Amazon nets the US Open for five years

AmAzon have announced a significant move in their sports coverage ambitions by acquiring the rights to the US open.

The event has previously been broadcast by Sky and Eurosport, but now viewers in the UK and Ireland will be able to watch the new York fortnight only via the Amazon Prime video service.

The figures have not been disclosed but by signing a fiveyear deal for the US Grand Slam tournament — won by Andy murray in 2012 — it shows how Amazon is using tennis to explore sports broadcasting.

The online retail giant are committed to showing the whole of the 2019 ATP Tour in place of Sky, while this season they are trialling their coverage at the Fever-Tree Championships at Queen’s Club and the Eastbourne grass event, plus milan’s next Gen Under 21 finals.

The Amazon offering from Queen’s will complement the long-standing free-to-air coverage on the BBC. Prime video members in the UK and Ireland will be able to watch US open content on the app for TV sets, game consoles, set- top boxes and connected devices, including Amazon Fire TV and Apple TV, mobile devices and online. ‘We are excited to market the telecasts via Prime video and provide fans more ways to watch tennis matches,’ said Lew Sherr, United States Tennis Association chief revenue officer.

At present, Amazon’s sports output in the UK is limited to beach volleyball and American football and the increasingly popular field of sports documentaries. Last year they had hoped to follow novak Djokovic for a season, but the idea came to nothing when the Serb pulled out.

Clearly, tennis will gain from the money on offer as Amazon’s deep pockets mean they can outbid most rivals. The downside is that the US open’s visibility will go down, temporarily at least, as tennis’s traditional 50-plus audience puzzle out how to access it. DjoKoVIC missed out on a potential monte Carlo masters quarter-final date with Rafael nadal after losing to Austrian fifth seed Dominic Thiem 6-7, 6-2, 6-3 in the last 16.