Tennis TV Frustration: You Can’t Watch Nadal, Isner And Venus Battle In Miami Today, But You Can Watch Challenger Action!!
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Miami and Indian Wells each call themselves the “fifth slam”, but both Masters events are far from such recognition. In this hyper-electronic age of social media and online streaming, neither event, which feature the very best tennis players in the world, offer TV coverage of their first round men’s/women’s competitions. It’s inexplicable.
Miami, in fact, doesn’t even have second round coverage today when players like Rafael Nadal, Andy Murray, Victoria Azarenka and Venus Williams who plays Wimbledon champion Petra Kvitova tonight in a blockbuster showdown, are scheduled.
So unless you’re in Miami at the stadium you won’t see any of it. You won’t see Rafa or get to watch Venus try to continue her comeback! Nothing! There is no coverage, there are no streams, rogue or official. (Those begin tomorrow.)
Poster “carlo” summed it with this comment: “Have no clue why the black-out/ no coverage of early round matches. You would think ESPN3 would at least offer something but no, nothing. And they successfully eliminate live streams from the usual reliable sites. grrr….Coverage starts tomorrow, but I don’t know how well-covered that will be. As of now, I can watch a challenger in Bath or Marrakesh, but nothing from Miami. sheesh.”
Sheesh is 100% right.
How can a sport have TV coverage and streaming of minor league Challenger events in Bath or Marrakech today, but absolutely NO international broadcast coverage for a self-proclaimed “fifth Slam” tournament on a day when some of the biggest, most popular stars in the sport like Nadal, Venus and Murray are on court?
Can someone explain? Aren’t the tennis powers trying to “grow” the game? How is this even possible?
Or maybe this happens more than I think in other sports. Maybe LeBron James and his Miami Heat play a few NBA games with no TV coverage. Maybe there’s no way to watch some early rounds at a select number of the larger PGA golf events. Maybe one or two New York Jet games every season don’t get televised. Or maybe that’s just a load of crap because we know the major sports and the major stars get on TV. Just not tennis.
I understand that at some of the smaller events there may not be coverage until late in the tournament. And I know there are costs to set up cameras and production, etc. BUT THIS IS SUPPOSE TO BE A A FIFTH SLAM!! Not Casablanca!
So if you are going to call yourselves one of the biggest tennis tournaments in the world you’d better have at least some sort of first-to-last ball TV coverage or streaming before you make that claim.
In the meantime I guess I’ll just have to watch more basketball. Just part of the frustration and madness of being a tennis fan.
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