 1980-82, when CBS held the rights.

As it is doing with the London Olympics, NBC will live stream all of its coverage on NBCSports.com.