Tennis is new front in TV sport wars as Sky and TNT target female viewers

Sky Sports’ overall audience is 31% female but that leaps to 58% with tennis: ‘No sport comes close,’ says one executive

Alongside the multibillion-pound battle for Premier League TV rights, tennis has emerged as another key offering in the broadcasters’ scrap for subscribers for one simple reason: unlike every other sporting audience in the UK, the majority of those watching are women.

Sky Sports has been showing live tennis for about 12 hours each day from the US Open for the last fortnight, the midpoint of a five‑year deal that began in 2023 and that signalled its return to a sport it had in effect abandoned six years previously. Preliminary talks with the United States Tennis Association over a new contract are expected to take place after the conclusion of the championships in New York, with Sky eager to extend.

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